Sears beats Wal-Mart price?..doubt it.
Ξ January 28th, 2008 | → | ∇ General |
A friend of mine sent me this in an email recently. Unfortunately, I am just now getting around to commenting on it.
Here is the link:
http://www.switched.com/2008/01/18/sears-one-ups-wal-mart-with-185-pc/
Initially, this is like a “wow” kind of thing.
But if you stop and think about it, what are they really offering?
Firstly, they compare the offer to the OLPC laptop.
K..folks, please get this through your heads:
It is not, and I quote,: “aimed at users who just need typical daily computer functions such as
word processing, image and music management, and Web access”.
The OLPC is a NON-PROFIT which developed an education-oriented laptop from scratch for children in developing countries.
It wasn’t until the OLPC started getting attention that Monopoly and other companies decided they needed a piece of the pie, in a market they never wanted to begin with.
The comparison is apples and oranges and reeks of FUD.
Next they make a point of of using Intel.
Intel is a lot of things but “low power” has not been one of them unless things have changed very recently (Anyone else hear echoes of “Tim the Toolman” laughing about “more power”).
Adding 1 gig of memory is not “giving it significantly more horsepower than anything else out at this price point.”
RAM memory, which is what this refers to, is cheap.
What this really means is this system will probably, sort of, be capable of running Monopoly software, even though this is touted as a Linux-based system. Big surprise there…NOT!
I also find the timing on this curious in light of the recent schism between the OLPC and Intel over Intel’s work on the Classmate (a Monopoly oriented laptop) plus the recent issues Sears has had.
Finally
Be very skeptical of “rebates”. They are usually not what you expect.
If they can give a mail in rebate, why can’t they just give it the lower “sticker price” to start with?
If the deal is so great, why is this is a “limited time” offer.
Something fishy here.
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