Gecko: Upcoming Sub-$300 Mini Laptop Running on Linpux Lite

The market of low-cost laptop is hot. Almost everyweek we can get a new about a new upcoming low-cost laptop from different companies. This time a Thai company called Norhtec is preparing a new sub notebook which can compete with Eee PC 2G laptop. This upcoming low- cost laptop that is called “Gecko” will cost less than $300.

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Next Gen Eee PC Showcasing at CebIT: Eee PC 900 with 9-inches Display

This laptop resembles Eee PC in many features like 7" display, or full size keyboard. It is powered by a Via C7M ULV CPU clocked at 1.0 GHz and an optional PATA hard disk and integrated media acceleration. But the most imporessive feature of this laptop is its operating system. This laptop runs Linpus Linux Lite, a new distribution OS designed for small-screen mini-PCs like EeePC, CloudBook, OLPC and UMPC devices.

Read more:
Linpus Releases First OS Aimed at Cheap Linux UMPCs

Linpus Linux Lite is the first commercial OS aimed specifically at low-cost UMPCs. This new distro is designed to run smoothly on as little as a 366MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM and 512MB of storage. The desktop has also been designed with 4 up to 7-inches screens with the least resolution of VGA (640x480).

I am quoting some lines from desktoplinux:

Based on Xorg, Linpus Lite uses some GNOME desktop technologies, such as hald, dbus, obex-server, vfs, and gnome-screensaver. The window manager is the ultra-light xfwm4-simple, however, with xfce4 panels and desktop components. A full complement of built-in Linux device drivers enables Linpus Lite to support WiFi, WiMax, HSDPA, HSUPA, Ethernet, BT, IR, and UPnP communications technologies, says Linpus.

"Linpus Lite is very similar to gOS," wrote Norhtec's President, Michael Barnes, in an email. "Each application is tied to a dedicated icon, each of which is separated by tabs which classify it into a functional area." Barnes went on to explain that Gecko customers could swap out the distro for other Linux distributions or even Windows.

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If the price of this laptop really goes under $300 and can have the high good quality of Eee PC, it will be a good rival for Eee PC. Although, these second generation of Eee PC or the Acer’s low-cost laptops with bigger screens are coming, their prices will stay more than $500 which is the biggest barrier in developing countries to buy laptops (or even in USA many consumers welcomed law-cost laptops as the secondary but cheap and applicable devices).

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