Slashdot Mirror
$150 Linux Laptop for the Masses
Xemu writes "Inspired by Negroponte's laptop for children, the Swedish company Medison is now taking orders for their US$150 Linux laptop, the Medison Celebrity. The laptop is a 1.5 GHz Celeron M 370 with 14 inch screen, wireless network and it comes with Fedora Red Hat pre-installed." Update 2035 GMT by SM: As many readers have pointed out, the more you dig into the details of this company the more fishy it starts to seem. I would suggest any potential buyers be wary on this one.
It's a neat looking laptop, but info on the website is pretty scarce. For instance, what kind of battery life can I expect? Is it as upgradeable as normal laptop (eg. HDD and RAM)?
Well there is an old saying.
If it sounds too good to be true...
But running a scam like this out of Sweden seems like a big risk to me. But then I have no idea how good the Swedish legal system is. I thought they had some very strong consumer protection laws. It is probably safer to buy this if you live in Sweden than the US.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I like how on the order page, the verified by Visa and Mastercard mastercode logos (which should have links from them to verify their authenticity) are just pictures on the site. Very fishy indeed.
To quote the website "The phone lines are temporarly closed" all they give is an email address. You can't even call to complain if you don't get it.
If they are legit they are working really hard to seem like a scam.
If this is indeed a scam...we have been trolled. Badly. I would feel they deserve kudos for getting their fake product featured on /..
On the other hand, the fact that, within minutes of the story going live, you pointed out the scammy smell and got modded up so as to be prominently near the top of the page shows the major strength of community-driven reporting: near-instantaneous corrections and additions.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
> It might take one or two weeks longer to get the laptop.
No, it might take that long (it says elsewhere 4-6 weeks plus they can shine people on for another week or two) for them to get cash from the credit card clearing house before they disappear. Add up the BOM on that machine and they can't buy those parts in 100,000 lots for $150USD. Scam.
Democrat delenda est
It's obviously a scam. You don't need to do a whois look-up or anything else. Just look at the specs.
There's no way in hell they're going to offer a 1.6GHz CPU, 40GB HDD, 14" LCD, 256MB DDR, etc., for $150... Even at twice that price ($300) it would be a stretch, but just possible. At $150, it's laughable.
You could make a $150 laptop... If you went with a tiny screen, no backlight, no CD/DVD, tiny HDD, no battery, ancient CPU, etc., etc. But with fairly modern specs as this has, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that it's real.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
How do you know it's run out of Sweden?
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
The thing is, it didn't sound SO good as to be absolutely implausible...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I will state that 2Checkout (the service that they use) is definately on the level. They are based out of Ohio, and if you buy the laptop, you are buying from them. They are a "reseller" of products sold by other people.
My wife uses 2Checkout for her business (see signature) and has used them for over a year. They provide credit card transactions, shopping carts, and take care of the whole "https" thing. They might cost a little bit more per transaction, but I feel better knowing that my wife's store never gets a credit card number or customer name. Since there is no customer database, the worst thing a hacker can do to my site than to deface it. You also do not have to set up the whole "HTTPS" thing. This is perfect for small-time do-it-yourselfers.
On the other hand, a larger outfit could easily affort to get a security certificate, set up with a real credit card gateway, install shopping cart software, and take responsibility for their own site security. If your volume becomes large enough, this makes sense. So why didn't they do than rather than 2Checkout?
2Checkout definately strives to take care of the customer. I imagine that if somebody got ripped off, it would be 2Checkout, and the customers could eventually get their money back through usual credit card complaints. After all, the company getting your money is in the USA. But at the same time, I wonder why they bothered with 2Checkout since they probably will gross $100,000 per month, if (bit "if") this is legit.
Comments?
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Glad I read the comments. My kneejerk reaction was to go to the site and read the specs. For a moment I thought "it's on Slashdot so it's OK." I was about to call my wife and tell her she can have the laptop she wanted, and I hit the back button on my browser and started reading all the posts about this being a scam.
So the readers of Slashdot, often characterized as the great unwashed, saved me from a scam brought to me by the editors of Slashdot.
and also when cost is considerd, most products with lightning fast delivery times are high dollar or high volume items... a laptop generally is high dollar, in this case its neither.... it would be impossible to sell this laptop at this cost if they had to pay for blazing fast shipping in (for the parts) and then back out to the customer, it would undoubtly raise the cost significantly.... now my only remaning question is who works in their assembly plant? orphens and widows? at these prices id be weary of supporting a "sweat shop" although they are in a country with laws aganst it, doesnt mean their assembly plant is too....
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
Actually, it's "Limited" not "united"
I have a subscription to Companies House Directors lists. The officers of that company are:
(for non-Bits - you can obtain the home addresses of any Company Secretary or Director of any company registered in the England and Wales or Scotland - it is a criminal offence to give an incorrect address or mailing address unless you have obtained a confidentiality order, which is barely possible to do, even for Directors of very large companies)
BATH, HARPREET SECRETARY
HOUSE 3038
SECTOR 19D
CHANDIGARH
CH00018
INDIA
CH00018 Appointed: 13/07/2007
Nationality: INDIAN
Date of Birth: 10/12/1970
Company Appointments: 336
IVANCIC, VALDI DIRECTOR
LUNDENVAGEN 24
HUSKVARNA
SWEDEN
56134 Appointed: 13/07/2007
Nationality: SWEDISH
Date of Birth: 26/03/1970
Company Appointments: 1
Democracy, people! I'll never buy another communist laptop from DELL.
You do realize that communism is an economic system and not a governmental one? Coincidentally, however, if communistic ideals are applied to a political system, you end up with democracy.
Further, communism can be thought of as economic democracy. It can only be properly practiced in a politically democratic environment. If the means of production are supposedly in the hands of the workers, but in reality are in the hands of a totalitarian regime (ie "the state"), it is not communism. It is state-capitalism.
It never ceases to amaze me how brainwashed everyone in the US is when it comes to this type of thing. Use common sense: correlation != causation. I'm sorry for being off topic, and I realize that the OP was just trying to be funny, but this happens to be one of my pet peeves, and it drives me fucking insane.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."