July 25th, 2007
Come and get it: Fedora laptop for $150
Would you try a $150 laptop powered by Fedora? Sure you would. And apparently so are a lot of other folks.
A Swedish company called Medison has unveiled a laptop called the Celebrity. Medison’s laptop is the latest in a race to the bottom of the pricing barrel. Nicholas Negroponte OLPC is one effort and others are also getting into the act.
There’s only one problem with Medison’s laptop–it’s a slog to get through to its reseller’s site to buy one. The laptop is available through a reseller 2Checkout.com. After a few tries I got through to order despite that “if it’s sounds too good to be true it is” feeling. Here’s Medison’s pitch:
Medison Celebrity is a high quality laptop for the everyday user. It is adapted to functionality that does not demand the highest performance, but rather to everyday tasks such as e-mailing, surfing the Web, word processing and working with spreadsheet programmes. Built-in Wireless and slim design makes this a truly flexible and mobile laptop for the active user.
The computer is shipped completely set up and ready-to-use with Linux pre-installed - no complicated installations or adjustments are needed -within 4-6 weeks.
The Medison Celebrity also consists of components approved for the American and European markets as an environmental friendly product according to new laws taken by them.
Umm. OK. I only cared it was $150.
As for the details: The Celebrity has a 14 inch LCD, an Intel Celeron 1.5 GHz chip, a 40 GB hard drive, 256 MB of memory. Linux and office applications.
The big question: How is Medison making money from this laptop?
In an FAQ, Medison addresses why the Celebrity is cheap. “We see this from a democratic point of view where we believe everyone should be able to afford to have a laptop. The other reason is that we have our own plants where we assemble our laptops.”
This laptop is supposed to arrive in the next 4 to 6 weeks. Stay tuned.
Crave’s Matthew Elliott has more.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 07/25/07
