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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.

8 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. "I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook." by tripleevenfall · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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

    1. Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook." by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 5, Funny

      "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.

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    2. Re:"I'm still waiting for my under $50 Macbook." by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

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

    This is an eBay sale of a discontinued netbook.

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

    Nothing new or interesting here,

    myke

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Re:Lol... by CubicleZombie · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

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