14 DAY TRIAL // The low and very low cost laptop and notebook trend started by the OLPC with their XO machine is fast spreading not only in the United States (the Classmate PC from Intel) and Asia (the Asus Eee PC) but also in Europe as the Swedish laptop producer Medison just dropped most of the price from their entry level budget laptop Medison Celebrity. The new price is just $150, a little higher than the ultra low cost "$100 laptop" from OLPC, but lower than the yet to be released Asus Eee PC 701.
"There is a great interest but I cannot disclose exactly how many computers we are selling", said Medison representative Robert Klanjac to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and was later cited by the site InsideWorldBlog. "We have changed our strategy to meet the demand from our customers. We want everyone to be able to afford a computer". Medison Celebrity is a high quality mobile computer system for the everyday user. It is designed for computing tasks that do not demand the highest performance, but rather for simpler operation such as e-mailing, Web surfing, word processing and working with spreadsheet programs.
The Medison Celebrity also contains hardware components RoHS approved for the American and European markets as an environmental friendly product according to new environment protection laws. As the computer comes with a Linux distribution pre installed together with the most usual multimedia and Internet applications, users will save the money usually spent on a Microsoft Windows OEM license. The main hardware features of the Medison Celebrity are its Intel Celeron processor running at a frequency of 1.5GHz, a 14-inch widescreen using the Xbright technology, 256MB of DDR memory and a 40GB hard disk drive. For Internet or LAN connectivity, the Medison Celebrity uses either a wireless 802.11 g compliant adapter or a normal Ethernet port.