A new laptop computer for just £99 sounds like the kind of offer found in a spam e-mail or on a dodgy auction website. But the British company Elonex is launching the country’s first sub £100 computer later this month and hopes to be making 200,000 of them by the summer. It will be aimed at schoolchildren and teenagers, and looks set to throw the market for budget laptops wide open.
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motters
16 years 9 weeks 1 day 6 hours ago
Cheap as chips
It will be interesting to see what happens with this. Effectively it means that a low end laptop will be cheaper than many PDAs.
digitante
16 years 9 weeks 19 hours 59 min ago
I find it ironic that this
I find it ironic that this article chooses "lack of support" as a "problem" of open source software. It shows some real cluelessness on the part of the London Times to not realize the irony there.
Given that proprietary software developers see support as a cash-sink and a dumping ground, and spend as little on it as possible, it seems pretty ironic that they still manage to snow people that their support is worth anything.
Meanwhile, I take it as writ that "open source" (or "free software") means "I can get support" -- from the mailing lists, forums, or whatever. Open source software lives and breathes "support" (precisely because the user community is what makes it go).
In other words, the real situation is precisely the other way around, as far as I can see.
OTOH, this is a high-profile mainstream coverage of a free software based product, so we should probably be happy about that!
crimperman
16 years 7 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago
Uses for low-end laptops
I find the burgeoning market for these kinds of devices interesting. For us (a charity) the advantage of such a device is perhaps an obvious one but it's not cost that interests me.
I have a number of users who travel maybe three of four times a year. Often they request a laptop to do some "work" on the train[1] and just as often they request one with a data projector to give a presentation in classroom-type environments. A device like this - coupled with a low-end projector - would mean I have a "loan" device which is more than capable and won't break their arm when they transport it.
Until now I had been seriously considering the EEEpc but this one - cheaper, "tough"[2] and free - too good to be true?
[1] My experience of watching people "work" on trains is that a great deal seem to be employed as solitaire testers. :o)
[2] From the press release:
"The ONE is ultra portable, weighing in at less than a kilo. Its small form factor means that it easily slips into a school bag whilst still having a fully qwerty keyboard. Its battery pack gives around 3 hours of use, in the classroom, playground, on the bus or just at home; the ONE lets you bring your digital world with
you wherever you go. With a hard-wearing case, flash based hard drive and no moving components the ONE is designed to withstand the rigours of use by children."