If you’ve been following the low cost computer world over the past few days, you’ve probably heard about the Medison Celebrity. It’s a $150 laptop for pre-order- but nobody knows anything about it. Moreover, nobody has actually seen a working prototype of it. Many believe that it might be a scam.

Here’s some useful posts to look at for more information:

1. Engadget: $150 linux laptop
2. http://www.medisoncelebrity.com/
3. http://medisonscam.blogspot.com/

Do you think it’s real or fake? Join our discussion at:

http://www.eeeuser.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=89

Our forums have been buzzing with great info. Here are some of the recent posts you should check out:

• Uses for the Eee?
• Asus eee in Australia
• Some unconfirmed information about pricing, availability and more
• New article at LinuxDevices.com “Asus low-end laptops to run Xandros”
• What graphics card?
• Power Adaptor
• Trying out 800×460 using VNC on X11 system (Linux livecd, MacOSX, …)
• Eeenix - A custom Linux distro designed just for the Eee, who’s game?
• OLPC to sell for $350!!!

Enjoy!

if you follow this link you will find the after-article discussion on the great first look of the Asus EeePC 701 from NotebookReview that was mentioned in the last news post here.

Most notably a user, GRZ530, claims to have one of the Eee PC 701’s already.

• The windows key has been replaced by a Home key
• Price base $250, configurable up to $500
• Two year warranty
• Will begin to be distributed in August

More importantly, he has new & great pictures!

(credit to cclo on the eeeuser forums in this post)

On our forums, rknirmal has pointed out a link to an article at Notebookreview.com where they actually met with Asus to see and try a real live version of the Asus EeePC 701.

Points of interest:

1. The device, in my opinion, really looks good. There are many high resolution shots
2. It appears to really boot fast and shutdown fast under normal conditions
3. The processor also appears to run fast as well
4. Asus may not be shipping the device with 2 or 4gb drives. Notebookreview speculates that the lowest end model will be an 8gb version for $250. This has not been confirmed. I realize some people may be upset with the idea of it being $50 more expensive, but I personally feel like I would regret getting one of these with anything less than 8gb of space anyway. We’ll see how this rumor pans out.
5. Availability: Late August

http://www.eeeuser.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=50

I just wanted to post a quick message about preorders being offered on various websites for the Eee PC 701. I am aware of not only several in the United States, but many outside.

I won’t be posting any direct links for preorders until more information is known about the device.

The following are the reasons I will not be preordering yet:

1. Asus has kept individuals seeking bulk orders generally in the dark about the final completed product. The result:
2. The price has not fully been confirmed- pre-order websites show a disclaimer that price may change
3. There are options that are not yet listed in the pre-order such as color, memory, etc.
4. There are no indications that production will not be able to support the first wave of consumers seeking devices.
5. There are no major technology retailers yet taking pre-orders.
6. For foreign countries: Pre-orders could easily be scam operations.

I urge you to use caution with pre-orders- if you must this early- consult various review websites to make sure the retailer is reputable.

Check out this short article over at DigiTimes about the OLPC XO’s future. The price of the XO is anticipated to drop to $50 by 2009 along with the addition of WiMax connectivity.

Why am I posting this?

1. $50 is really cheap, $150 less than the EeePC
2. The OLPC right now costs somewhere in the range of $135-175, not expected to fall to $100 until 2008. Could the EeePC 701’s price fall considerably by 2009 as well?
3. WiMax would be the perfect addition to a future EeePC

It should be interesting to see if the XO’s target price can be reached, and if it is ultimately sold to the consumer market of the developing world. It should also be interesting to see how further cheap ultra-portable-low-cost-computing devices become in the next few years– and how used devices could be even lower priced.

There’s an interesting article comparing the OLPC, Asus Eee PC, Foleo, and Nanobook. Interestingly, the Eee PC does not receive positive thoughts, specifically with speculation that the 900mhz processor does not have secondary cache. The author insists that this will result in crawling speeds.

Read the article: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40791