A THINKPAD for 1€ per day...

[ian]

Just thought you might be interested in the latest news from France - well, if not the latest, fairly recent.

The French government has decided that students at University here should all have access to the latest in wireless computing, and as such have decreed that they will support plans to sell students laptops at 1€/day and provide all the Universities with WiFi access to the Internet.

There are a large number of machines available from many different manufacturers (Seems DELL have started building laptops now - news to me at least) and I was comforted to see IBM have leapt on the bandwagon and are proposing various models (R50 and, more importantly, T42)

Quite how the purchase plan works remains to be seen, but a very well equiped T42 (a bit like my CWU) sells for around 1800€ which is reasonable in anybodies language...

I will investigate - my daughter is at Uni (with my beloved T21) so we'll have to see how we can swing some dosh from M.Chirac...

I'll keep you posted

[hausman]

I hope the deal is more attractive than this "scam" from Canada: Dollar a Day Computer.

A PC similar to the one shown in the link can be purchased outright from IBM Canada for CA$399 and, unlike the scammer, doesn't incur an additional "Shipping/Admin" fee of yet another "$0.22/day."

Could it be that governments can sometimes be more efficient than the private sector?

[debvill]

Maybe next time you could include the link to the IBM for $399. I couldn't find anything that cheap. Also, IBM charges for shipping as well, and they don't supply financing, which of course is the whole point of buying a computer for a dollar a day. An affordable financing plan is not meant to appeal to people who are able to make a large ticket purchase with cash. They are two different customer bases, and most people fall into the first category. It's hardly a scam.

[hausman]

Maybe next time you could include the link to the IBM for $399. I couldn't find anything that cheap.

http://caipsgws001.can.ibm.com/store/pa ... =IBM+STORE

Also, IBM charges for shipping as well

Shipping costs $69 IIRC but IBM often has free shipping offers.

and they don't supply financing, which of course is the whole point of buying a computer for a dollar a day.

Financing may not be available from IBM but one can always use a credit card or some other less expensive form of credit.