Wal-Mart Offers Sub-$600 Notebook

KingFishKingFish
edited August 2004 in Science & Tech
Wal-Mart Stores has begun selling a Wi-Fi notebook PC for less than $600, which analysts say could herald a laptop push by the retailer for the holiday season.
The retail giant began offering the wireless notebook, manufactured by Taiwan's Elitegroup Computer Systems, in late July for online sales only. It's listed at $598, without discounts or mail-in rebates. Wal-Mart has traditionally sold only a limited number of notebook models, including laptops from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba. Instead, it has concentrated its marketing efforts on desktop PCs, but it also sells lower-priced machines based on the Linux operating system. The move suggests that Wal-Mart is evaluating new strategies to pump up notebook sales during the 2004 holiday season and possibly beyond, said Sam Bhavnani, an analyst with Current Analysis, a San Diego firm that tracks retail sales.
Source: c|net

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Holy crap that thing is going to sell like hotcakes. $598 for a laptop?! Student dream come true!
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited August 2004
    Yeah, to hell with the holiday sales, it's back to school time. They are going to redefine the market if there are no quality problems.

    KF
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Expect to see Dell and HP coming out with something at least close to competitive - maybe the $700 range...
  • JengoJengo Pasco, WA | USA
    edited August 2004
    hopefully it isnt junk
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    In addition to wireless, the ECS notebook comes loaded with a 14.1-inch display, an AMD Athlon XP 1600+ processor, 128MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, a DVD-drive, Wi-Fi 802.11b and Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition operating system. It also carries a one-year warranty

    Nice spec for the money :)
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited August 2004
    Here's a link to the laptop that Walmart is selling. It's only an XP-M1600+ and 128 MB ram, but both should be fairly easy to upgrade. It also has a 40 gig hard drive. A damn good price for an entry level laptop, for sure.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Considering that about $90 of that price is Windows XP, the hardware itself is pretty impressive for the price (in a notebook).
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Waaaa! It's better than my notebook!
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited August 2004
    They should've gone with a 20GB drive and 256MB of RAM. You cannot run XP at an acceptable speed on 128MB of RAM. :rant:
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Geeky1 wrote:
    They should've gone with a 20GB drive and 256MB of RAM. You cannot run XP at an acceptable speed on 128MB of RAM. :rant:

    And you can with 256? :scratch:
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited August 2004
    for what most people will use that thing for, yes.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    I guess for another $200 or so, you can crack open the notebook and pop in an XP-M 2600+ and a 512MB SODIMM. Not bad for even $800, I suppose.
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited August 2004
    Geeky1 wrote:
    They should've gone with a 20GB drive and 256MB of RAM. You cannot run XP at an acceptable speed on 128MB of RAM. :rant:

    yes you can, my grandpa's aptiva does it all the time. it really depends on what your definition of "acceptable" is. granted there may be some slowdown when you first open IE or if you try multitasking with 8 things at once, but for most people who seem to think their computer can only do one thing at a time, it works quite well
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited August 2004
    True. Our old (well, to me) Dell runs on 256 SD I believe. While mine or my bro's computer, it's slow, but it isn't all that bad.
  • JChretienJChretien Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited August 2004
    my buddy's HP PIII-600mhz runs winxp with 128mb pC-133.. and it seems to be fine...
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited August 2004
    Everywhere I go it seems like I could use a LT. I want one so bad.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited August 2004
    mmonnin wrote:
    Everywhere I go it seems like I could use a LT. I want one so bad.

    Hell Marc, it's only $600, get a part time job mowing lawns or something. ;D;D
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