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Disappointing Hardware, Support for Linare's $500 Laptop

Posted by timothy on from the sounds-like-e-machines-of-old dept.

Provataki writes " Remember this great deal about Linare's $500 laptop deal at wal-mart? Probably was too good to be true. Missing shipping dates & bad support take away the excitement."

19 comments

  1. Damn... by KtHM · · Score: 1

    I was gonna get one of those this summer. I guess it *was* too good to be true. :(

  2. Too bad... by Guspaz · · Score: 1

    Too bad, the hardware specs were impressive for the price, and a simple cheap memory upgrade would have turned the thing into a VERY nice machine for the price. But of course if Linare refuses to tell anyone where the SODIMM sockets are, then forget that.

    1. Re:Too bad... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      But of course if Linare refuses to tell anyone where the SODIMM sockets are, then forget that.

      Erm, just start unscrewing things. Isn't this Slashdot? Why are we so afraid to touch our computers? Unless they've sealed it off, it should be accessible if you're willing to spend maybe an hour poking about.

    2. Re:Too bad... by MoOsEb0y · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      on the same vein as a sibling post.. taking apart your laptop is a great way to find out where the ram sockets are. I was taking apart an alienware area 51-m (sager 5630), and took EVERYTHING off the bottom only to realize the ram slots were right beneath the keyboard. Two minutes later I had my mated pair of samsung 256 MB PC2100 SODimms :) Oh well. Horror stories like these make me glad I've ordered a name brand computer. Sure, I'm paying twice as much, but the specs are a lot nicer and it probably weighs half as much :)

    3. Re:Too bad... by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      I actually had a good experience purchasing a non-brand-name computer. I purchased a Compal whitebook and purchased the parts seperately (I paid to have it assembled for me however). Compal is an ODM, one of the companies that makes the notebooks for most major companies like Apple or Dell, and Compal is actually one of the largest ODMs at that.

      My notebook has no brand or label, and the area usually reserved for a logo is blank. However I love my Compal CL56, and am very glad I chose it.

      I too performed my own RAM upgrade, and located the RAM sockets by guessing at the most likely locations and unscrewing things. I have also dug deep under the top of the laptop to remove the CPU and heatsink combination for maintenance. However, the issue in the article as I understand it is not so much that he can't locate the SODIMM slots, but that the support from the company in doing so is non-existant.

  3. Let's compare... by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 1
    Sentence from the original Slashdot article:

    Manufacturer Linare said that it will bring a Linux-based device to the retailer 'within the next few days.'

    Two e-mails from the new article:

    "Thank you for your interest in Linare products . your order will be shipped on or before 14th march with out fail . Sorry for the delay , due to heavy back order we were not able to ship you earlier."

    and

    "Thank you for your interest in Linare products . your order will be shipped before this week end . Sorry for the delay"

    You've got to give them credit for consistency, if nothing else. :)

    That said, if Wal-Mart ever begins selling these in B&M stores (if they don't already), it still might not be a terrible purchase so long as you don't have to deal with the company's support.

    --
    Goo goo g'joob.
  4. Ow by NeoChaosX · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wow, does that suck regarding support. Let's just hope some more reliable companies starts producing PCs with Linux reinstalled. A first impression like this may discourage some people from looking into Linux PCs in the future.

    --
    One man's selflessness is another man's annoyance.
    1. Re:Ow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read an article somwhere that Acer is starting to sell laptops with GNU/Linux preinstalled, a distro called 'Linpus Linux', and I know they already sell their Acer Power F1b with that distro preinstalled.
      However, I can't vouch for how good or secure Linpus is, since you have to be a retailer to get it.
      Hm, seems Linpus is chinese? Has anyone tried it?

  5. But this is Wal-Mart by lw54 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just take it back..

    We've all been taking things back to Wal-Mart years after we bought them, long after we lost the receipt.

    1. Re:But this is Wal-Mart by fbjon · · Score: 1

      ...though only half of it actually came from there.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
  6. His problem was... by ebrandsberg · · Score: 2, Informative

    He didn't buy it from Walmart. Guaranteed they got their orders on time, anybody that ordered direct would be placed behind the bad boy of consumer sales for order fulfillment.

  7. Mod me down all you want... by jasonmicron · · Score: 0, Troll

    But if you are dumb enough to buy a machine that is sold exclusively at Wal-Mart then you are too dumb to own a computer.

    Sorry.

    1. Re:Mod me down all you want... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod this up. Would you buy a Wal-Mart brand (eg, none at all) and then expect it to run?

  8. It's a $500 laptop by dtfinch · · Score: 1

    The late shipping and misdocumented root password are unfortunate but for $500 you can expect to provide your own support. By underselling they've made it difficult to grow to meet demand. With such a large backorder and low profit margin, I doubt providing support is very high on their priority list.

  9. Cool, the laptop is like, white by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Bringing a whole new form of white trash into the aisles of wal-mart.

  10. Don't buy anything from walmart by Ice+Station+Zebra · · Score: 1

    This is one company that needs to go under. They treat there workers very poorly with low pay and no or costly benefits.

    1. Re:Don't buy anything from walmart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only they treat them poorly, they treat them illegaly, a friend of mine works there and he gets all kinds of money offers (which he takes, since he needs the money) for being treated like dirt. His hours are rather insane, too.

  11. Wal-Mart PC, Wal-Mart quality? by ArielMT · · Score: 1

    This was a PC sold on Walley World's Wonderful World Wide Web Site, right? That truly sucks, but it's right in line with the kinds of cheap-in-many-ways suppliers they decided to align themselves with since Mr. Walton's passing. Proof enough, I guess, that they can stain Linux on laptops with a rap as bad as Windows on E-Machines and Compaq laptops. Shame.

    --
    It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
  12. Of course... by jasonmicron · · Score: 1

    Mod me down for stating the obvious.

    So I am assuming that since i am being modded as a troll that most of you buy your music albums from wal-mart and buy your movies from wal-mart? Do you not also notice that most of the good shit is cut out?

    Oh, you don't? I feel sorry for you then.