Wal-Mart and Linspire offer $498 laptop

Wal-Mart and Linspire announced on Monday that they are now offering a basic Linux laptop for under US$500, the first laptop to be offered new below that price point. The Balance laptop has a VIA C3 processor at 1.0GHz, 128 MB of RAM, a 30 GB hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, and a 14-inch screen.

The installed operating system is the Linux distro Linspire 4.5 (formerly Lindows), and the computer comes with typical Lindows software offerings. The installed Internet application and e-mail client is Mozilla (not Firefox/Thunderbird), and OpenOffice is the default office productivity software suite. The computer also comes with a subscription to Lindows' CNR service for three months, which gives users one-click installations for over 1,900 programs.

Geek.com Geek News - Wal-Mart and Linspire offer $498 laptop

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