Apparently you don't need to be a
non-profit crazy, or nab few million pre-orders, to sell a laptop for $150 (or maybe you do, see update below). Medison, a Swedish consulting company, has just unveiled its Medison Celebrity laptop, which sports standard hardware, a 14-inch WXGA screen, an optimized Fedora Linux install, and a downright criminal $150 pricetag. Sure, you're not going to be launching Crysis on this thing anytime soon, with a 1.5GHz Celeron processor, 256MB of RAM, and VIA PN800 integrated graphics, but the casual user should find plenty to keep them occupied, and there's room for Windows XP if you want to pony up for a license -- which at retail costs more than the laptop itself. There's 40GB of storage, a CD / DVD combo drive, 802.11g WiFi, and even what looks to be a built-in webcam in the pictures. These'll be shipping in the US and Europe in 4-6 weeks. Oh, and in case it hasn't sunk in yet: $150.
Update: The more we look into this one, the more it looks like a scam, with an oh-so-tiny air of believability -- perhaps just wishful thinking. Check out comments for the ongoing investigation, but at the moment we're thinking guilty until proven innocent.
[Thanks, Jakob]
The CES game of HDTV one-upsmanship is officially on, as Matsushita (Panasonic) is apparently planning to bring a 150-inch plasma to that epic Las Vegas tradeshow in January. According to The Yomiuri Shimbun's sources, the prototype PDP is expected to launch in 2009 with a price that "greatly exceeds" the largest model currently available, measuring a mere 103-inches. Anyone want to guess when we'll hear about a 151-inch screen from Sharp or Samsung?
