Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Generalist, Spokane WA — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:21:27 GMT

Something this low cost would work for me outdoors, on the road and on the bus. While I wouldn't be doing heavy processing on it, I would be able to access the Internet and do simple word processing.

I would definitely consider one or more as 'throw away' mobile computing, the type that you don't worry about much if the machine is stolen or damaged.

I would, however, like to have some sort of non-grid based charger so I don't have to be near an electrical outlet when the batteries die.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Hami, Miami — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:43:11 GMT

Why would you spend $400 on this when you can get a real fullblown laptop at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc for $479: Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core mobile processor T2310; 1GB DDR2 memory; DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; Labelflash support; 15.4" widescreen; 120GB hard drive; Windows Vista Home Premium

If you look you can even get deals under $400. It looks cool, but let's be realistic.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

john doe — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 01:57:06 GMT

i'd probably get it because i already have a thinkpad and don't wanna get a crappy $479 laptop from best buy..

just want something quick and simple for the couch or car or travel..

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Jon Doe, Austin Texas — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:39:59 GMT

I agree that this is nice and "cute", but a full blown laptop for about $50 dollars more is a much better deal.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Fred, La Crosse, WI — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:21:56 GMT

I just found out that pro-Linux comments on a Microsoft site are not approved....BTW, Suse 10.3 is great. I'm outta here!

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

John Doe, Seattle, Wash. — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 09:36:07 GMT

This weights ~2 pounds. Your full-blown laptop is probably around 6 pounds.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Carbolic — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:41:34 GMT

Waht Hami, Miami said. Reviewers need to be more in touch with real world retail pricing and what's actaully selling. For most students it's not the $1000+ notebooks, it's the Best Buy and Circuit City rebate deals for $400 to $600. Bang for the buck-wise, for $ 400 vs what you can get everday after rebate, that machine is not much of a deal at all.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Charles The Military Eye Doc — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 16:18:27 GMT

The price-point is not that amazing. Here we have an operating system which cost the manufacturer nothing, 3 hour battery life (not that amazing given its small size and small processing power) and very limited storage space. Does anybody remember the IBM WorkPad Z-50 from 1998? Same idea- no hard drive, 10" low-res screen and relativel barebones. Seems like this modern interpretation from Asus is a little late to the party and is not packing what the modern world needs. I'd hold out for a better small-form factor laptop.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

M J Brandt, Boston, MA — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:23:20 GMT

Where can I get one? My usual dealer said they were not being sold in the US.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Kekoa, Honolulu — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:40:14 GMT

Recent Best Buy sale - Toshiba Satellite A135-S4656, Celeron M, 512MB RAM, 80GB HD, yada yada $399. Not as good as $479 deal mentioned above but I needed FireWire port for camcorder connect and this was the cheapest laptop with this port. Eee at $300-$400 is not a breakthrough. Needs to be under $200.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Walt, New London, CT — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:40:47 GMT

Just an overgrown, wireless iPod, with much less storage space (1.4GB?!). This unit, for $400, doesn't do anything! Simply another repository for music and photos. Duh! Built-in camera (specifications/quality?) and microphone. So what? This unit doesn't even have a CD/DVD player! So how does one EASILY get CD music transferred? How does one watch DVD movies on the road? This is NOT a personal computer. In fact, it's not even personal.
Thanks Gary, another stellar ad, and less than stellar review.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Max, Oklahoma City — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:32:15 GMT

Hami... good point! i guess they are the same people who spent 600 for iPhone when they can do most of the functions using a BlackJack for $99. I guess it just makes them look "In".

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

John, Los Angeles — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:51:39 GMT

Hami, you can't pull out a $479 "real fullblown laptop" and do stuff while waiting in a line (without looking like an obnoxious dork).

Solid state drive, reasonably sized LCD and keyboard, sounds like a winner to me. So what's the problem?

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Chad — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:54:20 GMT

I agree with Hami. I just got a nice Dell with a wide screen, full sized keyboard, 2 gigs of ram, etc. and it has a hard drive with a couple hundred gigs...

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Aminah Yaquin Carroll — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:39:30 GMT

This is such a sad timing article. Negroponte has brilliantly executed a concept in laptop computers for kids that permits ownership by an individual child, and all the creeativity and wempowerment that gives to a kid in the left behind besieged poor countries...instead of the ususal colonialist approach...Negroponte, founder and CEO of One Laptop Per Child has met with stonewalling at every level by the major computer conglomerates who seek to profit from bribing poor countries to utilize their approach that confines kids to library use (as if libraries are plentiful in the busht)

Such an approach as the big players offer appeals to the corrupt already privileged members of the moneyed elite in these struggling nations because it offers perks not to the child stake holders who can be transformed by having their own power network to the world even while living in a shanty, but to the users but to the powermongers who ar also decision makers.

Now One Laptop Per Child is about to have a fantastic promotion for its wonderfully designed and brilliantly implemented computer, in which for at least 12 days you get 2 computers for 399$ : one is sent to a child in a country you choose from Negroponte's list of initially targeted countires...and the other computer comes to you for a Christmas gift for the child or adult of your choice who can beneifrt from a portable rugged waterproof powerful GREEN laptop.

So i am sad that you choose to float this new major small child's competing computer at a time when Negroponte is eeking to have a succesful promotion of his terrific program to help REAL children who are the poorest of the poor....

Really shame on you for being a schill for social darwinism. Your timing is cruel.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Henry S, Dallas, TX — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:00:49 GMT

"Designed for third-world school children, the OLPC was supposed to cost just $100, although that price has increased to $200."

I believe that it was supposed to cost around $200 now and descrease to $100 over time. But the media is obsessed with wanting the project to fail...so they like to say it can't meet its promised price and promised date, even though none were ever promised. BTW, there is alot more to the OLPC than just costs, there are already computers already out there.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Steve Carlson, Kent, Ohio — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:08:31 GMT

I wish Aminah Carroll had put more emphsis on thefact that these PC's are waterproof and can survive very harsh use. They are impervious to dirt, dust and hard knocks that would render some of the highly touted "bargains" mentioned above. As a matter of fact they could easily survive the conditions found in our urban slums, reservations and even the conditions faced by the all to many children of homeless families right here in the good old USA.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Jeff Davis, Corinth, Mississippi — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:50:48 GMT

A friend at work just bought an Acer laptop at Walmart... $349
15" Glossy screen, 1GB ram, 80GB HD, 1.3GHz Celeron, Windows Vista Home. She had me open the box and check it out, very nice I must say, so why would I want something I couldn't type on with my fat fingers while staring at a 7" screen?

Also figure the cost of this Acer vs the OLPC, I would bet that the cost of the Acer is a little over $100. If the Acer is a little more than $100, why is the OLPC $200?

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

bob horan,binghamton,new york — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 03:57:09 GMT

I believe these computers were meant for computing,not as entertainment devices.as such i'm sure they will do a good job.please note that i spelled all words correctly.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Ronnie — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 05:17:38 GMT

Micro Center (www.microcenter.com) just got it ... I bought one (for $399) today and love the size of the unit. I can do my GMail on it and so I don't have to worry about the storage size ... Gmail stores all my emails so storage size is not that much of an issue here ... It's great to carry around so small so tiny and so cute. Even my wife loves it and She is very hard to please when it comes to notebooks and technology.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Denny, Alaska — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 05:17:16 GMT

Wow, Gary, I don't think the masses are too impressed with your "highly recommended" recommendations!

Really, I think everyone who writes that, for $50-100 bucks more one can buy a laptop that's so much better than this Asus novelty is on to something. The "gee, look at this" factor of this smallish laptop will wear off quickly, I'm afraid.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

GL South Carolina — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 07:50:30 GMT

OKAY! Let's all wake up now!!! What is this one laptop per child REALLY all about? While opening some doors in education can be achieved. The bottom line is " I believe " just another early hook attempt to gain market share. Get um while their young! Sad, very sad! It's bad enough most of these children live on less then we spend on our daily coffee fix, but hey let's expose them to how REALLY poor they REALLY are! A nice dose of Paris or HipHop bling yeh, that's what they need. Remind them of the real world they live in. Why don't these rich do gooders simply offer up their money and time and stop trying to cash in on their next business deal hidden behind the curtain? Let's be real here, does a kid living in a cardboard shack eating out of a dumpster really need a laptop? The idea is simply nuts...

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Aminah Carroll — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:08:34 GMT

soryy about the typos i am extremely ill and do not have the skills to proof verywell at times.
If you think that OLPC is about market share, then you are so cynical that you ahven't even bothered to explore the project ...or you need a compassion paradigm shift in perspective.

Steve is right, these computers from the Negropote project can help homeless kids and kids on the reservations right here in USA.

once Bill Gates offered children a chance to win a computer ... when a Navajo child won, he was amazed to learn that she was living without any electricity or water or gas (despite the gigantic reservation being threaded with natural gas lines that feed the commodities markets and urban grids) ...
the Bill and Melissa gates foundation may have had its roots in that AHA! moment...to know that a child as gifted and talented as she is was unable to plug in a computer at home ...
as a person almost confined to my home, i wonder really how can someone denigrate the POWER of connectivity ...esepcially when that somebody is proably the owner of a multiple computer based elctronic devices which all served to reinforce his or her role as a particpatory citizen of a country and our world.

You cannot imagine what this means to children who are marginalized, have no voice and perhaps the only working democracy in our plutocratic oligarchic uberclass run world!

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Aminah Carroll. WV (Appalachia) USA — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:13:28 GMT

"and that only working democracy" would of course be the Internet

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

John Dough — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:16:46 GMT

GL, your attitude is misguided. Those shack living people are just as capable of having ideas as anybody else, but they would now be able to float them out to others. The ability to see other cultures and a better life is exactly what will help to unite these people to take their countries back from the exploitive rulers that keep them down now (check out Swaziland, appalling).

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Jimbo, Baghdad, Iraq — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:23:38 GMT

A bunch of folks are missing the point. Yeah, you can buy a 15in laptop on the cheap, but this critter is a 7in ultraportable. Show me another ultraportable anywhere near this price point. Get your niches straight people.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Oscar McGoony, Alabama — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:18:18 GMT

Yes! Now little bitty (teeny tiny!) kids can look at porno and order drugs online! By gosh now they can be indoctrinated into strange and unfamilure religious and political concepts over the web! The sky is falling! What about the children!!!Won't somebody think of the children? We must control the web or close it down! What about the childrennnnnnnn!

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

arawan, Knoxville, Tenn — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:32:25 GMT

Here, here GL... Could not have said it better....

I see a dust proof laptop in the bush being used as a plate for whatever little food can me scavenged for the next meal...

These children that it is aimed at need food, clean water, medical attention, and birth control (so the problem will not propagate another generation).

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Oscar McGoony, Alabama — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:16:49 GMT

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Ken Z — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:16:22 GMT

Jimbo from OIF has it right: get the niche straight. I have a Thinkpad T60, and love it. BUT, when traveling ultralight, I want something very simple; more power than my TyTN smartphone, but less than my Lenovo. This is a very inexpensive laptop for a particular niche. Yeah, it only lasts three hours on the battery... but at a VERY small power draw. Finally, that means you can actually power the darn thing with solar real-time in the field without a panel the size of a frickin' truck. (OLPC has this same advantage: flash drives and good processors don't take much energy). Thus, one could also power this with a BA-5590/BB-2590 for an extremely long time.

So quit comparing it to a monster, huge behemoth from Best Buy. This thing is a great option for a particular niche user... that niche turns out to be quite reasonable in size.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Ray Panko — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:43:13 GMT

What about its weight? I can get other cheap PCs, but I want one that won't give me jet lug when I travel.

And what about compatibility with Word for Windows, etc.?

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Ray Panko — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:43:51 GMT

What about its weight? I can get other cheap PCs, but I want one that won't give me jet lug when I travel.

And what about compatibility with Word for Windows, etc.?

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Aminah Carroll, Gallipolis Ferry, WV USA — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:38:36 GMT

yeah that's it. instead of providing the means to fish, throw a few worms at the kids.

kids in violence plagued families and countries do not need the internet to know about porn. the usa and europe's MAFIOSA and the billionaire sex and drug blood money oligarchs from the former soviet union, have made sure that even the poorest countries can import and export that.

look at Cancun if you want to see an area where porn and drugs on the ground have destroyed an ancient culture within two decades.

and srange unfamilar religions? why would anyone need to worry about an unfamilar religion spawning problems when Christianity as practiced by fanatical literalists has made war possible if not inevitable all over the globe.

the internet is not wicked it is the culture we have spawned domestically and exported: a socially darwinistic self-glorifying cultural chauvinism of terrific wickedness and harm which compound problems in the poor here at home and globally.

We know that education is as important as food aid in stabilizing birth rates and ensuring that citizens who have been disenfranshised find a rung on the ladder of success in any society.

Respect for human dignity, a sense of humor, and combating the cynicism and cultural chauvinsim that allows some people to exploit entire nations for profit, would help. Ensuring that world citizens remain vulnerable and incapacitated without help for escape is a guarantee of millions of present and future objectified alienated desperate humans to feed the global black market food chain.

OLPC is a phenomenally empathic and respectful investment in human dignity and in the potential of all the world's children.

Negroponte's OLPC program reaches socially devalued
individual children and empowers them to envision, to explore, and to crate their world rather than ensuring that they remain starving, alienated, barefoot and pregnant passive victims of it.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Jeff Davis, Corinth, Mississippi — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:36:53 GMT

Well Gary, I think this thread has run it's course. Bottom lines are; Some people would buy one because it's a neat little machine, not for "computing power" (I wouldn't personnally, I'd still rather have an iPhone because it's cooler (more cool?))
#2 People think money would be better spent on meeting peoples physical needs than providing them with a laptop. Imagine how many wells could have been dug with all of the money spent on R&D. After launch I expect to start receiving e-mails... help I'm hungry.
How sad.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Dosh Joe, Redmond Washington — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:59:00 GMT

This article is a lie. Lin-sux is not ready for the desktop.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Chuck, St. Louis, Missouri — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:52:56 GMT

Wait, earlier press on the Eee PC said there is in fact a built-in modem for dialup. The lack of built-in modem might kill the Eee for me.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Nathan, Waterloo, Ontario — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:09:36 GMT

Right on the money Jimbo. Perhaps in Suburbia USA where everyone drives everywhere and (many) people have chubby fingers, this unit doesn't make much sense. However, for a thin-fingered student like me using the Bus, walking and training everywhere, this is just what the doctor ordered.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Flylowguy, Tucson, AZ — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:42:20 GMT

It's always a question of what you pay vs. what you get.
I don't think you get much at this price which is only slightly lower than a 'real' laptop. This is more like a toy. If it was $100, maybe.........

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Charlie B — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:46:18 GMT

I might have a use for this, in that I work for a financial services firm and the policies around that laptop are increasingly restrictive. I can't even access personal email over the web! So I'm looking for a second laptop to take traveling. I need something more than a Blackberry, but not much more - and it needs to be ultra light.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Oscar Ramirez, Caracas, Venezuela — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:09:38 GMT

OLPC is based on price (i.e. no more than 100, 200, or xxx US$). It must be based on social, educational, communicational and technological content. Design must include applications that "support content" + "content itself". HW&SW are commodities, Content is the real stuff. Ask Google why they are so successful. In order to support education you need integrated content. I appreciate the effort of Negroponte, but I don´t think that the "OLPC business model" of "selling millions of OLPC machines" to third world countries (TWCs) and also expect for those countries to "create the content" for those machines will not work. For instance, IPOD Touch and other state of the art PCS are better solution today, educationally, financially and technological, for the TWCs.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Ron Stepp, Enterprise, Alabama — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:16:01 GMT

To Aminah Carroll

If they cannot plug in their laptop at home, how are they going to charge this EEE whose battery charge only lasts 3 hours?

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Reg Fryer, Seattle, WA — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:44:06 GMT

Before we trade all of these cute personal opinions - why don't we all just trade information here about the best places to buy the best working laptops at what we all need - the lowest possible prices!!!!

RF

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Mark — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:45:24 GMT

Wow the GOV trying to buy latops for the poor children. I could get better pricing. Dell should create a damn 300.00 latop for kids or something. My toshiba celeron m dvd rw wireleass g everyhing was 299 new on sale. Get real

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Michael Vancouver — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:13:02 GMT

I want one to heck with all of you. Living in Canada means I wont see one in this life time. E-books are my
addiction and I must get one of these things help!
help help help

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

arif chhipa asind bhilwara rajasthan — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:48:45 GMT

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Juan Rozo, Bogota, Colombia — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:12:42 GMT

Anyone here saying it's not a good deal is not really getting the point... Sure, you can get a "full" laptop for the same price, but a "full" laptop is 4 times as heavy. This machine is a midpoint between a Nokia N800 and a full laptop. It's small and weightless enough for you to actually carry it around anywhere, but has enough power to run a full OS. This is not meant to be a "full laptop" replacement, but just a small gadget you can carry it around but do much more things than in a PDA...

They do sell it in Canada... Try eeeuser.com , it's a series of forums of EEE users, and there is a thread of "Where to buy"...

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

James, El Carmen De Viboral, Colombia — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:45:38 GMT

To Ron Stepp,
Obviously you missed Aminah Caroll's topic of conversation. She was talking about the one laptop per child project and the computer in this article isn't it. That particular computer can be charged with a hand crank. And to all of those who are bashing the program, I enjoy the fact that you are bashing it sitting in front of your own nice computer in your nice home. Quite a disgusting point of view some people have.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Bob, Anaheim, CA — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:41:20 GMT

My biggest concern would be how well MS Office will operate on Linux. My current work-flows revolve around MS Office, and I hear that it can be a bit flamey on Linux...true?

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Aminah Carroll — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:44:17 GMT

http://www.laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/features.shtml

this is a link to teh explanation of the HUMAN POWERED BAttery recharger capability of the OLPC machine.
The machine itself is completely green with no harmful components. It also consumes less than 1/7 the energy of a typical consumer in wattage. It also has three different ways to humanly recharge the batteries, including a hand crank, and it also can be recharged on a car battery.

it is am amazingly versatile brilliantly executed dynamically linked and extraordinary practical machine.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Philip Tuner — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:32:51 GMT

From pricing prespective this is not really not worth it. This is light, but a difference from 2lbs to 6lbs is not such a big deal. Also, the 6lb laptop does so so much more. This whole thing seems like a result of a bad business decision.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

jim — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:44:08 GMT

Well, this seems great for disadvantaged kids. The company doing this thinks so too, as long as there is a profit in it.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

John Bailo — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:16:58 GMT

This is absolutely what everyone has wanted and what everyone needs.

Not an "i-phone".
Not a "PDA".
Not an 8 pound brick they call "portable".

But a real lightweight, but human usable device with long battery life to read and write on the Internet.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Sam, Rochester NY — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:14:37 GMT

I just purchased one of these, and for what I'm looking for, it's perfect. I have both a full size laptop (which is often too big and heavy-6lbs is VERY different than 2lbs-to carry around) and a smartphone (which is slow and lacking in full web browser capabilities and mail security features), but this is a perfect compromise between the two. I can get online, browse websites w/o problems, check mail, make internet phone calls, use various IM clients, play music, watch videos, write word documents and read powerpoint slides. It's light enough so that I barely notice it when carrying it around, and small enough so that I can open it on a plane even when the guy in front of me leans his seat back. For me, it's perfect.

If you are only going to have one computer, this is not the one for you. If you need a lot of power (games, video/photo editing), this isn't for you. If you intend to carry around your entire music and photo collections, this isn't the machine for you. If you want a cheap fully capable internet device that doesn't threaten to rip off your should, this computer is worth a look.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Dave, Los Angeles — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:34:13 GMT

Bob in Anaheim: Microsoft Office doesn't work in Linux. Linux users use Open Office, a Microsoft Office clone. I've used Open Offic on severl differennt platforms, including Ubuntu and Windows, and they work reasonably well. You may have problems with extra-special Office stuff, like macros.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

John Galt, Portland, OR — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:48:56 GMT

OLPC laptops are different from your typical laptops. They are rugged, able to be recharged away from an electrical outlet, built-in software meant to let people work together more easily and they act as a router. How long will your laptop last on a hike without recharging, etc? How well would it hold up under similar conditions? How about your laptop's usability in sunlight? A "source" key that will allow children to see the code so that they may also learn that if they wish? It is also built around Linux, so children won't need to learn how to deal with their computers crashing all of the time. The children in those impoverished nations need the tools that will allow them to participate in a global economy. You can't just keep sending them rice and flour and think they'll get ahead on hand-outs. This is pretty much the same as teaching them to fish (heck, they can research better methods with this).

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Bill Leary, Mercer Island, WA 98040 — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:30:47 GMT

How would a really user-friendly phone by Google help the average person? That’s interesting to think about because of today’s news. I guess they would need to hook up with the right telecom company to make it work for business professionals. If you read the NewsVisual article http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/10/google-and-t-mo.html about Google and T-Mobile, you can see the relationships between the players involved. I just hope those big guys really care about us little guys.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Luke Massey, Tyler, TX — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:40:12 GMT

I think many people are missing the point of this machine. It is small enough to fit in a purse or large pocket. It is light enough to carry constantly. It is fast enough to watch movies, surf the internet, play games and do office related work. It is cheap enough to buy one for every member of the family (well, for may people anyway). Because it runs Linux, you won't have to worry about viruses/spyware. If you don't want Linux, it will run windows. It is also more durable than normal laptops because of the solid stat disk. It even starts up in about 15 seconds.

Sure you can get a bigger laptop with better specs for the price. It will weigh at least 3 times as much. It will be built as cheaply as possible to cut costs. It will run very slowly because it will come with Windows Vista. If you drop it even a few inches, the hard drive will be damaged. The battery life will be 2 hours at most. In a year or two it will be full of virus and spyware.

Any other laptop near this size and quality will cost 3 times as much. Some people don't like the size, or would rather buy a bargain bin model with better specs for slightly more. It is not for everyone, but that doesn't mean it's not revolutionary.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Mathieu Jacques — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:28:04 GMT

A fine example of pushing technology to the limits, its an acheivement. The price, I think its fair, a new product mind you... its all about supply and demand.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

John Doe, Spokane, Washington — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:28:36 GMT

Like some of the people said above, you could get good deals on "full blown" laptops for about $50 more. And they have actual HDDs and RAM too.

If the company is trying to start a new marketing gig on micro laptops, then this would be a great start. If not, then this is a joke. It is like re-creating an old Windows 95 or 98 laptop and putting a little more juice in it.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

eldergeek — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:45:00 GMT

Has it got ps2 jacks where you can plug in a "real" keyboard and/or mouse? It seems a little overpriced but I expect the price will come down, rather a lot, before too long. A few dollar more for a regular laptop would be fine if the regular laptop came with something besides Vista; PCLinuxOS, for example would be delightful, but Fedora, Kubuntu or even Debian Etch would be ok too.

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

bob, britain — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:14:07 GMT

This laptop really sucks, if you can win a macbook pro at $600, why would you waste $200 to buy a laptop over 6 times worse than macbook pro. Plus, the mac os x is the safest os on the planet. All devolopers and video editors use Mac os x!!

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

BG, AZ, USA — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:50:07 GMT

Steve Carlson, Kent, Ohio, said: I wish Aminah Carroll had put more emphsis on thefact that these PC's are waterproof and can survive very harsh use. They are impervious to dirt, dust and hard knocks that would render some of the highly outed "bargains" mentioned above. As a matter of fact they could easily survive the conditions found in our urban slums, reservations and even the conditions faced by the all to many children of homeless families right here in the good old USA.

LOL....only in America are homeless families and urban slum residents entitled to check their email daily! Maybe Hillary will give every po' baby a laptop at birth. Are laptops mentioned in the Bill of Rights?!

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

Branden Jones Pepperell MA — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:07:06 GMT

everybody i talk to seems to think this is such a great idea... it,s not. they market this machine for under $200... if people in third world countries can't afford to feed themselves what makesyou think they can afford to buy a labtop at $200. lets be reasonable people; we should be buying thease peolpe food, clothes, and medical care, not selling them cheap computers. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE PEOPLE!!!!

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

NotMeHere — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:24:29 GMT

Got Linux :)

Budget, ultralight laptop is a winner

drew, wapella il — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:37:03 GMT

knowledge is power and wealth. if you go dig a well you get water to a handful of people, if you teach kids you will give them the wealth and power to dig endless wells