Brits know lightweight laptops

Ever since I received my Dell Inspiron laptop in the mail, I’ve been a fan of the lightweight,… Ever since I received my Dell Inspiron laptop in the mail, I’ve been a fan of the lightweight, inexpensive machines the market’s pushing.

They seem to have everything, except, maybe, the oomph to run high-intensity games or compile large circuits in certain applications used by the computer engineering department.

I often have problems with this on my laptop, as I am a computer engineer, and my Dell can hardly boot correctly.

To get an extremely lightweight computer I could take anywhere, I’d have to buy either an Asus EEPC, which is almost $400, or a MacBook Air for almost $2000. The Air is more than $3000 if I decide I need all my storage to be Flash-based.

“Buy the EEPC,” you might say.

The problem is I’ve already sunk almost a grand on my Dell. The most I’d want to spend on a new machine is $200, so the MacBook Air is definitely out of my price range – also, I think I’d constantly worry about breaking it.

The Brits have me covered, however. An English firm called Elonex, which has provided technology for defense contractors and other high-priority clients since its start in 1986, recently announced a contender to the Asus EEPC.

They call it the Elonex ONE, and it sells for less than 100 pounds sterling. For those who have been watching the ever-plunging value of the U.S. dollar, that means the Elonex ONE would sell in this country for less than $198 – exactly what I’m looking for.

Why is it so cheap? The Elonex ONE is similar to the One Laptop per Child computer, or XO laptop, with its slow processor and its use of a customized version of Linux. Yet for the average user, the portability and attractive design make up for its speed. Unlike the XO, the ONE has a fully featured keyboard that won’t confuse adult fingers.

The ONE weighs less than 1 kilogram – or 2.2 pounds – and features a color LCD display of a not-so-whopping seven inches, two touch pads, two USB ports, two speakers, wired and wireless Internet cards and a plastic keyboard that can take whatever liquid – alcoholic or otherwise – you decide to spill on it.

The only drawback for all you megahertz junkies is the speed of the processor. The first Elonex ONE laptops will feature a 300 megahertz processor and 128 megabytes of RAM – if you want to pay just a little more for your laptop, you can upgrade to 256 MB.

Onboard storage is only one gigabyte, but the machine sports an SD Card Reader for easy upgrades.

So how do you get one? It’s rather simple, though you’ll have to wait a little while. Elonex is shipping the laptops sometime in June.

That is, Elonex is shipping 200,000 of the laptops sometime in June. To reserve one, you’ll have to spend 10 GBP – or approximately $19.86.

You might also ask why I am reporting on this laptop and why I seem so enthusiastic. After all, it is slow, it may be doubtful we Yanks can get too many of them, and they ship from the United Kingdom, meaning additional delays crossing the Atlantic.

Why not just suck it up and buy an EEPC? The main reason is the charitable work Elonex is attempting to do with the sales of its machines.

Elonex has promised to donate one of its small laptops to an underprivileged country for every 100 units sold to customers in industrialized nations.

Also, with such a small price tag, perhaps the ONE will spur additional companies to attempt the creation of a small, inexpensive machine.

With added competition for the “baby laptop” market, companies will attempt to slim down production costs, thus allowing them to put more powerful processors in smaller computers for less money.

If you are interested in the Elonex ONE PC, you can visit the website at http://www.elonexone.co.uk.