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The $45 Windows Laptop

Posted by samzenpus on from the on-the-cheap dept.

YokimaSun writes "The search for a cheap laptop has brought us news from India of a $10 laptop (which later turned out to be a hundred dollars). Today PC Gaming News has details of a laptop which is selling for a measly 45 dollars, what do you get for that, you get a netbook running windows embedded compact 7, 128 megs of ram, a via8505 processor and a 7 inch screen capable of 800x480 pixels resolution." I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook.

5 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe the editors could actually read submissions? by mykepredko · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is an eBay sale of a discontinued netbook.

    As somebody pointed out, if you wanted a $50 netbook, they can look on Craigslist or eBay themselves.

    Nothing new or interesting here,

    myke

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
  2. Correct me if I'm wrong... by julesh · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... but isn't Windows 7 Embedded Compact the new name for what used to be called (much more appropriately) WinCE?

    In other words, this is an almost-useless piece of junk that runs a nearly dead operating system that is being dropped by MS in its next version.

    I bought something very similar in the UK for about £30 a couple of years ago. It was useless then, it'll be useless now.

  3. Re:Can't wait to see so-called "gamers" buy this by GerbilSoft · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bonus round: Some editor got duped into posting a slashvertisement for an eBay auction. The netbook in question has been available from Amazon since August 2010. (Not the exact model number, but besides running Windows CE 6.0 instead of Windows Embedded Compact 7, the specs are the same.)

    http://www.amazon.com/SYNET7WID-7-Inch-Wireless-Mobile/dp/B003ZYUCDS

  4. Not "Windows" in any meaningful sense by JDG1980 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I saw this same (or very similar) model on sale at the local CVS. One reason it's so cheap is that it doesn't run "Windows" in any meaningful sense. It runs an embedded-system OS that is called Windows, but isn't compatible with any existing Windows software. (Look for much more of this kind of confusion with the upcoming WinRT for ARM.) Furthermore, since this netbook doesn't have an x86 processor, it can't run the real version of Windows.

    1. Re:Not "Windows" in any meaningful sense by Rogue+Haggis+Landing · · Score: 4, Informative

      I saw this same (or very similar) model on sale at the local CVS.

      I'm pretty sure this is the Sylvania netbook that appeared in 2010 for $99 at CVS. Reviewers were not kind about it, but the novelty of buying a $99 computer at a drug store was sort of fun. It's no surprise that 21 months later it's dropped under $50.

      These little craptops have always intrigued me, and it's just a matter of time before someone puts out one in the under-$100 range that's not entirely terrible. There's this guy that is available new from lots of ebay sites (I chose this one at random and am not endorsing it). It runs Android 2.2 and sports 256 mb of RAM. I haven't seen any kind words about it and from the specs it's likely still terrible, but you're starting to approach something respectable. It's not that far from being a 7" version of the Efika MX SmartBook, which isn't a world beater by any stretch, but which is light and fanless and runs Linux and sort of harks back to what was fun about early netbook.