The $45 Windows Laptop

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.

Comments

"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[tripleevenfall]

"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

What is the point of this kind of trolling in article summaries, really?

Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[CastrTroy]

I think that hasn't been true in a long time. You might be able to get a similarly spec'ed laptop if you didn't care about form-factor or style that much, but then it's not really the same product. The new Mac Book Pro has taken things even further by giving the best resolution available for the money. Doing a quick price comparison can show you they aren't overpriced at all. The Dell Ultrabook XPS 13 currently retails for $999, while the Mac Book Air 13" retails at $1199. Of course the Mac is more, but it has a 1400x900 screen as opposed to 720p resolution, 1.8GHz CPU as opposed to 1.6GHz CPU and a height of 0.68 inches vs. 0.71 inches. The rest of the main features seem to be about the same, and while some may say, what's the difference between .68 and .71 inches, well, it's still 5%, which takes quite a lot of engineering to get rid of when you are looking at laptops of this size. Mac laptops are quite competitively priced, the only problem is they've decided not to make $400 laptops. Which is fine, because there is no money to be made in that market anyway.

Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[MightyYar]

I'm amazed how few people actually price shop before they claim the Apple laptops are overpriced. I find them to be +/- 10% of a roughly-equivalent Dell/HP/Lenovo.

It is correct to say that Apple's laptops are expensive - they don't offer anything at all on the low-end.

Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as a good trackpad, they are all equally terrible. I will keep my trackpoint nub, thank you very much.

Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[0123456]

I'm amazed how few people actually price shop before they claim the Apple laptops are overpriced.

I did just that when I bought my new laptop a couple of years ago. My Toshiba cost $1100 while the closest equivalent Mac -- AFAIR it had a sligfhtly faster CPU, less RAM and a smaller hard drive -- was about $2500.

So yes, overpriced it was.

Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[jimicus]

I did just that when I bought my new laptop a couple of years ago. My Toshiba cost $1100 while the closest equivalent Mac -- AFAIR it had a sligfhtly faster CPU, less RAM and a smaller hard drive -- was about $2500.

Every time I've seen this sort of comparison, closer inspection has revealed that the Apple laptop in question has a number of other features that the cheaper one doesn't. Features that always drive the cost of any laptop up - and while these features may not matter to you as a purchaser, they clearly do matter to some people.

Typically these concern size, weight, construction materials and battery life.

Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[jerk]

I used to think the same thing until I used the newer Apple glass trackpads. There is no comparison, really. And the gestures are nice feature and work well.

Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook."

[mastermind7373]

I have used it. It was inaccurate and clunky. I have NEVER needed to rotate a photograph inaccurately in increments smaller than 90 degrees. When I need to rotate something precisely, I enter the numeric value or use a mouse, where I have support for my wrist to allow precise control.

The zoom functionality works well when the application supports smooth zooming. Otherwise, it's just as clunky trying to pick one of 3 locked percentages. This is a functionality support issue.

The scrolling drives me nuts. I HATE physics emulated scrolling. A simple friction slowdown is far more controllable and intuitive TO ME.

I realize Apple user's quite enjoy their trackpad. I simply wanted to point out that there are some of us who find it gets in our way. It's not universally better, it's suited to it's target audience: you.

I've got one smaller!

[Frosty Piss]

I've got a "laptop" that's about 2 1/2 x 4 inches or so, runs Android, and doubles as a phone... Wait... It *IS* a phone!

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Eivind Eklund]

For what I need, I'm probably going to install Unix (FreeBSD or Linux) on it and be paying an extra $1000 or so primarily for a better trackpad and an easier to connect/disconnect power supply chord - and that is worth it to me.

I've just got to say, holy fuck!

I usually have a computer for 3 to 5 years; let's say four years on average. That's less than 70 cents a day. I use it for a fair bit of time every day, and I immediately appreciate a better trackpad (and regularly appreciate slot loading as opposed to tray loading DVD; forgot that annoyance point). I also am more likely to move to a better spot (more ergonomically wise) if there's no hassle with the power supply cord, and I'm less likely to get the machine damaged or trip from the power supply cord with the better connection.

All in all, it's worth 70 cents a day to me. If I was extremely money constrained in general, it might not be - but I have a comfortable income and having the computer I spend a lot of time on be comfortable to me is worth it.