Wal-Martâs $498 Linspire Linux Laptop
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Iâve recently been thinking about picking up a new laptop computer and handing off my Compaq (which has worked great over the past 3 years) to my wife for her excursion into the travel industry.
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Wal-Mart began selling $298 PCs from Everex on Wednesday that use Windows Vista, are free of so-called "bloatware" and feature open source software.
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InfoWorld - The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has raised the price of its XO laptop to $188, according to an Associated Press report.
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Wal-Mart's $498 Linspire Linux Laptop  I've recently been thinking about picking up a new laptop computer and handing off my Compaq (which has worked great over the past 3 years) to my wife for her excursion into the travel industry. In addition, I've also been thinking about switching over to Linux ...
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With $100 rebate, Sears--a major national retailer that doesn't specialize in electronics--offers a Linux desktop PC from Linspire.
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(InfoWorld) - On Friday Japan's Turbolinux begins dispatching the first batch of itsÂ Wizpy handheldsÂ to people who ordered them from its Web site. The flash-based multimedia player contains a version of Linux, so it can be used to boot a PC into the operating system, allowing users to access their files in their own working environment on almost any PC. The devices have proved hot items on the TurboLinux Web shop since preorders began in late January, but what's it like to use one? We tested a pre-production version of the Wizpy for a week and found it delivers on its promise with some annoyances. As a device from which to boot Linux, the Wizpy was easy to use, it just required connecting. No set-up was required because all the PCs we tried were already configured to look first for a bootable CD before defaulting to the operating system on the hard-disk drive. The Wizpy masquerades as a bootable CD, so the PC jumped into the Linux OS and the copy of Windows on the hard-disk didn't stand a chance. The Wizpy requires a PC with USB 2.0 -- older versions of USB are just too slow for the large amount of data that needs to be exchanged with the host computer -- so problems could occur, particularly on older computers. In use, the PC didn't appear excessively sluggish despite the OS running off the Wizpy. The device managed to handle tasks like Web browsing, word processing and e-mail with ease. It comes with these applications installed and it's just such use that TurboLinux envisages. The backlight did annoy, however. With the Wizpy placed to the side of a laptop PC, the backlight kept switching off then a few seconds later switching on again -- something that became so annoying I had to cover it with a magazine. There are two versions of the Wizpy: 2GB and 4GB. The Linux OS and applications take up about 1GB, leaving either 1GB or 3GB available for data storage. That could be a bit on the low side for video but should be fine for many music files and documents. Personal files can be stored within the 1GB Linux sector and only accessed once logged into the OS. The remaining storage area can be accessed both from within Linux and also from other systems when the Wizpy is connected to a PC as a flash memory device. It's in this use we had a problem. Connected to a Windows XP machine the Wizpy was recognized and drivers loaded but the same thing didn't happen on two Apple Mac computers running OSX. It appeared to Windows as USB Mass Storage, so it should have worked with Macs but it didn't. TurboLinux said they would work on compatibility with Macs for future versions of the product. There were few other problems but a few things that could have been improved. For example the up and down buttons on the front of the Wizpy operate the volume, but the on-screen volume bar is horizontal. Not perfect but also not a huge problem ... until you turn the Wizpy on its side to watch a video. Then you're pressing the left-hand button to increase the volume but the volume bar is moving to the right. There was also a problem with the FM radio, which would only tune to the Japanese FM band (76MHz to 90MHz) when the user interface was being used in Japanese. There is no way of setting an English user interface, but listening to Japanese radio. That wasn't the only disappointment with the radio. The sensitivity was very poor, so bad that in central Tokyo several of the local FM stations couldn't be heard without static. All in all, the Wizpy delivered its promise of a multimedia player that can be used to boot Linux on a PC. But it disappointed because of these few small annoyances that should have been fixed or identified earlier. TurboLinux says it will use the feedback to help improve future versions of the Wizpy. The 2GB version costs Â¥29,800 ($246) and a 4GB version costs Â¥33,800. It is on sale now in Japan and will appear in international markets soon.
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Blog: The No. 2 PC seller will offer a $899 desktop, a $599 desktop and a $599 laptop with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled.
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A laptop under $100 could reach desks if a new venture formed by the former&#160;CTO of One Laptop Per Child, Mary Lou Jepsen, can deliver on its promises.A &quot;spin-out&quot; from OLPC, the company, Pixel Qi is looking to create a $75 laptop and trying to advance low-cost computers and power-efficient laptops, mobile phones, and other consumer electronics that are sunlight readable, Jepsen wrote on the company&#39;s Web site.Jepsen left OLPC two weeks ago to commercialize technologies she invented with OLPC, she said in an e-mail to the IDG News Service at the time. A patent lists Jepsen as one of the inventors of a display system optimized for low-power operation.&quot;Spinning out from OLPC enables the development of a new machine, beyond the XO [laptop], while leveraging a larger market for new technologies,&quot; Jepsen wrote.There is a big commercial market for technology spawned by OLPC, Jepsen wrote. Prices for next-generation hardware can be brought down by allowing multiple uses of key technology advances, she wrote.The company will continue to work with OLPC by providing products at cost, and it will sell devices at a profit to commercial organizations.A similar promise to introduce a low-cost laptop came from OLPC, when it launched the $100 XO laptop in 2005. Since then, the effort has been afflicted by production delays and rising costs, which caused the laptop&#39;s estimated price to rise to $200. It is now beset by waning orders and competition from commercial vendors that threaten to sideline the nonprofit effort.As CTO, Jepsen was responsible for hardware development for the rugged and power-saving XO laptop, designed for use by children in developing countries. Though the laptop has struggled to find buyers, it has been praised for its environmentally friendly design and innovative display, hardware and networking features.Her departure from OLPC spawned a debate, with critics charging that Jepsen was taking advantage of OLPC&#39;s nonprofit inventions for personal gains, but supporters shot back, saying it was the right time for her to leave a sinking ship.Jepsen, who is attending the&#160;International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, was not available for comment.
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Asustek&#39;s Eee PCSmall is clearly in this season. Asustek&#39;s Eee PC captured a lot of attention at Computex. The prototype shown here looks to compete with products like Palm&#39;s recently announced $599 Foleo notebook; both run Linux instead of a Windows operating system. Asustek expects to price the Eee PC at $199 when it ships in the late summer or early fall. The prototype includes a 7-inch display, 512MB of memory, and Wi-Fi (the company did not disclose the processor inside).Via&#39;s Palm-sized Mobile ITXNot all motherboards are created equal. ...
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(InfoWorld) - Taiwanese PC vendor Acer Inc. has started selling laptop PCs at popular retailer Best Buy Co. Inc., expanding its presence in the U.S. market. Best Buy is featuring Acer laptop PCs with a brand spotlight notice on its Web site. All five of the Acer laptop PCs on offer at Best Buy are priced under US$900. The most expensive of the five is the Acer Aspire AS5610-4537, which runs on an Intel Corp. Core Duo processor. It costs $849.99. The lowest-priced Acer laptop at Best Buy is the Aspire 420 notebook, AS3680-2022, which runs on an Intel Celeron M and retails for $499.99. According to the Web site, the notebook is already sold out. A similar Aspire 420, the AS3690-2710, runs for $699.99 with a larger, 15.4-inch screen. Acer has targeted the U.S. and China as two major potential growth markets for the company, and has invested more resources into the two countries over the past few years. Acer is the world's fourth largest PC vendor by revenue and the fastest growing PC vendor in the world among the top 10.
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The computer, dubbed Balance, comes loaded with the Linspire operating system and the OpenOffice.org office suite, the companies said.
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TechWeb - Earlier this month, Linspire, which also distributes a desktop version of Linux, became the latest open-source software distributor to sign a pact with Microsoft.
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Not too long ago, the sub-$500 computer was a dream, now it&#39;s a CompUSA commonplace. And now, thanks to a partnership between Wal-Mart and Linspire Inc.
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Rivals speak out Linutop's recently announced Linux-based ultra-compact PC may have grabbed the hardware headlines earlier this week, but its rivals didn't take long to start shouting about their own take on the web-oriented unit.â¦
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Walmart.com is offering a laptop that dives below the $500 pricepoint, and it&#39;s no accident the machine, from Linspire, runs a Linux-based operating system.
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TechWeb - The Linux and open source software movement has an ambitious retail store, and it is offering a low-cost, lightweight laptop that is devoid of Microsoft software.
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Retail giant Wal-Mart has taken the wraps off a bare-bones, US&#36;498 Linux notebook that, while not exactly a stocking-stuffer, provides basic computing at a price that is tough to beat.