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$298 Wal-Mart PC Has OO.org, No Crapware

Posted by kdawson on from the tell-me-again-why-dell-can't-do-this dept.

cristarol writes "Wal-Mart has begun selling a $298 PC (Everex IMPACT GC3502). It comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and OpenOffice.org 2.2, as well as a complete lack of crapware: 'Users accustomed to being bombarded with trialware offers and seeing their would-be pristine Windows desktops littered with shortcuts to AOL and other applications will likely be pleased at their absence from the GC3502.' The machine is targeted at the back-to-school market. The hardware is nothing to write home about: a 1.5GHz Via C7 with 1GB of RAM and integrated graphics, but as Ars points out, it should be more than capable of performing basic tasks." Dell sells a low-end PC through Wal-Mart for $200 more, and one assumes it is loaded with crapware. Anybody know for sure?

12 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. If it stops them from getting hooked on WOW... by jeffmeden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The computer needs to do web browsing, email, and word processing. The occasional song or pic shared with friends is to be expected too. However, as long as the hardware is shitty enough to prevent the owner from becoming hooked on WOW, Eve, or any other time-vacuum, then it will probably be the best $500 the parents DIDNT spend to get their kid a better computer. And with all that free time, they just might do their homework! For the education market, this product gets an A+ from me.

    1. Re:If it stops them from getting hooked on WOW... by goldspider · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I concur 100%. If I'm going to buy my kid a new PC (big "if"), it will have ZERO bells and whistles. If he/she wants to play games on it, the upgrade costs are coming out of their pocket. As a parent who will likely be paying for their college, I don't feel obliged to provide for their entertainment.

      In fact, while I'm thinking of it, this PC might be a good buy for my parents who badlu need to upgrade their old workhorse. Those specs will run XP just fine!

      --
      "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
    2. Re:If it stops them from getting hooked on WOW... by markov_chain · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think you're being slightly pessimistic here.

      All this stuff runs just fine even on 512M of RAM. I use one such machine for work, which includes most of the stuff you listed (word processing, web browsing, matlab, lots of compiling, lots of PDF, image editing, etc.), and it runs just fine even with dual monitors.

      Let's not even go into the "uphill both ways" stories of what computing power we used in college to do these exact same things.

      I think the GP is right, the kids will whine because they can't play games. Been there, done that :)

      --
      Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
    3. Re:If it stops them from getting hooked on WOW... by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Insightful
      1 Gig ought to be enough for anyone. Heh.

      Seriously, though, if the choice is between a student having this $300 computer, and a student having no computer, which do you think is better?

      Not every parent can afford to spend $1000 or even $500.

      I'm sure accountants, geologists and every other field have their specific apps. These aren't tweaked to run on low-end hardware.
      Yes they are. Any app designed for business is tweaked to run on a variety of systems, programs are designed to run on systems that were state-of-the-art more than five years prior. The business upgrade cycle used to be around three years, but now it's getting larger every day -- and businesses tend not to buy top-of-the-line systems anyway.

      Back to educational use -- very few disciplines of study require apps that really use a lot of cycles. And when they do, typically those apps are run on university computers, not students' PCs. Those apps are also typically used for high-level research, not basic undergrad stuff.
      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  2. Has VIA improved? by athloi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last time I checked, their CPUs were erratic, their chipsets flaky and their reputation mainly derived from making cash register and micro-PC machines that were for one-app use and no manic power user antics. Has VIA improved?

    --
    technical writing / development
  3. Comparison by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dell sells a low-end PC through Wal-Mart for $200 more, and one assumes it is loaded with crapware. Anybody know for sure? Well, from the product page of the $500 "Dell Dimension E521 Desktop PC w/ AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor":

    • # Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition
    • # NVIDIA GeForce 6150 integrated graphics
    • # Dell USB keyboard and USB 2-button mouse
    • # Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
    • # Integrated 7.1-channel audio
    • # 56k PCI data/fax modem
    • # Microsoft Works 8.5
    • # Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0
    • # Roxio Creator Basic
    • # McAfee Security 30-day trial
    • # Earthlink application software
    • # Windows Vista PC-Restore
    • # 1-year limited warranty and at-home service
    Having experienced all the above software (with the exception of Earthlink application software whatever that is), I'm going to say that yes, it is loaded with crapware. Scariest one on that list would probably be the earthlink application software because that's the most generic name for a product I can ever think of.

    The other differences between these two machines is they have comparable memory, DVD burner & GPU, the Dell's hard drive & CPU are a lot better. The ArsTechnica article mentions upgrades at a price, you could probably get the IMPACT up to the Dell range and get it close which is probably pretty important for the average consumer who doesn't want to deal with the ordeal of reinstalling Windows just to get a clean slate.
    --
    My work here is dung.
  4. Re:Don't sell the students short by TheWoozle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Just any junk hardware"? I'll spare you the long list of systems I've worked on, but please allow me to ask you to get off my lawn.

    I've done statistical analysis on a Zenith Data Systems 8088 system and written games for a Commodore 64, so please don't refer to anything with an 80 GB hard drive and 1 GB of RAM as "junk hardware". I know junk hardware, and that, sir, is no TRS-80.

    The fact that the OS needs 1 GB of memory to function is what's wrong with the world! Seesh, kids these days...

    --
    Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
  5. Minimal crapware.. by tji · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not totally crapware free. From the Specs: Norton Internet Security(TM) 2007 (90-day subscription included)

    They could have chosen a free AV package, like they chose a free office suite (or even a free operating system). But, they went with the try-now buy-later package.

  6. Re:Funny by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Strange how the headline doesn't mention it comes with Windows Vista installed... Yeah, so much for "No Crapware"...
    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  7. Inflation of specs for student tasks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's up with the inflation of specs you need to have to write reports and do other school stuff ? When I was in high school ("Gymnasium" as we call it over here in Europe), I wrote all papers and reports the first year using Amstrad CPC 6128, Arnor Protext on ROM and a 9-pin printer. Later I used a 486 and WP 5.1 (Now with Graphics..). Today I have a 900 MhZ AMD K6, 512 Mb memory, and still I can use InDesign, Word 2003 and Excel to do 100s of pages of technical manuals, without any slowdown at all. Yes, I do not play games, but do you have to ? I would be happy to have a 1,5 GHz with 1G or RAM. So stop saying that it's "Nothing to write home about". My guess is, the people that don't play games never use even a fraction of it's powers.

  8. Where to start. by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "email takes substantial amounts of ram and cpu power..."

    The machine has 1Gb RAM. My laptop has a quarter of that and seems to browse the web and run Office perfectly well.

    As for CPU... I'm pretty sure it will cope with the heaviest of messenger sessions.

    I've actually convinced myself that this computer is worse for students than I thought in the first place.

    You need to climb down back to the real world. Very few people need garanteed sub-millisecond response times (or even knows what they are).

    --
    No sig today...
  9. Re:Don't sell the students short by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Informative

    Okay let's take a look at the "real world"
    1. It has Vista Home Basic so no Aero. It probably will not be stressing the harware.
    2. It has a gig of Ram. I have NO problem running XP media Center and OpenSuse on a system with a Gig of ram as a duel boot. Open Office runs just fine.
    3. It is under $300.
    4. I has a DVD drive so yes you can watch DVDs on it.
    5. It has IE on it. The sad truth is some sites require IE to work correctly. This is changing but having IE to fall back on does make life easy.
    6. It has Open Office. Which gives you a lot of good tools.
    7. Did I mention it is under $300. Less than a PS/3 or 360?
    8. It only has an 80 gig drive. So it has 6 USB ports. Think Geek was selling 80 Gig external drives for under $50! Those are much better to put your music and videos on anyway. When the RIAA and Montag come knocking at your door they my not find your external drive with your MP3s or your collection of books.
    9. It uses SATA for the HD. I bet you could put in another or a Larger drive if you really wanted it.
    10. So it only has one gig of ram. It has an open memory slot. Go buy an extra gig.

    For a High school kid or even a college student this would be a good machine. Frankly a lot of businesses could work just fine off one of these. It also doesn't use a lot of power thanks to the C7 CPU.

    As to just building your own. Not everyone wants to build their own PC or even knows how. This machine with an LCD monitor would be a handy little system for many people.
    I don't know if it has any open slots but even without them you could add WiFi with USB. You could also add a TV tuner so it could be you kids TV as well.
    In other words it seems like a good deal for some people. The fact that it will not play the latest and greatest games I can only see as a plus.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.