Malata PC-68001 Personal Computer

Fine, don't give us an OLPC to fool around with, we're totally breaking up and moving on. Our new love interest: Malata's PC-68001, a $300 laptop which lacks a hard drive in favor of flash (yes!) but only has 1GB of room (boo.) and 256MB of RAM; oddly, it does have an HDMI output (as well as VGA) for using an external display instead of its 800 x 480 8-inch display. In terms of external capabilities, you can drop in a USB CD-ROM (what, no Blu-ray / HD DVD burner?) or external hard drive in a pinch. No mesh networking or symbolic interface or anything, but still, $300, after rebate they might be paying you.

[Dustin @ Jan 9th 2007 1:52AM]

Uh, who's their target market?????
'cause I'm wondering if their business model can stand on two feet when I can get a (admittedly wimpy) dell lappy for $499?

[Mike D @ Jan 9th 2007 2:16AM]

why windows? .. doesn't make any sense .. I'm with dustin

[Coolty @ Jan 9th 2007 2:22AM]

That's not windows xp. It's linux with a winxp theme...

[hobgoblin @ Jan 9th 2007 3:11AM]

your right coolty. thats XPDE, a linux desktop environment made specifically to look like win XP.

www.xpde.com

still, this is a interesting little machine. i hope it shows up in my part of the world :)

[Uranium @ Jan 9th 2007 2:57AM]

If it has Wifi or a PCMCIA Slot I want one!
I see the perfect supplement to my HTC Wizard.

[Tom T. @ Jan 9th 2007 8:45AM]

i've been eagerly awaiting the switch to flash (or other) memory instead of moving drives, but 1GB just doesn't cut it, imho. memory prices have really come down, so this seems like it could be one of the machine's fatal flaws. i hope the internal flash is at least very expandable. any flash-based consumer laptop (except for the $100 ones, at least for now) should at least have the capability of doing what a video ipod does. if you're going to carry around something this large, it should have the same multimedia capabilities as other laptops. i don't expect that it should be able to have TONS of storage room, but you should have room for some movies, tv shows, music files, etc. by not allowing you enough space to save things, it makes you a slave to a good wi-fi signal. yeah - maybe it has ethernet. but it's supposed to be portable.

[pixthree @ Jan 9th 2007 12:12PM]

I was looking at the Pepper Pad as something to keep on my couch to use as a web browser when lounging around -- this would be a reasonable replacement for that, and for less money.

[C. Baines @ Jan 9th 2007 2:10PM]

I really could not see why anyone would buy this for $300 out here, when you can get a semi-decent laptop for $499 or buy a used one for that much.