Walmart Offers Sub-$500 laptop With Linspire

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."

Comments

Equates Linux with Cheap??

[The UberDork]

So, is this kinda thing gonna shoot us in the foot, and make Linux mean cheap in the public eye? And I mean cheap, NOT inexpensive.

Overpriced?

[freeweed]

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.

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

[dteichman2]

The problem with Linspire (Lindows) is that it isn't quite Linux (yes, I know it really is Linux) and it isn't quite Windows. So, end-users might find it difficult. Even a pro seemed to think it was hard to use.

Can a Red Hat Guru Survive on a Lindows Laptop?

Re:Seems cheap for what you get ...

[l810c]

I don't understand their pricing structure.

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: Healthcare as a business expense

[fyngyrz]

Much of healthcare's expense is welfare for lawyers. My ex, a general surgeon in rural Montana who had never been the subject of a lawsuit, was paying seven figures for her yearly liability insurance. Seven figures. That is frigging insane. She is an awesome, awesome surgeon, and she is not greedy by any means. At times, she took chickens in payment from the farmer folks. Sometimes pies - I liked the pies better, I have to say. Most - not some, but most - of her fees, when she got fees, went to the insurance companies. From there, they go to the lawyers, and their lawsuit-happy clients.

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.