I feel fear

[larnman2]

I found a site that offers a laptop for $150. But that sounds... too good. I am scared. Has anyone heard about this on the interweb?

[SurlySeraph]

The famous "$100 laptop" designed for third-world schoolchildren actually costs $175. And these people claim to be selling a fully-featured laptop for less than that? Don't trust them for a minute. I mean, if you have plenty of disposable income it might be worth buying one just to make sure it's not some kind of trick, but I wouldn't trust them for a minute.

[Raistlin1040]

No. Seems odd. My old laptop was like...*Mentally tries to convert Pounds to Dollars* I think close to 600 American Dollars?

[Tom_Violence]

No. Seems odd. My old laptop was like...*Mentally tries to convert Pounds to Dollars* I think close to 600 American Dollars?

Just double it.

[Samiam303]

Well, honestly it's entirely possible that it's true, because it's a fairly crap laptop and it's running Linux, which means that you aren't paying for Windows.

However, that site gives me the creeps... it just SCREAMS fake.

[Inyssius Tor]

Slashdot is skeptical.

EDIT:

The privacy policy is a copy of Apples privacy policy with their name and some filler added.

http://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/ [apple.com]
vs
http://www.medisoncelebrity.com/legal/privacy/ [medisoncelebrity.com]

(for instance, check the 'kids' sections)

even better, replace Medison with Apple, then run diff or winmerge on the two files. the lines that are different show how laughable the privacy cut and paste job was-- iTunes, iPhone and the related carrier, for instance, were also replaced with services that are mentioned no where on the website. The rest of the text is verbatim.

and

To quote the website "The phone lines are temporarly closed" all they give is an email address. You can't even call to complain if you don't get it.

If they are legit they are working really hard to seem like a scam.

and

Medison Europe United was incorporated less than 2 weeks ago: LINK [companieshouse.gov.uk]

Also, take a look at the address provided

27 RUFFETS WOOD
GRAVESEND
KENT
DA12 5JQ

My my, Nordic Multimedia Distribution Limited is listed as having the same address: LINK [ukdata.com]
GI Finance Limited is located here as well: LINK [simplycreditreports.com]
La Vida Art Limited: LINK [companiesgate.co.uk]
BYGG Invest Limited: LINK [ukdata.com]
HG Shiprepair Limited: LINK [companiesgate.co.uk]
Also, Ken-Erik Limited is listed as having the same address: LINK [companiesgate.co.uk]

I checked google maps to see if I could locate the address: LINK [google.com]

Looks a lot like a residential area, either house/condo/apartment, definatley not a corporate or even industrial location.

[Samiam303]

And the web address is registered to two guys in Sweden. I'm saying scam.

[Death, your friend the Reaper]

The four to six weeks is also a rather long time as well.

Take your ex's credit card to pay for it.

[Narmoth]

I actually really liked it. Well, if you aren't intending to pay for it with real money, that is. Also, when paying over the net, use paypal. If the seller can't prove that you received the item to the adress that your credit card is registered to, paypal will return you the money if you report the seller to them. Of course, they still can send you a empty box, and claim that they sent the laptop.
Also, I don't think anyone sell anything with linux installed. After all, it's a shareware, so it would be legaly problematic to sell it as a part of something.

[Reinboom]

Linux isn't shareware.
Linux is free and is released under the GNU (http://www.linux.org/info/gnu.html).
It's legal to distribute it like so.

Not all OSes that run on the Linux kernel are free though; though; most are also under the GNU.

[Narmoth]

Ok, you're right. It's just what we call all free stuff over here, since you can share it without having to crack it first. My point was just that if they sold a computer without windows, it would be more convinient for them to sell it empty, without any system at all.

[Swedish chef]

Yeah I've heard a little about them. Thir vision is to sell a cheap laptop for "basic functions" such as e-mail, surfing the web and basic "home office stuff" and they are not affiliated with OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). They are quite new and in the beginning the laptop was supposed to cost about three timews as much but they somehow managed to reduce the price. This is no powermachine for games and such. They ship it with GNU/Linux (currently only fedora but who knows, besides it is easy to install distro of choice or get a windows license). As I understand their parts are built in Brazil. My major concern is the 250mb of RAM so if I get one I will choose a lighter distro for OS (Xubuntu for example)

They seem to be very new, I have only heard about this about 2-3 months ago and then it's a swedish company. If you're not sure then wait a while to see if they manage to build themself a name.

I think I'll wait, and if I have the money in 6 months, I'll get one :)

[bosssmiley]

Quite apart from Inyssius Tor's very revealing research, simply applying the first rule of scams to this one ("Does it sound too good to be true? Then it is.") should urge anyone in their right mind to caution.

Stick to the only true path for getting a decent non-high street PC: offer some techie mates a bottle of good Scotch in exchange for their time and trouble.

[Ceres]

And the web address is registered to two guys in Sweden. I'm saying scam.

I agree. Never trust a Swede! (Also, noone tosses a Norwegian)

[Samiam303]

I agree. Never trust a Swede! (Also, noone tosses a Norwegian)

That's not what I meant...

I just meant that they didn't seem to have any connection to the England addresses listed.

[Swedish chef]

The last 2-3 days a lot of Swedish newspapers have reported things about the company that sells the 150$ (1000skr) laptop. I suppose that some of it might be rumors but there are talk about false ads on the website (ad for a phonecompany that claims that they have not paid for any ad there) and many speculations about the cheap price and that the company will have a hard time deliver all of the orders. The company however, claims there is no problem.

I suppose that there is a lot of rumors around this since the laptop is seriously cheap and might put preassure on other computermanufacturers to come up with and sell less powerfull computers for basic tasks to a cheap price. However there might be some truth in the rumors so I will probably wait a little before buying one.