When Linux Mint 15 Olivia was released, CompuLab changed their homepage on http://www.fit-pc.com to include this banner:

We’ve always had a fantastic relationship with the staff at CompuLab and we’re working hard on the new MintBox, but this was a surprise and I wanted to thank them for doing this. There’s a lot of respect and admiration going both ways and we’re very proud of what we’re doing together.

Talking about which, I can already share some exciting news about the MintBox 2..

Both CompuLab and Linux Mint reduced their margins (in our case we went from 10% to 5%)

CompuLab is working to enable European customers to order via Amazon.de (which means no more duty/customs tax and shipping costs included in the price)

The MintBox 2 will be based on the Intel i5 and feature more than 4 times the performance of the MintBox Pro, for roughly the same price

Here’s a quick comparison of the MintBox basic, the MintBox pro and the MintBox 2:

MintBox Basic MintBox Pro MintBox 2 CPU AMD T40 AMD T56 Intel i5 RAM 4GB 8GB 4GB HDD 250GB 250GB 500GB Ethernet Gigabit Gigabit Dual Gigabit Warranty 1 year 1 year 5 years Geekbench score 1077* 1615** 7541 Price $476*** + shipping, VAT, duty $549 + shipping, VAT, duty $599****

* Tested with 8GB RAM (the score on the official MintBox Basic should be slightly lower)

** Tested with 4GB RAM (the score on the official MintBox Pro should be slightly higher)

*** Original price (the MintBox Basic is now on sale at $379)

**** Amazon price (including shipping and fees).

The i5 CPU is a great compromise between performance and price, giving us 4 times the performance of the MintBox pro at roughly the same price. The i7 processor, in comparison, would have pushed the cost above $800 and only gave an additional 5% performance gain (8GB RAM + i7 CPU scored 7919 with the same benchmark).

The MintBox 2 will also feature dual Gigabit Ethernet, an upgraded 500GB HDD and a 5 years warranty.