Asustek to produce $250 laptop

Apparently the “cheap laptops for developing countries” market is ripe for the picking. The OLPC project was the only one actually producing notebooks for that market. That is until Asustek stepped into the picture.

In July Asustek is planning to begin production of notebooks in the $249-549 range based on the Intel Classmate PC design. If you’re not familiar with the Classmate PC design, it was drafted by Intel as competition to the OLPC project and featured a 7” LCD, ULV Celeron M 900 (no L2 cache) and 256MB of DDR2.

If Asustek produces a laptop similar in design for the $249 price, it may give OLPC’s XO notebook a run for its money. The Celeron M 900 will no doubt out pace the Geode LX-700 in the XO. Fortunately for OLPC a $75 price difference is likely more than enough to make many governments choose the least expensive of the two.

Asustek to launch $249 Classmate PC design in July [via arstechnica]