Crave

Every story that crosses our desk about ultra-cheap laptops--from the $100 OLPC schoolkid special, to the $150 Medison Celebrity from Sweden, to the $200 Asus Eee (for that price, you only get one letter)--generates a tremendous amount of buzz, not to mention more than its fair share of blog posts.

The delayed Asus Eee

Of course, getting any of these systems actually in our greedy little hands is another matter entirely. The One Laptop Per Child project is still struggling to get (now $200) OLPC systems into the hands of kids, turning to a new plan--instead of getting governments, corporations or charitable groups to fund these laptops, the general public can now buy one for themselves and sponsor one for a child in a developing nation. That program doesn't start until mid-November, so even those willing to pay $400 for the $100 OLPC laptop won't have one anytime soon.

The mysterious $150 Medison Celebrity, from a PC maker in Sweden, has gotten a lot of coverage for something that is essentially vaporware. Matt Elliott placed his order back in July, but so far (as I predicted) neither he, nor any member of the public or press have gotten their systems, despite a series of bizarre statements from the company and various other shadiness.

Is this the mysterious Medison Celebrity?

Our last hope for a low-cost laptop was the Asus Eee, from Taiwan. We've generally liked Asus' systems in the past, but this $200 2-pound, 7-inch, Linux-based laptop is nowhere to be found, outside of a few trade show appearances. The street date has gone from September to early October, and now, the date has been moved back to mid-November (or very late October, if you give Asus the benefit of the doubt), around the same time as the new OLPC two-for-one program starts.

None of this means we'll stop searching for the holy grail of an inexpensive, functional laptop--but like some crypto-mythological creature (such as Bigfoot or the chupacabra), they're always tantalizingly out of reach.

(Credit: Medison Europe Limited)

Sadly, it looks like I'm going to have to call shenanigans on the $150 Swedish laptop. When I placed my order for the Medison Celebrity laptop on July 25, the Medison Web site estimated the Linux-based laptop would ship within four to six weeks. Well, today marks six weeks, so unless I see the UPS man within the next hour or so, Medison will have failed to honor its commitment to ship me a laptop in the stated time frame. The company hasn't even bothered to inform me how much it plans to charge for shipping the laptop, let alone provide an update on when I might expect to receive it.

The laptop is sold through Columbus, Ohio-based reseller 2Checkout.com, which has been thoughtfully answering questions from understandably concerned customers who have a Medison laptop on order. A 2Checkout.com rep named Kristen has been active on a forum thread and stated in a recent post, "All customers who pre-ordered will have shipping costs identified via re-invoice and be asked to re-authorize the order." I haven't received an e-mail from 2Checkout.com since the initial confirmation of my order on July 25.

I spoke with a 2Checkout.com support person this afternoon, and she was able to tell me that my order was among the first couple hundred, which means I should be among the first to receive the laptop if and when Medison actually starts shipping the thing. (She did say Medison started shipping the laptop in Sweden--a small consolation to this U.S. laptop user.) Though helpful and knowledgeable about the situation--I wasn't the first person to call customer support about Medison--she seemed as perplexed as I did about the lack of detail Medison has provided since it announced the availability of the Celebrity laptop. Even a simple item like shipping--how much I'll be asked to pay or how the charge will be handled--has yet to be explained. I certainly want to avoid dealing directly with Medison if it involves giving the company my credit card number.

I'm going to keep my order open with the hopes that a $150 laptop shipped late is better than a $150 laptop shipped never. My credit card has not been charged, and I trust 2Checkout.com to not bill me until it has received proof--a tracking number--from Medison that my Celebrity laptop is in route. More as I know it, but as it stands now, I'm far from impressed on how Medison is doing business. If it weren't for 2Checkout.com staying on top of the situation, I would have canceled my order by now.

How about the rest of you with a Medison Celebrity laptop on order? Have you been given any indication you'll be receiving the system? Have you given up and canceled your order? Know anyone in Sweden who can prove the laptop has really started shipping?

(Credit: Computer Sweden)

Responding to cries that its $150 Linux laptop is at best vaporware or, worse, a scam, Medison held a press conference last week at a Stockholm Hilton where it answered some, but not all, questions posed to it by the Swedish press, including Computer Sweden. After reading accounts of the exchange, I have no better feeling on whether this operation is legitimate, fraudulent, or a misdirected publicity stunt.

The only useful piece of information to come out the press conference was the promise that the company would start shipping its Medison Celebrity laptops around August 15. I placed my order on July 25, so I'm giving the company until September 5 to deliver, which is the far end of its original four- to six-week estimate.

The company did have what looks like a working unit on display for all to see, but the company's managing director, Valdi Ivancic, didn't answer questions about who would be manufacturing the Medison Celebrity laptop, other than to say the company has an assembly plant in Brazil with plans for new plants in Central America and Europe. Impressive: expansion plans before the first Celebrity laptop rolls off the assembly line.

Ivancic explained that Medison plans to make more money from accessory makers advertising on its site than from sales of the $150 laptop itself. He said that shipping is not included in the price of the laptop, which is odd, since shipping charges weren't added or even estimated when I placed my order. Then again, my account has yet to be charged. Still, I'd like the chance to agree to the shipping charges before they're applied and the laptop ships. Support is also a question mark; Ivancic said he's talking with a company called InfoCare.

Now I'm no Scandinavian entrepreneur, but it would seem to be that one ought to figure out how to ship and support a product before you begin taking orders. Being able to share these details at a press conference of your own arranging would go a long way to assure the public that you are running a legitimate business. Instead, Ivancic's exchange with journalists lacked details, but did include this gem:

Journalist: Will you sink or swim with this?
Ivancic: No, we won't.

Before the press conference ended, Ivancic steered the proceedings into the realm of the bizarre by mentioning that he may run for prime minister. My $150 and I are hoping that it's hard to launch a successful campaign for prime minister of Sweden on the heels of an Internet laptop scam. If my Medison Celebrity shows up by September 5, Ivancic can count on my vote.

From credit card debt and school loans to rising gas prices and adjustable mortgages, there are plenty of reasons why consumers in the developed world can't afford a laptop. Not to mention the fact that underfunded schools and underprivileged kids also exist in the developed parts of the world. Enter the Medison Celebrity laptop. It's a $150 laptop from Swedish company Medison that's available through the Columbus, Ohio-based online reseller 2Checkout.com.

(Credit: Medison Europe Limited)

With Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC hovering around $175, and Intel's Classmate PC expected to cost more than $200, the Medison Celebrity laptop can lay claim to being the cheapest laptop in the world. And it boasts an impressive feature set for the money. For starters, it features a large, wide-screen 14-inch WXGA display and weighs a reasonable 4.8 pounds. Powering the Medison Celebrity is a 1.5GHz Intel Celeron M 370 processor and 256MB of memory. You may scoff at such a meager memory allotment considering all the reviews out there that complain whenever a PC serves up less than 1GB these days, but the Medison Celebrity doesn't have to power Vista or any other flavor of Windows. Instead, it uses Fedora Linux, which requires less muscle to run than a Windows OS and no Microsoft licensing fee. Rounding out the specs are a 40GB hard drive, an integrated Via PN800 graphics chip, and 802.11g Wi-Fi. You also get stereo speakers, three USB 2.0 ports, and a PC Card slot. Medison backs the laptop with a one-year warranty but offers little detail about the terms.

Medison takes orders in a variety of currencies, and it claims it will outfit the laptop with the appropriate keyboard. The company estimates it'll take four to six weeks to ship, but "availability of the Medison Celebrity model depends on how many orders we get per day." It also lists additional charges above the $150 price as $6.45 plus 5.5 percent "and extra" for its partner, 2Checkout.com.

Is this $150 laptop too good to be true? Could be--I've tried all morning to place an order, but I keep getting an error message before I can even enter my credit card info and address. I'll keep trying, but it looks like Medison isn't quite ready to bestow Celebrity status on anyone with an extra $150 kicking around. I'll update this post should I get my order to go through.

UPDATE: I successfully completed an order. And wouldn't you know, the $150 laptop ended up costing an even $150. Shipping was free, and no taxes or other charges were applied. I'll let you know when it arrives.