World's cheapest laptop or ?

[ahhaa]

This showed up from cnet, thought some of you might want to follow it...

... the Medison Celebrity laptop can lay claim to being the cheapest laptop in the world. And it boasts an impressive feature set for the money. For starters, it features a large, wide-screen 14-inch WXGA display and weighs a reasonable 4.8 pounds. Powering the Medison Celebrity is a 1.5GHz Intel Celeron M 370 processor and 256MB of memory. You may scoff at such a meager memory allotment considering all the reviews out there that complain whenever a PC serves up less than 1GB these days, but the Medison Celebrity doesn't have to power Vista or any other flavor of Windows. Instead, it uses Fedora Linux, which requires less muscle to run than a Windows OS and no Microsoft licensing fee. Rounding out the specs are a 40GB hard drive, an integrated Via PN800 graphics chip, and 802.11g Wi-Fi. You also get stereo speakers, three USB 2.0 ports, and a PC Card slot. Medison backs the laptop with a one-year warranty but offers little detail about the terms.

Medison takes orders in a variety of currencies, and it claims it will outfit the laptop with the appropriate keyboard. The company estimates it'll take four to six weeks to ship, but "availability of the Medison Celebrity model depends on how many orders we get per day." It also lists additional charges above the $150 price as $6.45 plus 5.5 percent "and extra" for its partner, 2Checkout.com.

more at: http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9749768-1.html

[DereX888]

Out of sheer curiosity I have just ordered one
Came with free shipping but I never heard of "Scandinavia" shipping company, hmm.

We'll see whats it worth when it arrives...

[zoobie]

Looks as trustworthy as eBay...

[DereX888]

Looks as trustworthy as eBay...

yup...
I already assumed some kind of scam somehow/anyhow
But I have nothing to loose, my plat CC covers even bigger frauds than that 8)

[ahhaa]

its hard to see how it could have a battery included, but maybe its assembled in Chinese prisons or something?

just fyi, I have no connection with this outfit!

[kato51]

2checkout.com is just a credit card processing company, not a dealer. Medisonceleberty.com has very questionable looking whois listing. A hotmail email address? Google search turns up no one who's received a unit. Caveat emptor.

http://whois.domaintools.com/medisoncelebrity.com
http://www.engadget.com/tag/MedisonCelebrity/

[ahhaa]

if I wanted to set up a crimebusters unit, I'd come here first!

[kato51]

Too strange...sounds like the guy has Napoleon complex.

http://www.medisonscam.info/

[DereX888]

I just searched a bit today morning.
I decided Im not going to fund some clever scammer to run for a President (bwahahahahaha).
Im sure it is such a right-in-your-face scam, people behind it really have balls to pull it off LOL
And most importantly my GF threaten not to have sex with me for long time if I buy yet another computer
(of course I can change GF instead, but then I actually like this one, hehe)

[Baldrick]

This has been discussed in most computer forums in Sweden the last week and I would say that 97.578% thinks it's a scam....including me....

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Let me know how this turns out.

A $150 Laptop?.... 2 good 2 b true 4 me!

[lordsmurf]

97.578% thinks it's a scam

Is that an exact number?

[DereX888]

97.578% thinks it's a scam

Is that an exact number?

probably, with .001% error margin :P

BTW - that dude "Valdi" sounds like a russian bad guy from some C-grade hollywood crapproduction.
Nyways, who knows... maybe next elections there will be
Mr. Valdi
The President of Sweden
&
Sales Manager of OLPS


(OLPS = One Laptop Per Scam)

[guns1inger]

Everything about that website screams shonky. Click on the Accessories page and it is touting for advertisers. There are no accessories, just a supplier for third-party ram so you can order more if you need it.

If anyone does get one, don't expect support for long because the company will go bust. And if no-one gets one then the credit card companies should be within their rights to say we don't have to refund people who fall for such an obvious con.

[piano632]

How can they lie like this? That's not the world's cheapest laptop...this is:

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=SEARS&sid=I00936...id=05283213000

[Heywould3]

I dont know. with those specs 150 is about right. you can go to swap meets and get a celery with 256 and 40 gig for around that price. no OS or free is a big part. ive seen better spec laptops for that price around. granted they are used but these could be old new stock. you can get a new laptop for 400 these days with fast mem and a lat faster celeron M chip.

if you search for a laptop with the same specs on the net the prices are around that.

That person could still be running a scam but i wouldnt think that just from the price

EDIT: on second thought 150$ out the door is rather low.. i just googled cheap laptops and 300 seems to be the best rate for those specs. i already have two laptops or i would test it out too. most good CC have security aginst this sort of thing.

[Super Warrior]

I dont know. with those specs 150 is about right. you can go to swap meets and get a celery with 256 and 40 gig for around that price. no OS or free is a big part. ive seen better spec laptops for that price around. granted they are used but these could be old new stock. you can get a new laptop for 400 these days with fast mem and a lat faster celeron M chip.

if you search for a laptop with the same specs on the net the prices are around that.

That person could still be running a scam but i wouldnt think that just from the price

EDIT: on second thought 150$ out the door is rather low.. i just googled cheap laptops and 300 seems to be the best rate for those specs. i already have two laptops or i would test it out too. most good CC have security aginst this sort of thing.

Dude these aren't just any celerons, the ones mentioned with the laptop are the latest Celeron-Ms w/1MB L2 Cache!

My Dell laptop has a 1.4Ghz Celeron-M and it cost me $450!

[tgm4883]

97.578% thinks it's a scam

Is that an exact number?

Probably not. Remember, 84.389% of statistics used in discussions are made up on the spot.

[Super Warrior]

That laptop specs for $150 is almost identical to my $450 Dell Inspiron B120, and its actually a little better with its slightly faster processor and internal wireless.

So no way can that for real... and 4-6 weeks for delivery?!

WTF, i can order stuff from hong kong on e-bay and have it arrive in two weeks at the most.

[DereX888]

Super[/url] Warrior]That laptop specs for $150 is almost identical to my $450 Dell Inspiron B120, and its actually a little better with its slightly faster processor and internal wireless.

So no way can that for real... and 4-6 weeks for delivery?!

WTF, i can order stuff from hong kong on e-bay and have it arrive in two weeks at the most.

Well, it doesn't include "microsoft tax" ($100+) as probably your laptop did.
Also there is no $50 surcharge per product to cover the phone support in India as it is in case of your laptop
So as you see, eliminating Microsoft OS and phone support from third world, already shaves off almost half from the price you've paid (
not to mention that IMHO you have overpaid yours, unless there were some bundled accessories etc).
If the company like this really went with very low profit margin (which is NOT the case in all the Dells etc), the retail price of $150 *could* be right (again- assuming it were real deal, which is doubtful at best).

[Super Warrior]

At the time i ordered my laptop from dell, i was going as cheap as possible(which i now regret, desiring internal wireless). I got NOTHING extra.

So....you think the actual cost of my laptop was near $150, and Dell just tacked on about $300 for whatever reason?

[DereX888]

no, i thought you bought it recently.
if you bought it like last year or so, then probably the price was about right.
sorry, i dont know dell much, i went once through their "system configurator" or such when my friend wanted exactly same system, and i made it for him considerably cheaper than dell offered it for, with few better parts too, thats all, and thats why IMHO dell is same very-high-markup greedy retailer as most of them are.
All Im saying is that (depending on Windows version thats been shoved up yer ... - aka bundled with) there is already $150 in the product price for OS and phone support (which neither one I would never use). Since youve paid $450, the real Dell's retail price of that laptop was actually ~$300 or less.

BTW: retail profit of 30% was considered very high just ~50 years ago. Nowadays if low-cost items (say audio card) make 'only' mere 200% it is considered too low, and it is normal way of conducting retail business nowadays, because shareholder's pressure killed retailers ethics long time ago.
From recent items I suggest searching for i.e. iPod's details - the whole phone, including packaging, cost (FOB Shenzhen, China, IIRC, or whatever the place is) supposedly about $100; do you know how much Apple sell it for in their retail stores? Its a 500% profit or more