Walmart Offers Sub-$500 laptop With Linspire 589
LehiNephi writes "Cnet reports that Walmart is offering a sub-$500 notebook running Linspire. The specs are less-than impressive: a 1GHz VIA C3 processor, 128 MB RAM, 30GB hard drive, and a plain vanilla CD-ROM. Seems overpriced for what you get, but cheap nonetheless. And yes, it does run Linux."
Equates Linux with Cheap?? (Score:5, Interesting)
hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
But what about the midrange? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Call me when... (Score:2, Interesting)
Overpriced? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't speak for the US market, but up here in Canada the cheapest new laptop runs you about $1,000, which is about $800 USD. Granted, this is with a 2+ ghz cpu, 256 MB RAM, 20-30GB drive and a dvd-rom.
However, to pay anything less than this requires checking out the used laptop market. Here we see such gems as a P3-700, 64-96MB RAM, 8-10GB drive selling for $5-600 all the time. Say about $4-500 USD.
I don't know about you folks, but this looks like a pretty nice deal for those folks who aren't planning on running Doom3 on their laptops. The ram's a bit scanty for any modern OS, but otherwise this is a perfectly good machine to do 99% of what people do with a laptop.
It runs Linspire (Score:5, Interesting)
Can a Red Hat Guru Survive on a Lindows Laptop? [linuxjournal.com]
I don't think anyone will see the box.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The previous Linux/Walmart boxes were never available at the walmart stores, only at walmart.com. While the CNET article doesn't say that it won't be sold in stores, it starts out with with "Walmart.com and Linspire revealed.." and ends with "the computer is available at walmart.com". No mention that it would be available at stores.
My guess is people who buy computers online are somewhat more savy than those who buy at Wal-Mart stores.
You should change banks (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, you could explore other options:
* shell out extra $ for a copy of WinXP or a machine with it pre-installed
* break the law and put a cracked or pirated Windows on your machine
* stick to physically visiting your branch, ATMs and telephone banking
Re:Call me when... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Seems cheap for what you get ... (Score:5, Interesting)
For $499 you get:
VIA C3 processor 1.0 GHz
14.1" LCD panel
Lindows/Linspire version 4.5
128 MB memory
30 GB hard drive
CD-ROM drive
For $549 you get:
1.1 GHz Mobile AMD Athlon 4 processor
14.1" XGA TFT LCD screen
40 GB hard drive
128 MB RAM
DVD-ROM drive
Integrated 802.11b wireless networking
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Notice the cheapo monitor doesn't say TFT. Besides that for the extra $50 you get Windows Xp Home(Ebay?), Althon & .1 GHz, DVD vs CD, 10GB Xtra HD, Wireless.
Re:Call me when... (Score:1, Interesting)
Even if Walmart asked Linspire to give away the OS for free to reduce the price of the laptop, they still make money off their CNR subscription thing. The one who'll get squeezed is the guy who makes the hardware.
Re:What everyone wants to know.. (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair, modern Linux distros don't do well with only 128 MB if your using the latest KDE or Gnome. If you switch to Fluxbox, IceWM or another low-mem desktop like XFCE, then it works fine. But switching desktops is not really a good option under MS Windows. There are only a few poorly done desktop replacements for explorer.exe IMO. Not that I think explorer.exe is anything great. It is the cause of _all_ my problems under WinXP, but is is better then the replacements I have tried.
Re:What everyone wants to know.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Healthcare as a business expense (Score:5, Interesting)
The American people let the legislators pull the wool over their eyes by allowing absurd jury awards, shuffling personal responsibility off to the nearest set of (presumably) deep-pocket targets, and otherwise fostering the stupidity du jour. So mostly, I think they get what they deserve. Eventually, maybe they'll get up off their lazy asses and force the legislature to behave responsibly. I try, and I get a lot more done than you'd think since I can use $$$ as a lever, but it's not enough. The insurance companies and the lawyers have more.
I'm a business owner. I pay for healthcare for all my employees. They get a full ride -- dental, eyes, health and life. You don't even want to know what it costs me. The only good news is I can still afford to do it. In about five years, if things keep going as they are, I'll be forced to raise our software prices, because there won't be any margin remaining to cover it. And that's for a product that technically has paid back our investment in it; originally, it was $499, and these days we sell the same thing, plus tons of upgrades done in the meantime, for $50 -- we're that far down the curve. It absolutely sickens me that the curve is reversing because of lawyers and other parasites.
Gah. I hate this subject.
Re:Seems cheap for what you get ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Healthcare as a business expense (Score:3, Interesting)
But it goes deeper than this for the medical care consumer. Liability is applied at many levels, when you're talking about surgery. All of these fine folks have to carry liability:
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't mind paying for top notch healthcare, the tools to implement it, and the facilities to perform it in. But I sure as hell mind paying for for a zillion dollar award because someone left a sponge in, or because some dipstick handed out the wrong meds. And that's what insurance is. It is us, paying for them.
Re:Seems cheap for what you get ... (Score:2, Interesting)
The next version (due out... about... now, which means who knows when given VIA) will have additionally no-execute, SHA-1, and Montgomery multiply acceleration (i.e. multiply big numbers fast). Plus they're said to run at 2GHz at 10 Watts, and have a bigger cache. If this is actually true, it will be great for building a backup server, which would have to copy large amounts of data over SSH. Now if only they can build in bzip2...