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."

[kelemvor4]

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

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

Keep waiting. The biggest feature of apple products is the price tag. If they were cheap, they'd be no more desirable than any other notebook. It's the same thing with a prada bag vs a superior but less expensive generic.

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

[sl4shd0rk]

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

You'd have better luck waiting for Duke Nuke- ...er..wait.. guess we can't use that one anymore.

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

[jythie]

It shows group affiliation, which means people who agree with the original poster will be more likely to see the summary favorably and comment.

Nothing says 'I am part of the group' then demonstrating 'see, I hate the same things all the other cool kids hate! Lets go push some nerds in the mud!'

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

[Trepidity]

My guess: There wasn't enough meat to the blurb otherwise, so the editor posting it had to come up with something to flesh it out, and it's tough work to come up with something clever on the spot. :)

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."

[davydagger]

I price shop and I think apple laptops are overpriced. everytime I do I am disapointed. If they where the same price I just might buy one. Laptops are are terribly hard to mod, with exception of hard drives and mabey some extra ram. first thing I do is install linux anyway so I just buy hardware, and don't care who's name is on it.

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."

[slimjim8094]

I price shop and I think apple laptops are overpriced..

Care to show some examples? Like the GP, I find them to be spot-on when comparing apples to apples. Build quality, OS, and support is well worth the $50-100 premium, if any.

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

[UnknowingFool]

Well they are fairly competitive when first released. Over time Macs are less competitive as Apple refreshes less often than Dell and not as likely as Dell to hold sales. If the main factor when shopping is price alone, a Mac will never be the computer someone buys.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

http://lifehacker.com/5919132/build-the-mac-pro-that-you-wish-apple-released

I open with that...

There are some things Apple makes that are clearly better (ipod/iphone). However, many of their products can be had for cheaper and/or better in a 'clone'.

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 Tell that to nintendo. They try to hit the 60-150 price point every time. They make pretty good stuff and they do not sell at a loss... There is money to be made at the 'lower end' it just costs more up front cost... Apple *LONG* ago stopped being about hackers and more about style. They are good computers, dont get me wrong. But you are paying for 'cool'. Its not *much* more (cant be or people wouldnt buy it at all) but that is what you are buying. Apple has it at a low enough rate that it is a 'what the hell' sort of thing.

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

[oddjob1244]

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.

They're overpriced regarding "How much money do I need to spend to get the task done" not "What gives me the most features for my dollar." A $400 laptop can type Word documents, create Excel spreadsheets, browse the internet, send email, haul it around a job site looking at PDFs, watch movies, and play games just as well as the $1200 mac book pro. I don't need to do that in 720p resolution, I don't need a super drive sitting idle, I don't need 500 gb of hard drive storage, or the cutting edge RAM speed.

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."

[otuz]

It's not really like that either. The resolution is still 2880x1800 by definition, and 240ppi. Graphics of apps can be scaled to any of those settings, making the workspace equivalent to 1440x900, which is different from having a 1440x900 resolution. Text is also rendered at full depth, unless the app developer decided to write their own font renderer instead of using the standard one, or decided to write nonstandard widgets or just write graphics on-screen with an 1:1 pixel assumption. The scaling can also be turned off, leaving the user with really small UI elements physically.

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

[Missing.Matter]

I think that hasn't been true in a long time.

I'm not so sure. A couple years ago I bought an HP Envy 15 for $999 after rebates with 1600x900 display, 160GB ssd, extra battery, 4 GB RAM... I don't remember what the exact specs were for an equivalent Macbook Pro, but I did significant price comparison and the Macbook was over $2000 for lesser hardware in every regard. Just priced out a brand new Envy 15 comapred to the brand new Macbook pro, and here's what we get:

Envy 15
Display: 15.6" 1920x1080
Processor: 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
Graphics: 1GB Radeon(TM) HD 7750M GDDR5 Graphics
Storage: 750GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
Memory: 6GB 1600DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
Height: 1.11 inches
Weight: 5.79 lbs
Battery Life: 10 hours
Warranty: 2 years
Price: $1,350.00


Macbook Pro 15
Display: 15.4" 1440 x 900
Processor" 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz) with 6MB L3 cache
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5
Storage: 500GB 5400-rpm hard drive
Memory: 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3
Height: 0.95 inch (2.41 cm)
Weight: 5.6 pounds
Battery Life: 7 Hours
Warranty: 1 year
Price: $1800


So from my perspective, for $450 less (and this isn't even without ninja rebate magic like I pulled on my last Envy) I'm getting better graphics, more storage, more memory, better display, bigger display, longer battery life, longer warranty, and I'm also getting a decent built laptop with premium features like aluminum casing, slot load DVD, and backlit keyboard, and basic features not available on the macbook pro like HDMI port, display port, 3 USB ports, higher maximum memory (16gb as opposed to 8gb for the macbook pro... how is this a "pro" model again?)

If the Macbook Pro was really a premium model with premium build and premium specs, then yes, I'd be willing to spend more on it. But it just looks like more money for less value all around. You're really paying a premium for .16" of height, OSX, and the Apple branding as far as I can tell.

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

[ABCC]

It's easy, just start selecting some extra options such as more RAM or an ssd drive. Admittedly the other manufactures also have a high markup on such upgrades but it's much easier to upgrade these parts yourself. Apple do their best to go against this with helpful features such as hard to open cases, oddly sized storage mounts and glued in memory.

If you choose the cheapest RAM / storage options on a "pc laptop" and buy upgrades elsewhere you not only save a few hundred bucks on manufacturers price but also have a spare drive for backups/whatever and an extra RAM stick to flog on ebay. Given Apple's price markup on upgrades the savings will be even greater for similar specs.

As for the GPs comparison of a 13" XPS vs the MacBook Air, Standard: given that the Air uses a low power Core variant the fact that it has a higher clock speed is meaningless. The XPS will be faster and costs 20% less than the Air.

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

[mcgrew]

A woosh to you, sir. I get $10 computers all the time, in fact people usually give them away as they're too underpowered to run a modern OS; I use them for spare parts. I just "fixed" an old ThinkPad that had been given to a Felbers bartender by removing the admin password, drank for free all day when I brought it back.

You're likely to get a far better used computer for $40 than a new $40 computer. I seriously doubt one of these $40 computers will run Win7 or Ubuntu 11. That was the joke you missed.

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

[Airballp]

Funny, it took a minute for me to realize you weren't talking about Macs.

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

[0123456]

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.

Yes, it had an Apple logo on the lid.

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

[Applekid]

With the kind of specs they show for the $45 netbook, what would be the point of either one of them?

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

[colinrichardday]

A 1.8 GHz CPU? My HP laptop has 2 2.2 GHZ CPUs and cost significantly less.

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."

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I used to agree with you until I started scrolling the page with the trackpad. Now I use that way more than I ever used the nub.

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

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I wonder if the time of year is a factor in this. Apple only does limited refreshes and they do not drop their price over time. I think that if you did this comparison six months from now Dell could come out ahead.

At least that would explain why this debate keeps going back and forth.

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

[Sancho]

Really? I almost never see "PC-hate" coming from Mac users. I've seen the Mac vs. PC commercials, which skirt the line a bit, but I don't think I've ever seen a Mac user call a PC user an idiot for choosing PC over Mac.

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

[kelemvor4]

You are mistaken, sir.
Last time I shopped notebooks, I included the macbook pro but it was significantly overpriced. By the way, the 1199 price you mentioned is that of the Pro and not the Air. I decided to price compare again, this time with only one competitor since I'm not actually buying new notebooks but just comparing out of curiosity. Here's what I found:

Apple MacBook Pro 13"
CPU: Core i5 2520M 3MB Cache Dual Core 2.5-3.2Ghz (Second Gen)
GPU: Integrated Intel HD 3000
Ram: 4GB
Mass Storage: 500GB 5400RPM Spinning Disk
Optical Storage: DVD-RW
Price: $1199.00

HP Envy Spectre XT Ultrabook 13t-2000 (EPP)
CPU: Core i7 3517U 4MB Cache Quad Core 1.9-3.0Ghz (Third Gen)
GPU: Integrated Intel HD 4000
Ram: 4GB
Mass Storage: 128MB SSD
Optical Storage: NONE
Price: 1079.99


So, from what I see the HP costs less, has a better CPU, GPU, Mass Storage. Has the same display (size and resolution), the same RAM, but lacks an integrated optical drive. Also, they throw in software that is actually useful (Office starter, Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements). Oh, and it will play most current computer games.
The Apple costs 120 bucks more, is slower in CPU, GPU, and mass storage but it does have a dvd burner. Requires a $150 software upgrade to play current computer games (windows home). The apple does have an extra memory slot for upgrading to 8GB which I would consider a no brainer given that 4GB of laptop memory in any brand is under 20 bucks, while the HP has no such slot.

Personally I wouldn't buy either of these because there's no integrated blu-ray drive, but I think the HP offers far more system for a little less money. $120 bucks isn't an insignificant price difference (at least on my budget it's not).

The bottom line is that I think it's still true you get a lot more for your money from other companies VS Apple - so it appears to me that my original post about Apple being mostly about "status" is still true.

Apple price came from the Apple store, HP Price came from the HP EPP store.

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

[roc97007]

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

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

Really, you have a point. But the pedantic in me points out that $50 macbooks are a reality, free macbooks even. The disposable Apple culture, where significant numbers of people absolutely must have the next incremental improvement, coupled with common consumable parts that are not user replaceable, has created a brisk used market, for people willing to invest in the tools, scout out parts suppliers, and learn the procedures, that is actually quite affordable. It has kept me busy, replacing screens, audio jacks and batteries in discarded Apple devices and putting them back in service, resources for people who do not feel the need for the latest shiny object. Where did you think all those old devices went, landfill? Well, I suppose many do, but I try to recover as many as I have time for.

I don't happen to have a macbook in stock, but I have two towers and an 8g touch, and a nano waiting on parts.

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

[kelemvor4]

I would submit that the backlit keyboard and absolutely wonderful mac trackpad are worth the difference in price alone. Windows peeps have no concept of how nice a GOOD trackpad is.

I can't compare the trackpads but other (most?) ultra books come with back lit keyboards. It's not something exclusive to Apple and therefore shouldn't really be a selling point when comparing products.

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

[jythie]

Eh, I see it now and then. Some Mac users can be pretty obnoxious, though often it is part of a back and forth where both sides claim the are 'just responding in kind' to the other side. The problem with the arguments is they start with the fanboys insulting each other, but they tend to speak in universals so they quickly draw in other people who take exception to being stereotyped.

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

[Airballp]

What I meant was that in the first sentence of his post (and this is Slashdot, who reads beyond that?), "it" could equally well have referred to Macs themselves. Only later do we find that "it" meant the Mac-bashing.

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.

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

[Ravaldy]

Cost of ownership of a MAC is superior to the cost of owning a PC. Is the MAC book better. Sure it is (depending on how it's used). It only has to comply with it's own specs and it's own hardware. PCs are whatever you want them to be. MACs are what Apple decides they should be.

Although this is changing, cost of hardware for Macs is more expensive and the same is true about software. Lots more freeware for MS than MAC.

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

[roc97007]

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

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

Keep waiting. The biggest feature of apple products is the price tag. If they were cheap, they'd be no more desirable than any other notebook. It's the same thing with a prada bag vs a superior but less expensive generic.

You have a point, but, funny you should mention that -- my teenage daughter had a huge score a couple years back in an estate sale. She bought some unusual clothes and footwear for incredibly little -- garage sale prices -- and didn't think much of it (except she really liked the clothes) until she entered a boutique one day and the store owner complimented her on her clothes. When it became apparent daughter didn't know what the woman was talking about, she pointed out various details of daughter's clothing, revealing that these were originals from a well-known designer. Daughter was amazed -- to her they were just clothes.

The point being, genuine, although perhaps obsolete, boutique products can be had for reasonable prices if you know where to look. Let someone else pay the list price, and snag the object when they get tired of it. For a somewhat similar reason, my last three cars have been lease returns. 15 - 17 K miles, well maintained, and a substantial discount over showroom price. Let someone else pay for that new car smell.

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

[kelemvor4]

I just "fixed" an old ThinkPad that had been given to a Felbers bartender by removing the admin password, drank for free all day when I brought it back.

That's one hell of a trade! Well played!

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

[kelemvor4]

for people willing to invest in the tools, scout out parts suppliers, and learn the procedures, that is actually quite affordable.

These days it's even easier. ifixit.com has parts, tools, and well documented procedures for fixing pretty much anything that can go wrong with an Apple product.

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

[Khyber]

"The new Mac Book Pro has taken things even further by giving the best resolution available for the money."

Not even close. Modified firmware on my Samsung A550 gives me 5760*3240@60Hz (disables the 3x3 physical pixels per visible pixel grid (adios subpixel rendering) and forces native resolution, one of the hardest hacks I've had to make to date, EDID is a motherfucker to tweak.)

I had to tweak AMD drivers to get it working, but it does, and it's nice, although the GPU is weak as to not be able to play any games in that resolution

Pictures look like I'm looking through glass Text is TINY, so much that I can barely read it on my 32". Apple is WAY behind.

Too bad Samsung won't take my firmware. They could laugh at Apple all the way to the bank.

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

[Khyber]

My rather acidic skin makes the trackpad useless.

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

[roc97007]

for people willing to invest in the tools, scout out parts suppliers, and learn the procedures, that is actually quite affordable.

These days it's even easier. ifixit.com has parts, tools, and well documented procedures for fixing pretty much anything that can go wrong with an Apple product.

Right, that's one resource of several. But the really cool thing is how hardcore fans will cast off their slightly elderly or only trivially broken devices. It makes for an opportunistic environment.

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

[MightyYar]

Give me an example.

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

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

On Slashdot you can. I mean, we're still making BSOD jokes!

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

[SpooForBrains]

My thinkpad and dell laptops have always had a scroll modifier for the nub, which I like more than any other control system I've tried. The only time I reach for the mouse is for graphic related work.

It saddens me that even the corporate laptops are locking the nub these days.

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

[MightyYar]

Apple.com doesn't have sales, but Amazon and other 3rd parties do.

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

[MightyYar]

I'm betting the Toshiba was about 20% heavier/ larger and you weren't sensitive to size when you were shopping. Size drives cost, but most people don't need the small form factor that Apple sells.

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

[mhajicek]

Same is true of cars and probably a lot of other things. You can get a decent used car for $3k or a usable one for $1k. What kind of new car can you get for those prices?

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

[MightyYar]

Yeah, I haven't priced out anything but laptops in probably 8 years, so I can't really speak for the Pro. Digging around a little, it looks like the quad-core 3.2 GHz Xeon model is $2500. The HP version of this machine is about $2200, but I found that on Amazon which usually is a bit cheaper than Apple.com.

I'd characterize the current Mac Pro as more obsolete than overpriced :)

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

[angel'o'sphere]

It would be more helpfull if you pointed out the specs/types. Nevertheless I simply doubt you are right.
Situations like yours only happen if you have a Mac product line at its end of its life and a competitor at its beginning.
Bottom line Macs are often cheaper than competitors or at max 10% above competitors.
Claiming otherwise only shows you never really did the search.
Bottom line: with a Mac you get Mac OS X. The OS alone is more worth than any hardware it is delievered with.

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

[angel'o'sphere]

*clunk*
That was the sound when my head dropped down to the table in the beer garden and hit my iPad.
*clonk*
And now I spiled my beer even ...

WTF ...

I did not see a more silli comment than this since years ...

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

[angel'o'sphere]

That I really doubt. Mac platforms allways had an increadible high amount of free and shareware with a very good quallity. For Windows you usually only find free crackware.

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

[DrXym]

Every single laptop. I've been through this tiresome process so many times I'm not going to bother again. As I said there may be a small window when there is nothing to make a reasonable comparison against but when there is, they are consistently undercut by the competition and for most of the lifetime of the product before the cycle repeats. They are more expensive and quite obviously so.

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

[aliquis]

Only an idiot adds options though.

As far as price comparison for Apple computers go you shouldn't even step up to a mid- or high-range default setup because then value for your money aka computer / monetary unit falls like a rock.

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

[aliquis]

And yeah base configurations are crippled by default because there's no competition so they don't need to offer competitive configurations for the money.

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

[retchdog]

two serious problems with trackpoint.

first: drift. this has happened on all three thinkpads i've owned. occasionally the sensor will get stuck on, usually pointing to the lower-right iirc. sometimes jiggling will help, but sometimes not.

second: finger pain and slipperiness. extended use of a trackpoint requires pressure, which leaves a dull ache in my index finger.

the glass mac trackpad is, at least, much better than any trackpad i'd used before so "equally terrible" is just wrong. personally i prefer it to the trackpoint, but if i were doing precise work i guess i wouldn't. then again, if i'm doing precise work i'd probably use a peripheral pointing device anyway.

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

[sqldr]

He needn't travel far.. I've got a 2006 model macbook with 512mb ram and 60GB hard drive, and all for the fantastic price of $49.99!

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

[sqldr]

What I hate is my new win/linux laptop where it wasn't until I got home from the shop that I realised that the mouse buttons are part of the pad itself, so the "click both for middle button" thing in linux doesn't work. Eventually after far too many hours of pissing about and compiling a beta kernel driver, I got to configure multitouch 3-finger tap to be middle button - by hacking my Xorg config for far too long.

The double-tap for dragging is also a pain. I end up dragging when I don't want to drag, and not tapping at the right speed when I do. Gimme my buttons back!

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

[MightyYar]

The first two links are very sparse on the information front, and the third starts with:

Saturday May 20 2006

Are you in the UK? I don't know if they are competitive there - I was expressing my obvious US bias.

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

[retchdog]

yeah, that's because my problems were with the trackpoint (aka nipple mouse, pointing stick, clit mouse, &c.), not touchpads.

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

[0100010001010011]

Actual battery life appears to be nowhere close to what they claim. Engadget did a review. The MBP's battery actually lasted longer than the HP's. Plus how many charge-drain cycles is that battery rated for? How many Firewire and thunderbolt ports? Have PC laptop suppliers figured out how to do proper strain relief on DC-DC power boards to make the mag safe unnecessary. The last HP I had needed the motherboard fixed because the geniuses decided that solder made a perfect support. After a few years of just moving the laptop around (not accounting for people tripping over it) that just ends up failing.

How about resale value? Macs tend to hold value much better. Just looking at some old 2006 era laptops (Dell M65 vs MBP) it looks like the Mac is still selling for a few hundred more than the Dell.

So $450 for a few more hours on charge, maybe $300 back at the end of the day, no DC-DC power supply issues, and a few really fast ports.

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

[MightyYar]

That's not really the same machine... That is why I used the HP with the same processor. I wouldn't buy that Apple, but more because it is at least a year out-of-date. It is priced higher than other out-of-date equipment, but not by much.

Maybe I am being pedantic, since no matter how you look at it, the Mac Pro is not a good option, value-wise. Just because someone else is also selling old expensive stuff doesn't justify Apple's doing the same.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

You'd have better luck waiting for Duke Nuke- ...er..wait.. guess we can't use that one anymore.

It's spelled H a l f l i f e 3.

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

[Hatta]

The real solution is to decrease your reliance on the mouse. Use a tiling window manager(e.g. Awesome) and a browser that uses hinting(e.g. pentadactyl), and an editor like vim, and you hardly ever need to use the mouse.

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

[dubbreak]

When I purchased my Core 2 duo series macbook things were comparable. I went to buy a 15" MBP recently (2nd gen i7) and ended up with a Samsung instead. I even talked myself down to a refurb 15" MBP ($1500 CAD) as the Mac option. For $700 before tax I got a thin Samsung (np700) with same processor, same screen resolution, more ram and bigger hd. That's less than half the price. If I was talking full retail on both it would have still been at least a $600 difference ($1800 vs $1200). Of course I doubt the Samsung ever sells at full retail.

I'm happy with the laptop as it serves its purpose perfectly. No OS X, but I needed Windows 7 for the majority of its use (was planning on using vmware fusion which I use on my old Mac). In the rare case I need OS X (e.g. targeting iOS with Unity3d), I have a couple older Macs that are more than capable of doing that.

The new retina display MBP is tempting, but I'll wait for some trickle down on that. I love high resolution laptop displays (900 lines was the min I would accept and I really wanted a 1080P 15"). For coding I just can't deal with the run of the mill consumer 720P displays. They are horrid for productivity.

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

[aztracker1]

So don't buy a mac... it's pretty simple... I built all of my own PCs, but laptops it's what you buy, on PCs I don't do the cheapest thing possible, I look to get 3-5 years of life with minimal upgrades out of a desktop... Apple simply has the best build quality these days. I'd say Lenovo's business laptops are a fair second, and everything else is far behind. If you're going under $1200 (where apple starts), I'd suggest getting the best under $500 you can. Generally Acer or Asus are your best bets there, and do a clean windows install. The 500-1200 range really isn't worth buying in, imho it's better to save the money, and plan on swapping out in around 2 years or so. My desktop build, about 2.5 years, and my macbook pro about the same age are both running fine today. I've yet to see anyone that uses a cheap laptop daily that hasn't had a key pop off the keyboard after 2.5 years of use.

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

[supremebob]

Just slap an Apple sticker on the $45 Windows laptop, give it a skin that looks like Mac OS X on Windows or Linux. Ship a bunch of them to Canal Street in NYC, and slap a $60 price tag on it.

Profit!

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

[retchdog]

i see, yes, the "real" solution is to completely alter my workflow. thanks.

it's not that i can't use a minimal wm (i used to run on ratpoison, and i still do 99% of my real work in emacs), but i just don't want to. the mac trackpad has already solved every problem i had with the trackpoint along with adding three-finger swipe functionality which is of marginal utility, but utility nonetheless.

however i'll admit pentadactyl looks cool, and thanks for bringing it to my attention. i'd have to switch back to firefox (ugh) and learn vi bindings (meh); maybe later.

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

[Trixter]

I don't think I've ever seen a Mac user call a PC user an idiot for choosing PC over Mac.

You're not old enough. It was quite common in the latter half of the 1980s, as PCs struggled to catch up to the Mac's ease of use and UI elements. I think it finally stopped around Windows 3.1.

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

[DrXym]

The links contain comments by myself where I have gone to the effort of comparing Apple laptops to others and I don't see the point of doing it any more.

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

[Theaetetus]

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

Friction not being part of physics?

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

[realityimpaired]

I can't compare the trackpads but other (most?) ultra books come with back lit keyboards. It's not something exclusive to Apple and therefore shouldn't really be a selling point when comparing products.

My low end Dell Vostro V131 doesn't have a backlit keyboard... it was an option but I decided not to get it. In all honesty, the backlit keyboards are of marginal use for an experienced typist... I could see them being handy for people who need to look at the keyboard, but if you're the kind of person who can type simply by finding the home keys with your index fingers, then it's really quite useless... my last laptop had a backlit keyboard and I never turned it on.

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

[MightyYar]

So you are in the UK then. You'd know the UK market better than me. I've done the same research in the US and tend to find the prices on their laptops to be plus-or-minus 10% of the competition (depending on where they are in the release cycle).

Others have pointed out that Dell often has these blowout-style sales, and indeed there is nothing that Apple ever makes that can compete with the Dells when they are 30-50% off.

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

[Patch86]

Windows 7 still gives me BSODs every now and again. Some things never go out of fashion!

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

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Heh, yeah, cos BSOD's on 95 were always described as being 'every now and again'.

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

[mastermind7373]

Not in the simulated sense, but in the motion smoothing sense. My apologies for picking the wrong descriptive adjective. I should have called it motion smoothing.

I meant to say that I hate the inertia/momentum effect. It gets in my way, as I tend to use the system as fast as possible which requires a precise and accurate display of the content. Smoothing effects do help build a flow during use, but inertia will break that flow slowing the user down some as they compensate.

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

[AmiMoJo]

More RAM and a bigger HDD are the most useful upgrades for most people, and they are also where Apple gouge you the most. £160.00 for an extra 8GB of RAM is ridiculous.

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

[samoanbiscuit]

Engadget famously uses "percent brightness" rather than actually measuring brightness across products and using a standard nit level, meaning that devices with naturally brighter screens are disadvantaged compared to dim screened devices on their battery life tests. While I don't believe for a second the Envy would outlast the MBP (between designing the software and hardware Apple can squeeze out hours of battery life where a Windows OEM maker could only find minutes), I wouldn't use engadget's reviews for that particular point.

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

[psithurism]

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

Stories of the week get ranked by the number of comments.

So: "Giant unifying theory of everything fixes everything forever proved right" would be at the bottom with one comment: "Ok, thats nice."

But same story and also: "I like Mac-Books over PCs." And the ensuing flame war will catapult your story to the top!

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

[ghettoimp]

We're still measuring performance in GHz? But... but... oh fuck it.

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

[SEE]

However, The Last Dangerous Visions, originally scheduled to be published in 1973, is still neither available nor cancelled.

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

[colinrichardday]

I was responding to the GGP (CastrTroy), who made such a comparison.

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

[toddestan]

You mean the one where they eliminated the (only) button which means you can't turn off the stupid tap-to-click feature? I'll keep my Thinkpad, with its nub to control the pointer, a trackpad configured to act as a big scrollwheel, and three (count 'em) physical mouse buttons.

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

[toddestan]

It's easy. Figure out what you want in a laptop. Go to some PC manufacturer's sites, and configure a laptop that has what you want in it, and leave out the stuff you don't care about. Then head over to Apple's website, find the cheapest model that has all the features you want, and then marvel at how expensive it is. Yeah, you can argue that the Mac includes a bunch of stuff the PC doesn't, but if you don't care about that stuff then its adding cost but providing no value.

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

[toddestan]

Right, because who else would sell a 2.3Ghz dual core, with 2GB of ram, integrated graphics, and a 5400RPM hard drive for $599 in 2012? Oh right, Apple.

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

[Bert64]

Pictures look like I'm looking through glass Text is TINY, so much that I can barely read it on my 32". Apple is WAY behind.

Sounds like you have an error with your EDID modifications... The screen should report its physical size, allowing the host system to work out the DPI of the screen and thus render text the proper size (font sizes are specified in points, which are a measurement of physical size not pixels).

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

[GeorgeMonroy]

You don't have to use Apple RAM.

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

[mcgrew]

I stopped buying new cars in 1984 when my then-wife, Evil-X, talked me into buying a new Rabbit "because a new car is reliable" and two weeks after buying it, it stranded us 80 miles from home with a crapped out alternator. IMO buying a new car is stupid, unless you just want to show off how rich/in debt you are.

I paid 10K for my car, five years ago. It was more like $30-35K new.

The best place to find T-shirts is at yard sales. I've had a Cardinals Nike sirt for five years I paid seventy five cents for!

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

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

.. guess we can't use that one anymore.

GNU Hurd anyone?

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

[scot4875]

Backlit keyboard is a nice feature. It's too bad that the keyboard that's backlit is such utter garbage. My 13" Thinkpad has a more comfortable keyboard than my 17" MacBook Pro. The MBP keyboard definitely looks nicer, but it's a case of form vs. functionality.

Also, the trackpad is nice, for a trackpad. Too bad it also serves as the only clickable button. Good luck getting anything pixel-perfect with that crap.

--Jeremy

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

[scot4875]

What's funny is that Apple fanbois claim in one post that Apple hardware is actually very price competitive.

Then in the next post they'll brag about how Apple is the most profitable hardware manufacturer.

--Jeremy

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

[lsatenstein]

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.

It comes with power supply, but did not indicate it came with batteries.

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

[benhattman]

Not totally true. I think Apple's prices are pretty comparable to say Lenovo for the normal price. However, Apple almost never offers significant discounts, and between the 5-8 laptop sellers you might consider buying from, at least one of them is almost always offering a major discount.

If you have to buy now, and you only like HP, then the comparable Apple is pretty close. But if you don't care about manufacturer (or do care and have 8 months to kill), then there's every chance you can find something that beats the Apple comp by 25%+.

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

[Patch86]

Is that a bit like saying "herpes isn't as bad as AIDs, so stop complaining about me giving you herpes"?

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

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No, it isn't.

Do you reaaaaaaaaaaally need a metaphor for comparing something that happens less than once a year to something happening 3-4x a week? I'd like to think you're a little branier than you're letting on.

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

[Patch86]

I was more shooting for a "funny", you know.

But actually in my case, it does happen relatively frequently on start-up for on Acer desktop. Maybe once in every 10 reboots. It's some conflict with the graphics driver that I can't seem to shift, so you could lay the blame at Nvidia's doorstep instead if you want, or Acer's. But it always behaves itself perfectly whenever I boot to the Xubuntu partition, so I'm not inclined to be too generous to Microsoft.

On the other hand, it amuses me endlessly that my Linux boot is beating my Windows boot on a driver issue. One of the signs of the apocalypse I think.

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

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I was more shooting for a "funny", you know.

Ah. Sorry, my experience with Windows made me miss the punchline.

But actually in my case, it does happen relatively frequently on start-up for on Acer desktop. Maybe once in every 10 reboots. It's some conflict with the graphics driver that I can't seem to shift, so you could lay the blame at Nvidia's doorstep instead if you want, or Acer's. But it always behaves itself perfectly whenever I boot to the Xubuntu partition, so I'm not inclined to be too generous to Microsoft.

Fair enough. For my case, in the last 12 or so years I've been surrounded by Windows machines. In the Windows 9X days, BSODs were two or three times a week. (Seriously, part of the daily routine was to restart the machine.) NT/2k were like once a month. XP and on ... well damn near never see them. I seriously doubt that anybody under the age of 20 even knows what a BSOD is anymore.

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

[Khyber]

DPI is properly set. The text is tiny because at 3240p @ 32" the lines are razor-sharp.

Lol...

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Professionals can now work on the go ... a boost with the 128 MB RAM memory

Exactly what professional can work with such little RAM?
I don't even think you could connect to a VM properly with that...

Re:Lol...

[gl4ss]

if you'd like ssh terminals in every room of your house, this is a pretty affordable way to do it.

these things were 100 bucks a while ago minimum. I guess you could get something beefier with 100 bucks now.

Re:Lol...

[hobarrera]

I think you're just trolling. Why would you need more than 128MB to connect to a VM, that'd be a simple dumb terminal... I'm pretty sure dumb terminals at that resolution can run just fine with those specs.

Re:Lol...

[silas_moeckel]

RDP/VNC/X11 could all run fine on that, past that 128mb wont even load a modern web browser displaying a moderately complex web page.

Re:Lol...

[CubicleZombie]

Why would you need more than 128MB to connect to a VM, that'd be a simple dumb terminal... I'm pretty sure dumb terminals at that resolution can run just fine with those specs.

Once Corporate IT gets ahold of it, it'll need 4GB and a couple of cores just to keep up with Symantec Endpoint Protection.

Re:Lol...

[1s44c]

Professionals can now work on the go ... a boost with the 128 MB RAM memory

Exactly what professional can work with such little RAM?

I don't even think you could connect to a VM properly with that...

I've run databases, web servers, mail servers all on a Linux machine with less RAM. With the right tuning it should be possible to get something usable on there.

Of course RAM is cheap so why not just add a little more?

Re:Lol...

[GrumpySteen]

We need a moderation option for "+1 Sad Reality"

Re:Lol...

[Jeng]

Funny is often used for that purpose.

Re:Lol...

[ABCC]

+1 Sad Reality

Re:Lol...

[colinrichardday]

I've run databases, web servers, mail servers all on a Linux machine with less RAM.

But did you run a GUI, or go headless? The latter isn't always possible on Windows.

  Of course RAM is cheap so why not just add a little more?

RAM cards may be cheap, but how do you add RAM slots?

Re:Lol...

[kelemvor4]

Exactly what professional can work with such little RAM?

Managers.

Re:Lol...

[asylumx]

+1 Funny

Re:Lol...

[Yvan256]

RAM cards may be cheap, but how do you add RAM slots?

With a hammer.

Re:Lol...

[adolf]

I've run multi-user Linux boxes that did mail and Apache and BIND and whatever random stuff a shell user wanted, plus Netscape for multiple X servers on the local LAN. (The box itself was essentially headless.)

It was peppy enough, for the time, with less than 64MB of RAM. And it was a 486. And it was a long time ago.

Just the same: I'm continually saddened by the fact that I sit before a monumentally-superior machine, but still doing mostly the same things I was then, and still waiting just as long for the programs to load and Get Things Done as I used to on far-lesser hardware.

Indeed, it troubles me that my dual-core 1.2GHz smartphone with 1GB of RAM is so limited in what it can do, these days. It often seems as if progress is meaningless.

Terrible deal

[hackula]

Go on craigslist and pick up one for 0-50 dollars. It will be no speed demon, but should be plenty to run a light weight distro or XP.

Re:Terrible deal

[uigrad_2000]

Not very useful, if your plan is to make a Beowulf cluster.

It will be a while before a sub-$50 computer is truly available. When I say available, I mean that I can order 300 of them now, and they'll be shipped today.

The closest is the Raspberry Pi computers off Ebay. They go for about $80 (even though they are frequently referred to as $25 or $35 computers). Unfortunately, $80 is more than $50, and there are not 300+ of them available on Ebay.

Re:Terrible deal

[JDG1980]

It will be a while before a sub-$50 computer is truly available.

Intel could probably do it with the Atom if they wanted to, but for some reason they continue positioning Atom-based platforms as if they were competitive with Bobcat, which they clearly aren't. Where they might be able to stand out is by making a single-board x86 PC that includes 1GB or so of soldered-in DDR SDRAM, and ~40GB of solid state storage also on-board.

Re:Terrible deal

[hackula]

Did you read what I posted? What I am saying is that you can literally go onto craigslist right at this moment and find loads of 50 dollar computers that you can go and buy and hook into your Beowulf cluster this afternoon; no Raspberry Pi required. 50 dollar computers already exist in abundance on the used market. Raspberry Pi is cool, but it is still nowhere near the best value. The best value is your stupid neighbor, cousin, uncle, friend's old PC who just bought a new MBP when their old HP's power supply died. If you know what a Raspberry Pi is, then you should be familiar enough with computers to fix a nearly endless supply of free/cheap computers floating around in your area that nobody wants anymore.

Re:Terrible deal

[uigrad_2000]

You can find lots of various computers on Craigslist. I will not argue that point. I will argue that they will not be identical, though, and building a beowulf cluster from such machines is all but impossible. Even the trouble of contacting hundreds of craigslist sellers and meeting them in person would push the cost well above $50 each (considering time as money).

But, I have to admit, I did not RTFA well enough. If you follow the trail of links, you finally arrive here I've removed the part of the URL that generated advertising revenue for the person making the article.

The Windows CE netbook in the article is available now, and is available in large quantity (1200+ have sold already). It does not have a hard drive, but still meets the criteria that I established in my post above. I guess I have to now eat my words.

Re:Terrible deal

[JoeMerchant]

Value of the Pi isn't in the processor, it's in the video decoder and HDMI driver.

Only point in a Raspberry cluster is if you have a "wall of monitors" app.

Re:Terrible deal

[Rinikusu]

There's an oft repeated phrase that comes to mind: "It's only Free if you don't value your time". Spend a few hours learning one configuration and then deploying to 300 identical machines vs. spending a few dollars to obtain 300 junkers off of ebay/craigslist that now require refurbishing, formatting, checking to see what distro will support each hardware configuration, etc etc etc. I've been down this road and it sucks.

Re:Terrible deal

[kelemvor4]

That's true if you are of the opinion that "new" vs "used" inherently has no value. If reliability is a concern, then generally that new vs used is something to consider.

Re:Terrible deal

[hackula]

How reliable do you really expect a Pi to be? After all its a 35 dollar computer. It does not even come with a case. I think you are much more likely to find a turn-key used solution than new in this price range. This holds just about anywhere you look. A $10,000 used car is likely to be far more reliable than a $10,000 new car.

Re:Terrible deal

[kelemvor4]

How reliable do you really expect a Pi to be? After all its a 35 dollar computer. It does not even come with a case. I think you are much more likely to find a turn-key used solution than new in this price range. This holds just about anywhere you look. A $10,000 used car is likely to be far more reliable than a $10,000 new car.

lol. I wish I knew how reliable one would be - haven't been able to order one yet. In the specific case of rasberry pi vs used pc/laptop you also have to factor in that rasberry pi is extremely low power and far smaller than either. However, given that things like capacitors do wear out over time, new is still something to consider. Unless the manufacturer is creating shoddy boards (I don't know YET) they should outlast an older board of a different type given similar handling precautions. My point wasn't to say a rasberry pi is better than what you could buy on ebay for 35 bucks, but just to say that component age IS a consideration. You may not give that factor the same wight as another person when deciding what to buy; but that doesn't mean it's no factor at all.

At my office we replace devices after four years of age. In addition to reliability (and possibly more importantly, warranty) you also usually get better performance and better power efficiency out of newer devices. Not always, I suppose.. but I think that is usually the case.

Re:Terrible deal

[toddestan]

Yeah, but what's going to be faster, the 300 sub-$50 computers, or whatever quad-CPU workstation that you would be able to put together for $15000?

START USING PERIODS NOW

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Holy run-on sentence, Batman!

Re:START USING PERIODS NOW

[highphilosopher]

I think they haven't figured out that commas are not preiods, In the current iteration of the english language we use periods, Perhaps in some former incarnation the comma.... Oh I can't do it anymore. It's bugging the CRAP out of me!!!

Squishy

[Mattygfunk1]

Netbook...800x480 pixels resolution.

I feel like I haven't horizontal scrolled in ages.

it requires a contract but...

[Anonymous Coward]

you can get Android phones/iPhone 3gs for $0. You have to pay for data, but at least you can make calls... and they come with more ram, more resolution, and a usable OS!

Re:it requires a contract but...

[Anonymous Coward]

with a nice 2 year contract.

Re:it requires a contract but...

[richy freeway]

Pay as you Go!

£10 a month gets me 250 minutes of free any network calls, unlimited SMS and "unlimited" data. Calls or texts to someone on the same network are completely free and don't take anything from the allowance. They're just setting up automatic topups so it's as good as a contract but you can just cancel it whenever you like.

Re:it requires a contract but...

[h4rr4r]

Not for such an outdated device. Lots of those are free to good homes.

Re:it requires a contract but...

[richy freeway]

You don't get a phone with this deal, it's SIM only. But who hasn't got a half decent phone they're happy with anyway? The money I save I can just put towards a new phone when my HTC Desire finally gives up.

This will be awful

[Anonymous Coward]

The VIA8505 SoC is a AWFUL chip. I have a tablet based one of these running Android and it SUCKS.

Maybe the editors could actually read submissions?

[mykepredko]

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

VIA 8505 is a Pentium?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Someone should probably tell Intel; Their legal dept might be interested.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

[julesh]

... 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.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, you're absolutely correct. I'm surprised I had to scroll so far down to see the first comment that actually mentions it. It should have been the first and last comment on this story...

And it's nothing new, either - Chinese have been making cheap crap ARM "netbooks" running WinCE for many years now.

The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[evorster]

I might be showing my age a little here, but I remember 640kb being enough for an OS, and windows 95 comfortably fit in 16mb of ram a few years later.
Provided that you are not running a resource-hungry OS, and your applications have been coded properly, this netbook should run just fine.
If you want more serious performance/power, you have to pay serious money. As always, you get what you pay for!

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[ColdWetDog]

Ahh grasshopper. You must be new here.

I remember when it was 64K (sixty four thousand) for the OS. And we liked it.

Floppy disks.
300 baud modems.
80 x 25 character screens.
Patching Wordstar with a hex editor.

50 cent per gallon gasoline.
Bell bottoms.

Sex.

You kids don't realize how good things are.

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[evorster]

Yup, I heard stories of the hippie days from the old timers.
Sounds like a much happier time, too. When & why did we lose out on that?

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[PReDiToR]

You're standing on my grass-covered escarpment youngster.
I'm going to get out-grey-bearded for sure, but at least I can get my toe in.

MODEMs? We used to call them acoustic couplers and that was only because we'd seen them at a distance.
Our computers had 1KB of RAM (about a page of A4) to run programs in and the OS was in a chip. The Z80 CPU was always considered modern, every time a new microcomputer with it in came out.

I never asked what specs my wooden Atari games machine had ...

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[jimicus]

64K? We had 32K, and most of that was reserved for other things so we couldn't actually use it.

And as for floppy disks! We used to dream of floppy disks! We had to plug our dad's cassette player into the computer to load software!

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[0123456]

64K? We had 32K, and most of that was reserved for other things so we couldn't actually use it.

32k? We had 1k and most of that was used by the OS and the video RAM.

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[TheCRAIGGERS]

I'm not sure exactly (and I wasn't around then, so take this with salt) but I think it probably had something to do with the populace being convinced that we needed stuff.

Why should love be free if you could turn a profit instead?

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[TheCRAIGGERS]

64K? We had 32K, and most of that was reserved for other things so we couldn't actually use it.

32k? We had 1k and most of that was used by the OS and the video RAM.

1k? We just had an infinitely long roll of tape.

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[jones_supa]

windows 95 comfortably fit in 16mb of ram a few years later.

Not comfortably really. I had Win95 with 16MB and, unless you ran anything else than just the OS itself, it swapped like an animal. Maybe my installation was a bit bloated too, but still.

Although what every time comes up in my mind is a Slashdot message from maybe 5 years ago, where someone run 95 on a modern CPU. The core components of the OS could fit in the processor cache (maybe 4 megs or so), and he had some method to pull out the RAM out from the live system, after which the system ran happily for a while if you didn't do much. If someone can assist locating that post, it'd be awesome...

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, I'm old, so not sure if I remember it correctly, but there where times we programmed alone with 0s and 1s.
Somerimes we not even had 1s :-/

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[highphilosopher]

64K? We had 32K, and most of that was reserved for other things so we couldn't actually use it.

32k? We had 1k and most of that was used by the OS and the video RAM.

1k? We just had an infinitely long roll of tape.

Long roll of tape?!?!?

One word... Abacus!

Re:The specs are reasonable, for the price.

[mcgrew]

Sounds like a much happier time, too. When & why did we lose out on that?

Ronald and Nancy Reagan and their war on pot that they called the "war on drugs" (but pot was targeted, the supply dried up and the prices rose and a lot of folks started snorting cocaine instead). That, and AIDS. After antibiotics and before AIDS there were no fatal STDs. Hippies switching from pot to coke made them stop being hippies and start being evil yuppies. Nowadays the folks who look like hippies usually aren't, they're usually homeless crackheads; selfish and sociopathic, cocaine will do that to a person..

But not many of us had computers then, the Altair wasn't out intil 1974, the Commodore Pet was sometime toward the end of the '70s. In the seventies, computer gaming meant playing Space Invaders and Pac Man at the arcade. Or maybe pong on the TV.

The downside of the seventies was inflation coupled with a bad recession. It would have been great if it weren't for the Arab oil embargo of 1974, which (coupled with paying for the Vietnam War) sucked everybody's wallets dry.

Battery

[Dan East]

Cheap mobile devices like these (including cheap portable DVD players) save money by skimping on batteries and going with NiMH instead of Lithium Ion. I would be surprised if this netbook could run for two hours off of its batteries.

Re:Battery

[Lumpy]

Why cant they skimp more and make it a feature. use 6 AA batteries. LET the buyer go out and get his own batteries. That way it adds a significant amount of useful to the thing. Plus all the survivalist nuts would be all over it.

Re:Battery

[chispito]

Why cant they skimp more and make it a feature. use 6 AA batteries. LET the buyer go out and get his own batteries. That way it adds a significant amount of useful to the thing. Plus all the survivalist nuts would be all over it.

Because if there's one thing you need to survive, it's a crappy laptop.

Re:Battery

[Lumpy]

Well the moron survivalists think a Big 4X4 and guns = survival... Yet not one of them know how to dig a proper privy or how to farm land.

Re:Battery

[tilante]

That's because their plan is to use those guns to intimidate others into digging privies and farming *for* them.

What year is it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

2009?

What part of this is news?

Re:What year is it again?

[oodaloop]

I was wondering if anyone else noticed this. The article is dated from June 15 2009. Is that a typo, and should read June 15 2012? If not, this is pretty old, even by slashdot standards.

Re:What year is it again?

[uigrad_2000]

The date is incorrect. The ebay auction referenced in the article was originally posted June 7, 2012.

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!

No Just No

[Fallingwater]

WonderMedia WMwhatever processors are INCREDIBLY slow. I have a tablet powered by a WM8650, which is the improved version of he WM8505 the article talks about, and you're always waiting on the CPU to slowly do its thing - both on Android and Debian. It also has 256 megs of RAM, which is about a fourth of what you need for proper general computing nowadays. And this one has even less.
The WM8505 might be ok for embedded stuff, but as a CPU for general computing, especially with such little RAM and *especially* if it's running Windows, it's really worse than nothing - at least with nothing you go do something else, instead of twiddling your fingers while you wait for the damn thing to display a webpage or something.

Could be an intersting device.

[wvmarle]

Interesting, and inbelievably cheap - not just becasue of the Windows license fee; no idea how much they pay for that. It's Windows CE so linking to the normal Win7 retail prices doesn't make sense.

OS: Windows CE. Never worked with that, no idea on the interface. Should include a browser, assume IE. But what version for WinCE?

Storage: not mentioned. Is this a "true" netbook as in can only do web browsing and web apps? Price could imply no local storage indeed, other than for the embedded OS. The ebay listing has no details at all. They are selling, shipping US only.

Install other OS? Well if no external storage, good luck with that.

Install applications? No mention about this. No external storage could be an issue there.

Form factor looks like the EEEPC 701 series, that's not too bad. It has a higher screen resolution. I like the overall idea. I'm still regularly using that EEEPC, almost exclusively for web browsing. It's sitting on the dining table, quick to grab, small enough to not be in the way too much, light enough to move around with one hand.

what happened to the netbook market?

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago, newegg listed several hundred types of netbooks. I bought one for $275 that has a 12 inch screen, full sized keyboard, and 1300x768 screen, and 64 bit CPU. It's fast enough to run things like LibreOffice no problem.

Now? The only netbooks I see listed have tiny 1024x600 resolution, are 10 inch with reduced size keyboards, and have less memory. To get a machine comparable to the one I bought, I need to look at laptops, and the cheapest ones with those specs seem to be about $500.

So I have to pay almost twice the price now for the same kind of machine. It seems like most mfgs stopped making good netbooks for some reason. No, a tablet isn't a replacement for my netbook - it doesn't have a keyboard and probably won't run my x64 based Linux distro.

What happened?

Re:what happened to the netbook market?

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Laptop sales declined by the amount that netbook sales increased. Laptops are more profitable than netbooks. At least, that's my assumption.

Re:what happened to the netbook market?

[jythie]

More likely smartphones and tablets filled much (but not all) of the consumer demand that netbooks were intended to address, so the market for them shrunk rapidly. It is also possible manufacturers were overly enthusiastic and flooded a market that didn't have the capacity for them in the first place.

If it was simply 'we stopped making them because laptops are more profitable and netbooks were doing too well' then whichever manufacturer continued to supply netbooks would have made a killing. Companies stop making things when there isn't enough demand to justify the cost (though, of course, marketing miscalculations and group-think can scramble things).

Re:what happened to the netbook market?

[0123456]

What happened? The iPad happened. Customers are shifting away from PCs of all types as the move to mobile computing accelerates.

I'll believe that when someone I know buys a tablet. I've seen a few people using them, but I've seen hundreds of times as many people using desktop PCs and laptops.

Re:what happened to the netbook market?

[toddestan]

Basically what happened is that Microsoft offers up cheap Windows Starter licenses for netbooks. Because of this, they have to define exactly what and what is not a "netbook" and they define a netbook as a bunch of maximum specifications (no more than this much ram, the screen must be this size or smaller, etc.) - exceed any of them and then its a laptop and therefore the Windows license becomes more expensive. Because of this the whole netbook market is stuck in a time warp where nothing seems to be changing.

In case it's not obvious, a netbook can't have more than 1GB of ram and no more than a 10" screen, amongst other things. Sure, you'll see some that don't follow that, but they either run Windows Home Premium and cost more or are Chromebooks.

Can't wait to see so-called "gamers" buy this

[GerbilSoft]

From the article:

Powered by a Pentium processor

Processsor Type: VIA 8505

Not only did they get the company wrong, it's not even x86 architecture. VIA 8505 is ARM-based. This isn't even including the fact that it runs Windows CE (aka Windows Embedded Compact), so standard Win32 programs wouldn't run on it, even if compiled for ARM.

Re:Can't wait to see so-called "gamers" buy this

[GerbilSoft]

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

Re:Maybe the editors could actually read submissio

[Anonymous Coward]

I could probably find someone throwing out computers with specs like that and get it for $0.

Not "Windows" in any meaningful sense

[JDG1980]

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.

Re:Not "Windows" in any meaningful sense

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

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.

Re:Not "Windows" in any meaningful sense

[KiloByte]

this netbook doesn't have an x86 processor, it can't run the real version of Windows

So try this: install Debian (if on Android or Maemo, possibly in a chroot), grab the new multiarchized versions of wine that just hit unstable, install qemu-user. Way too slow for modern bloatware, but you can run 95/98 era software adequately.

Re:Not "Windows" in any meaningful sense

[eclectro]

The problem with a lot of these low end Android devices is that they can't run Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich).

It's a netbook, not a laptop

[thisisfutile]

I never would have read this if it said, "$45 dollar Windows Netbook".

$1200 is not a good price

[Viol8]

I don't frankly care if something is 0.68 inches or 0.71 inches thick. Nor wether it has 1400 resolution which I won't be using anyway. What I do care about is an optical drive, plenty of USB slots and an ethernet port so I don't have to rely on shit Wifi reception when in an office or at home and can use a high speed cable instead.

Oh , but it doesn't have that.

Ultrabooks in general and Mac laptops specifically are nothing more than vanity machines for people with more money than sense.

Mod me down apple fanboys, I care not and I have karma to burn.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[UnknowingFool]

See the problem is that Apple doesn't make a Mac for your needs and specs and price. They do sell millions to customers each quarter that fulfills their needs as some people want an Ultrabook. I would venture to say that few of them judge you while you judge them.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Viol8]

"You don't care about screen res but you do care about an optical drive?"

I do care about screen res , but not when it makes the pixels so tiny that they're almost invisible and can't be distinguised from a lower resolution but cost a hell of a lot more.

As for optical drives I fail to see the connection - I don't see why I should have to buy a separate drive just do I can install boxed software.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I feel so guilty judging people on a forum.

Well you shouldn't feel guilty, but maybe you should feel a bit stupid because you destroy your whole argument by judging that the (millions) of people who buy MacBook Airs are vain and have more money than sense, whereas *you* obviously are the voice of sensibleness. You imply that all the reasons *you* have for liking a laptop are inherently superior to those who don't agree with you.

Ok. We get it. You don't want a mac. Fair enough. Why attack those people who *do* want one? Are they forcing you to buy one?

It used to be true that MacBooks were more expensive than *feature-equivalent* PC Laptops. That's arguably untrue nowadays, which is what the OP was saying, so now you decide if you want those features or not.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[UnknowingFool]

I have a full laptop. It weighs 5+ lbs. It has cheap plastic pieces that are falling off that I've taped back together. I can afford a new unibody Ultrabook if I wanted. I just don't want one because I'm cheap and my laptop will die before I replace it. Unlike you, I realize that my needs and wants != everyone else in the world. Why does it threaten you so much that other people choose differently than you? Someone wanting to buy Jimmy Choos does not hamper my ability to purchase New Balance sneakers.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Eivind Eklund]

"They do sell millions to customers each quarter that fulfills their needs as some people want an Ultrabook"

Of course some people want them - the same way some people want a pair of Jimmy Choos when a $50 pair of shoes would do the same job. Its a fashion item for rich fashion victims. Most people who buy an ultrabook probably couldn't even spell ethernet port much less tell you what one is. But its sooo shiny and sleak and preeeetty .... *drool*

"I would venture to say that few of them judge you while you judge them."

Oh I feel so guilty judging people on a forum. Whatever next, subjective opinions?

I know a bunch of people that has these, all of which can deal with networks fairly well (including one who wrote one of the first major books on IPv6, almost a decade ago.)

They've got different priorities than you and me, but they clearly know what they are getting and do a conscious choice around it. My laptops are a MacBook Pro for work and a Lenovo for home use; I prefer the increased memory and screen size on the MacBook Pro compared to the easier-to-carry form factor of the ultralights. I'll probably switch from the Lenovo to a Mac Book Pro for my next home machine; the ergonomics of the hardware on the Lenovo is a bit clunky compared to the MacBook Pro. 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'm happy that it looks a less clunky as well, but that's not something I'd pay extra for, or I'd not have gotten the Lenovo in the first place.)

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't frankly care if something is 2 inches or 2.5 inches thick. Nor wether it has 800 resolution which I won't be using anyway. What I do care about is a floppy disk drive, plenty of serial ports and an a dial-up modem so I don't have to rely on shit dongles when in an office or at home.

Oh , but it doesn't have that.

Laptops in general are nothing more than vanity machines for people with more money than sense.

Mod me down fanboys, I care not and I have karma to burn.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[nucrash]

I don't frankly care if something is 0.68 inches or 0.71 inches thick. Nor wether it has 1400 resolution which I won't be using anyway. What I do care about is an optical drive, plenty of USB slots and an ethernet port so I don't have to rely on shit Wifi reception when in an office or at home and can use a high speed cable instead.

Oh , but it doesn't have that.

Ultrabooks in general and Mac laptops specifically are nothing more than vanity machines for people with more money than sense.

Mod me down apple fanboys, I care not and I have karma to burn.

It's like this. My MBA has a 128 GB disk, I don't care to actually do any heavy lifting with it. I just want a laptop that takes a couple seconds to boot and only a second or two more to reboot. I have a Lenovo W520 for my heavy lifting from MCAD to Gaming. My MBA is for IRC, Rosetta, Browsing, MS Office, light multimedia work, playing videos when I am bored, at the most, some Minecraft. I don't use it for transferring GB of data unless I am syncing up my iPod and usually I do that from another machine. I might keep a couple videos on there, but I have an external hard drive for most of that. I don't care to pull down something high quality only to push it away. My W520 has a slightly higher resolution which I use since I work with MCAD on it. If I create work instructions on the MBA, having the 1400x900 screen is handy. Honestly though, my MBA has battery life to burn, slides into my laptop bag taking up very little extra room so I can actually put both the Lenovo and that laptop together. I have had my MBA long before Ultrabooks hit the market. The sales guys who bring in demos on their ultrabooks are running well before someone with a full fledged laptop. They are quick and nimble as they need to be. Vanity may be the case, but when you need a laptop with good resolution, quick response time for lighter tasks, an ultrabook or a Macbook Air is going to be your better bet. Are they for everyone? Definitely not, but are they for people like me trying to do more than a couple of light tasks quickly and not wanting to hunt down where to plug in first thing when I get on site.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Missing.Matter]

I've bought a couple computers in the past that don't have optical drives, and they all come with external drives to make up for it. Apple seems to be the only one who won't go that route.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[mastermind7373]

While such a high DPI looks great, there was this disconnect in the selection of a GPU. A 650M is capable of driving the Compositing of the desktop and that is about it. When it comes to shader processing on such a high number of fragments, the user will suffer. Granted, Apple has NEVER been known for giving a singular crap about gaming, but I feel they could have done a LITTLE better for the price.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Bert64]

If you want to be tethered to an ethernet cable and clunky optical media, why have a laptop at all? Just have a desktop...

My laptop has optical media and ethernet, i haven't used either in a ridiculously long time.

Unless you are doing a lot of LAN transfers or have an exceptionally fast internet connection, wireless is more than sufficient. If you really must have ethernet, a small dongle isn't the end of the world because you're already resigned to having a cable hanging out the side anyway.

I would rather not have an optical drive at all, it takes a significant amount of space and adds weight...

Screen resolution on the other hand is very important, the higher the better. The reason i have a somewhat large laptop is due to the screen resolution, and that's also why i have an optical drive because all the laptops with this screen res had one.

What exactly do you use an optical drive for these days? Most modern machines can boot from the network or a usb device, compared to optical media large capacity usb devices are considerably faster, more convenient and offer random read/write. The only time i've burned a CD recently, was to boot a legacy piece of hardware.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Bert64]

You aren't supposed to be able to see individual pixels, the idea is that things look smoother and more detailed. If you can't see the improved level of detail perhaps you should see an optician?

Why would you want to install boxed software? The Internet is so much more convenient, the idea of software coming in a box is ridiculous and outdated... Whenever i see someone installing software from physical media they immediately have to go and download a huge amount of updates anyway.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[mcgrew]

An ethernet port? My notebook has one, but I've never used it. The wifi works perfectly well (hard to imagine that my little Cisco router is better than your employer's), and if I want to be chained to a wall or use an optical drive, I'll use the desktop computer. I have to agree with the USB ports, though -- the more, the better. Macbook's two ports aren't enough by a long shot.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[angel'o'sphere]

So, you are a windowsuser who is reinstalling his OS in regular intervalls because somerhing magically stopped working?
The only situation I use m dvd/cd drive is when I got a friends dvd/cd and we both where to lazy to transfer the data via wlan. Well, and when I rip one of my old CDs ...

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[N!k0N]

Until such time that companies will host games *forever* on their servers, I'm still wary of going the digital-only route. Sure, I'm probably "never" going to re-install some games ... but then again, in the midst of cleaning up the room I've done the "oh, hey, wow, I haven't played this in forever" thing, and subsequently completely forgotten about the "cleaning" thing to deal with zergling rushes or something equally annoying.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[angel'o'sphere]

Most people buying a new Mac have an old one, with an optical drive.
On Macs itbis super easy to share an optical drive remotely.
E.g. when I need to install a Cd on my Mac mini, I VNC into it, put the CD into my laptop (from which I'm using VNC) and it mounts on the mini (you know what mount means, or?)
With about 4 decade old Apple Laptops in my house I doubt I will run out of optical drives soon.

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.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[aztracker1]

I paid about a $200 premium for my MBP about 2.5 years ago mainly for the case design and better trackpad... Put a 160GB SSD in it before the first boot, and it's been doing well ever since... I run a Linux and Windows under VMWare and both work fine, though with the windows vm it kills my battery life.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Score Whore]

I have one of these and I installed boot camp. Once booted into windows and installing all the drivers, I find that it plays the games I want to play just fine. Supreme Commander runs O.K. at 2880x1800 and runs well at lower resolutions. Quake 3 runs absurdly well (700 FPS @ 2048x1536, trilinear filtering, etc.)

I know these are old games, but to suggest that it's completely inadequate is dishonest. It's about half the speed of a GeForce 560ti. Which is actually pretty good for a laptop.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[painandgreed]

I don't frankly care if something is 2 inches or 2.5 inches thick. Nor wether it has 800 resolution which I won't be using anyway. What I do care about is a floppy disk drive, plenty of serial ports and an a dial-up modem so I don't have to rely on shit dongles when in an office or at home.

Oh , but it doesn't have that.

Laptops in general are nothing more than vanity machines for people with more money than sense.

Mod me down fanboys, I care not and I have karma to burn.

Ah, I see. You're a server admin. I've had quite a few of those come in (I do corporate desktop support.) and trade me their brand new laptop for a much, much older one with serial ports as that's the only way to admin many of their servers and other equipment. So long as it runs a command shell and has serial ports, they're all good.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[mastermind7373]

I was specifically targeting new games. OS X has always been a few years behind on most titles that are ported except mainly Starcraft 2. Obviously, with boot camp, this can be dodged, but it doesn't change the fact that even the GPU is a few years behind in the quality vs price ratio. It's pretty good for a laptop with a 1680x1050 resolution screen, it's a terrible idea for a 2880x1800 resolution screen. Both Supreme Commander 2 and Quake 3 are absurdly old. Both have little in the way of shader content, relying mostly on polygon fill rate and texture fill rate. This is sounding strangely similar to Apple's phone and tablet series.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Pezbian]

So, you are a windowsuser who is reinstalling his OS in regular intervalls because somerhing magically stopped working?

The year 2000 called. Ja. Says it wants its joke back.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Viol8]

"Why would you want to install boxed software? The Internet is so much more convenient, the idea of software coming in a box is ridiculous and outdated... "

What a crock of sh1t. You're living in a fantasy world wih 1gbs connection speeds my friend.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Bert64]

Just how big is the software you're downloading?
Even on a relatively slow internet connection you can download anything that isn't insanely huge faster than you can drive to a store and back, and then mail order is even slower.

If you are on an exceptionally slow connection, it's still usually far more convenient to take a usb stick to somewhere that isn't than have to deal with unwieldy optical media.

What proportion of people do you think download the likes of firefox or libreoffice vs getting it on cd?

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[Bert64]

So the problem is DRM and restrictive distribution rather than the digital-only aspect...

If you download a game, there should be no reason why you can't back it up to other media, and a portable usb hdd is far more convenient than a pile of optical media.

There is no guarantee that a game you found while cleaning your room will still be readable, then what?

Speaking of games being available "forever", i actually have a boxed copy of quake in the attic, but aside from the data files the original cd contains a very old version of quake for dos which is pretty useless. If i want to actually play this, i have to download updated binaries for it anyway.

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[scot4875]

I would rather not have an optical drive at all, it takes a significant amount of space and adds weight...

I love the weight argument people make to rationalize their purchase of overpriced toys, as if saving 0.1lb is going to make a big difference. It's like everyone is packing these things for long backpacking trips where every ounce and cubic inch is significant.

--Jeremy

Re:$1200 is not a good price

[benhattman]

Mod me down fanboys, I care not and I have karma to burn.

Quite sporting of you Mr. Anonymous Coward.

12" is a laptop

[tepples]

I bought one for $275 that has a 12 inch screen, full sized keyboard, and 1300x768 screen, and 64 bit CPU.

That's a laptop.

The only netbooks I see listed have tiny 1024x600 resolution, are 10 inch with reduced size keyboards

I thought one of the defining characteristics of a netbook was a smaller screen. But most of these newer 10" laptops appear to support 64-bit instructions.

Re:12" is a laptop

[DragonWriter]

I thought one of the defining characteristics of a netbook was a smaller screen.

"Smaller" compared to the high-end for laptops yes, but the high end for WinXP netbooks was 12.1" (due to Windows XP Home UItra-Low Cost PC licensing limitations from Microsoft); the defining features were generally those smaller screens, network or peripheral dependence for loading software (due to lack of a built-in optical drive), and network or peripheral dependence for large data storage (due to small onboard HDD or even smaller SSD as the main mass storage unit) -- those last two features are the key defining features from which the "netbook" gets its name.

Now, netbooks feature 10.2" or smaller screens because of Microsoft Windows 7 Starter licensing arrangements, which make that version of Windows (and its low-cost license) only available for computers with certain specifications, including 10.2" or smaller screens.

Re:Maybe the editors could actually read submissio

[wed128]

Did you time travel from a point in the past where /. editors did read the submissions?

We all did. We traveled at 1 Day/Day. We haven't figured out how to go at any other speed, that's all.

Well-founded arguments need precise definitions

[tepples]

If you're going to make a distinction between two product classes, you're going to need to tell us how you define the difference so that the debate doesn't collapse. As a first approximation, I define a laptop as a computer with a built-in keyboard suitable for touch typing and a screen that folds down to cover the keyboard when not in use, and I define a netbook as a laptop with a small screen.

Re:Well-founded arguments need precise definitions

[thisisfutile]

Laptop and notebook have been synonymous for a long time and therefore when I see laptop I interchange it with notebook. A netbook, like you state, is small but it's also limited in what it can do compared to laptops/notebooks and therefore the price will be smaller compared to a laptop/notebook.

This is not new, they used to be $99

[davydagger]

and utter crap. ARM class CPU is locked to windows CE. the specs if I recall are a 350mhz cpu, 128 mb of ram, 4-8 Gb storage, USB 1.1, and a useless 800x480 display. Utterly worthless. I tried researching instructions for installing linux, not easy. All for trash grade hardware. If you did want a slick arm based netbook try: https://www.genesi-usa.com/

Windows CE == crap, laptop too slow for video

[Blaskowicz]

a friend got a "netbook" with the same hardware, windows CE 6.0. a "Tec T-book". All software outdated, very few of it (wordpad, calculator and that's all), no apparent way to install software - you can browse web archives for old PDA software meant to run on resolutions below 320x240, but what to do with it?

then, the CPU is too slow for smooth playback of SD divx. you can probably play mp3, but on a lame version of windows media player, I prefer a winamp clone. Internet Explorer on it is like browsing with a 486 under windows 3.1. There's was a youtube app! but it was broken, hard-wired to how youtube was a few years ago, it couldn't load or display anything.

it's a total rip off and my friend had paid 79 euros for this. but interestingly, it has better connectivity that a macbook air : three USB, two audio jacks, SD and ethernet! purportedly you can install Android 1.x on it. too bad my buddy got it stolen, I would have tried to do it, and install busybox or something. it can be interesting for a machine only used to ssh in other machines.

now the best about it : it's incredibly light, solid state and fanless. its keyboard and LCD are standard quality - because they are no factories making terrible versions of them. so the display, helped by its small size looked excellent. So, it was both the worst computer ever and had something to it! I noticed a remotely similar computer : Efila MX smartbook, it's 189 euros but has 10", 800MHz ARM cortex, 3G modem, 512MB memory, 16GB flash, good keyboard. It looks awesome and thin, but you lose the ethernet port which is a tragedy.

Re:Windows CE == crap, laptop too slow for video

[DNS-and-BIND]

Browsing on a 486 running Windows 3.1 was snappy and responsive. I know, I had one.

Re:Windows CE == crap, laptop too slow for video

[OrangeTide]

Ignoring the fact that those webpages were optimized to be tolerable over dial-up.

Re:Windows CE == crap, laptop too slow for video

[DNS-and-BIND]

They weren't "optimized", they were small to begin with.

Add linux or android...

[ilikenwf]

And the price will come down another $10-20...

Re:Add linux or android...

[WindBourne]

No, it will not. All windows systems are currently subsidized by MS. This system is obviously very heavily subsidized. My guess is that MS is paying about 100-150 to try and get ppl hooked on it.

Comparing Apples to Oranges

[geekmux]

"...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.

You're still waiting for a $50 Macbook? I'm still waiting for anyone to actually call that $45 mess a functional computer. 128 megs of RAM would hardly run the (very necessary) anti-virus software for Windows.

Re:Comparing Apples to Oranges

[Teun]

This thing can't run malware for the life of it, there's just not enough RAM :)

$50 tablets

[DrXym]

Alibaba is filled with cheap tablets and they're actually not that bad, many boasting 1.2GHZ ARM processors, 512-1024MB RAM, 4+GB storage. They don't run Windows but they run Android 4.0 or Ubuntu at 800x400. Buy a $10 leather case and keyboard and you essentially have a laptop with a 4 hour battery life.

This isn't a 'Laptop'

[MacGyver2210]

Nobody would consider this heap a laptop.

It looks like they took the guts of a 7" tablet, moved the touchscreen to a touchpad, added a crap keyboard and Win7 Embedded(lol), and sold it for as little as physically possible.

128MB ram is abysmal. You can't get anything done with that, and even my Firefox routinely goes above that by almost double when working with a lot of sites at once, or streaming video, or using any sort of complex web app.

Good luck with that, bros. I'm not getting one.

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[account_deleted]

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MacBook height savings: $6,600/inch

[klubar]

Although you correctly point out that the MacBook Air is 5% thinner, you left off that it is 20% more expensive. The cost per inch to save those 0.03 inches is more than $6,500.

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A netbook is and isn't limited

[tepples]

A netbook, like you state, is small but it's also limited in what it can do compared to laptops/notebooks

Limited in what way? A netbook's Atom CPU is comparable in speed to a similarly clocked Pentium 4, and in fact, early Atoms used P4 chipsets. It's "limited" in the sense that I wouldn't recommend a P4 for high-definition video editing or for playing recent PC games.

But unlike (say) an iPad with a keyboard, an x86 netbook is not "limited" as to what kind of applications one can run. I've got Xubuntu on my Inspiron mini 1012, and if I want to add applications from a third-party PPA, I can. If I want to sudo apt-get install build-essential libsdl-image1.2-dev and compile an application from source, I can. If I want to sudo apt-get install fceux and run free NES games, I can. And if I want to compile a 6502 assembler and PNG to NES image converter from source and make and test homemade NES games on a netbook, I can and I do.

There has to be a better term for a machine on which one can reasonably run a compiler (such as my netbook) vs. a machine on which one can't (such as the CE netbook described in the article).

Re:And I think that's about it.

[asylumx]

Can I have your stuff?

India is full of sheit.

[cellurl]

Bunch of blowhards shouting at the media, hoping to get venture attention.
I signed up for a $100 Indian tablet or whatever. Never heard any more. Live and learn.

Help eliminate traffic tickets

A $50 MacBook?

[viperidaenz]

Sure, if a similar spec laptop sells for $20, the Apple version will be $50

Re:These laptops....

[viperidaenz]

My table doesn't have a CPU, its made of wood.

Windows CE

[Bert64]

This device is basically running a newer version of Windows CE, which is an entirely different and incompatible product...
All this device will do, is annoy users when they buy it and find they can't install their apps intended for regular x86 windows on it.

This device would have been MUCH better off running android or linux... Users would have no expectation of windows compatibility, would have far more software available and it would reduce the price further too.

Re: they used to be $99

[vandamme]

When they have their fire sale and they're $20, I might find a use for a couple if I can run Puppy on it.

not a real netbook

[peawormsworth]

I doubt this will be a "real" computer and more like a large smartphone like the current tablets are. I mean that you will not have complete control of the device and limited hardware and software functionality. I say this because microsoft will not sell their OS for less then this total cost.

Three years ago I purchase a netbook and immediately install Linux. I didnt both installing the attached windows OS in order to get my refund on the windows tax. I like the computer and advised a friend to buy one who was considering the same. However, after my friend purchased the computer and installed windows... he asked how to change the background. After a little searching, I found that windows wanted $50 or similar in order to upgrade the included OS just to change the desktop background. I felt this was outrageous. I knew windows was a weak operating system, but I didnt reallize they were further crippling their operating system in order to sell it with a cheap computer.

I dont know what embedded 7 really is... but I suspect it is entirely less then a real operating system and I also think this will be entirely less then a real computer. I think it will be similar in experience to a cell phone without the convenience of size and function of a phone.

Re:not a real netbook

[WorBlux]

Read the article, it is a real netbook (albiet ARM processor). Looks like a discontinued model being dumped for a bargain price. (100 normal retail)

I dont understand....

[hesaigo999ca]

How could this even be possible, the last I checked, Microsoft was not offering any windows version under 100$, and with this, you get the pc as well???
I imagine the price of the windows is not incorporated into the price tag, ey?

Re:Efika MX is a nice machine

[davydagger]

can you get youtube/video sties working with gnash/html5???

thats the real question?

Re: they used to be $99

[davydagger]

read, you'll spend so much time working to get linux running, you're better off with a rasberry PI, or other cheap low end ARM/MIPS device with proven linux support. It wouldn't be worth anything if they gave them away for free.

edit: hardware specs are comparable to a motorola razr v3 or similar p2k OS moto phones.