Lindows.com Hypes An Upcoming $199 PC

prostoalex writes "After having struck a deal with Walmart on $299 PC, Lindows is planning to introduce $199 PC. ExtremeTech has the story, the official message from Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows, is posted on Lindows.com. Robertson claims that "for under 200 dollars, you'll be able to browse the Internet, check email and run a variety of software products for far less than the price of most handheld devices! A certified version of LindowsOS will come bundled with the PC"." I wonder if such a machine would fare any better than Larry Ellison's ThinkNIC.

Comments

CUT THE HYPE.

[Vengie]

You know, i often get sick of seeing this. 199/299 is not the FULL price. There's no freaking monitor included in this system. OK YES -- Its still 199/299 for a box, which for most of us is all we regularly upgrade, but for joe public, A MONITOR IS NECESSARY. "You can browse the web, etc etc /snip/ for $299" -- no you cant! you need a monitor. Jesus....what people will write just to get onto /.

Re:CUT THE HYPE.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you want them to say, "$199 without monitor, up to $13,198.99 with monitor"?

Re:CUT THE HYPE.

[hugesmile]

OK, for $199, you'll be capable of browsing the internet, reading email, and run a variety of software... BUT the following items are required:

• a monitor
• an internet account
• power
• schooling to learn to read
• food
• water
• shelter

ALL of these items are necessary, where do you draw the line? We all take for granted that you have food, water, shelter, power, schooling, an internet account... why not assume a monitor as well! For that matter, assume the PC, and you can do it all for free! :)

Re:CUT THE HYPE.

[Reality Master 101]

You gotta be jokin' me dude. COMPAQ 15" monitor: $69.

Large quantity wholesale pricing? I wouldn't be surprised if you get something down to $50.

Not to say we're talking GOOD stuff, but...

Re:CUT THE HYPE.

[Vengie]

Have you tried following the link *IN THE ARTICLE*? If Not: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?cat=395 1&dept=3944&product_id=1870914&path=0%3A3944%3A395 1%3A41937%3A86796%3A96356 *sigh* its a direct link FROM the article.

Re:CUT THE HYPE.

[Cryptnotic]

Joe Sixpack doesn't buy computers. He only buys six packs of beer and drinks all of them in the back of somebody's pickup truck parked outside a sports arena. He is kind of a useless, irrelevant person.

General Public, on the other hand, is the guy who buys computers and tanks and ICBM's and rocket powered grenade launchers. The general knows how to kick ass and take names. I don't know why he would care about a $199 PC, unless it had hard-core encryption software or could be used to control space lasers on sattelites orbiting around the earth.

Emachines

[SanLouBlues]

Wow! $200USD! That'll be a great reliable system, just like the eMachine I threw in the trash last year!
Seriously, you get what you pay for.

ThinkNIC?

[JamesOfTheDesert]

I wonder if such a machine would fare any better than Larry Ellison's ThinkNIC.

ThinkNOT

$200 cheap? try $1.25!

[Anonymous Coward]

for under 200 dollars, you'll be able to browse the Internet, check email and run a variety of software products for far less than the price of most handheld devices! A certified version of LindowsOS will come bundled with the PC

Ummm... my SparcStation 4 can do all of this, and I only paid $1.25 for it on eBay!

Okay this is a bad joke... BUT

[sofar]

Imagine a BEOWULF cluster of these!!!

(damn that will save some pennies, and who said you NEED a monitor?)

Robertson's looking for information?

[bshroyer]

Note: This is an honest question, as I'm confused.

In his letter, Robertson (CEO of Lindows) comments on their legal battle against Microsoft over the trade name, and asks all of us out in userland to chime in, as they'd

"like to hear from anyone who had personal experience in the industry during those early years and can recall the history of the early windowing products such as Xerox's Star, VisiCorp's VisiOn, Apple's Lisa, Digital Research's GEM, Quarterdeck's DesQ, IBM's TopView, and others. "

This strikes me as odd - shouldn't it be pretty easy to get copies of not only the documentation, but even the software to which he refers? Is this a real request for information, or merely a request for sympathy?

Re:Robertson's looking for information?

[reallocate]

Half those companies don't exist, and the products haven't been marketed for years. Even if documentation could be found, Robertson's real interest is probably in the cultural and historical record and the interplay between those windowing products and Microsoft's. One way to break Microsoft's stranglehold on the word "Windows" is to demonstrate that Microsoft brought no new concepts to the mix, only its own particular implementaton of an accepted and common interface.

Actually...

[11thangel]

I have a ThinkNIC that myself and several friends bought a year ago to tinker around with. It's actually quite the capable little machine. It runs Linux, comes with a basic TWM based X11 setup, Netscape (with proper plugins, etc), a terminal emulator, and a few other neat little things. It boots off a combination of an NVRAM chip and a CD. The CD they give you is the basic system, but we asked them for some information and they gave us the ISO for that same boot CD. They were even polite about it. We hacked it up a little bit without difficulty, so the machine is slightly configurable.

The downside is that yes, it lacks a harddrive. Personal preferences, like Netscape bookmarks, etc, get stored in the NVRAM, so you don't lose everything. But it's alot like web tv, where you get to surf, use basic email, but don't have the full complications of a complete computer. I admit, I wouldn't use one of them for my home system, but I'd easily give one to my grandmother if she ever changed her mind and decided that the internet was not in some manner connected with Satan.

First hand experience...

[Mustang Matt]

I convinced one of my room mates to buy a wal-mart PC with Lindos to ween himself off of Windows. It shows up and it's nearly unusable due to all the crap they did to it. They've got this active installer where they basically sell you the ability to install applications. It really really sucked. He would have been off a ton better just installing the latest SuSE.

The PC died before we could try it though. Took it back to a local wal-mart. Not sure what was wrong with the PC. It got to the point where only the fans came on. No beeps or video or anything and we didn't touch the inside of the box.

XBOX

[thelinuxking]

The xbox would be a better choice to get...costs the same price, and hopefully the linux kernel will be fully working on it soon. Also, it has an excellent video card...the lindows machine probably has a really crappy card. Also, you could even use the xbox with your tv, so you don't really have to pay for a monitor like you do for the lindows pc!