Cheap $150 Laptop - Scam Or Real?

Several sites and news media are talking about the cheap laptop from the Swedish company Medison. The company are selling the laptop for $150 through their website www.medisoncelebrity.com and you pay with your creditcard. Medison is using 2Checkout.com as payment processor.

Is it a scam or the real deal? Read on and make your own conclusion.

Facts

How can they make it so cheap? According to Medison they use a plant in Brazil to build the laptops, Linux Fedora as operating system and outdated components. (The homepage looks very cheap too)

* Medison Celebrity Key Features Intel® Celeron 1.5 GHz CPU
* 14? Widescreen X-bright LCD
* 256 MB Ram memory
* 40 GB Hard Drive
* 802.11g Wireless LAN
* Optimized Linux operating system
* Pre-installed office and multimedia applications

“There is a great interest but I cannot disclose exactly how many computers we are selling”, said Medison representative Robert Klanjac to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. “We have changed our strategy to meet the demand from our customers. We want everyone to be able to afford a computer”, he continues.

Is it a scam?

Several forums are discussing whether its a scam or not. Read the list and you be the judge:

• The price suddenly dropped from $450 to $150
• At first it was supposed to be sold in retail shops, but it can only be bought on Medison’s site
• No one has actually seen the laptop yet
• You can’t contact the company. The phone lines have been down since yesterday
• The price is too low, even though the components are 2-3 years old, it won’t cover the costs even with a Brazilian plant
• CEO Valdi Ivancic has connections to several domain names and closed businesses
• Medison’s name is on six Swedish companies, but five of them are either closed or closed due to bankruptcy
• The last company, Medison Consulting is the company behind medison.se and medison
• Medisoncelebrity.com is registered to Valdi Ivancic’s address in Huskvarna, Sweden, but his company is registered in Karlskrona. The domain is registered April 11, 2007 with a Hotmail address and a cell phone number
• Medison.se is registered in 2003. The registration is updated March 29, 2007. It was previously owned by Medison Data AB, which is bankrupt
• The company address in 2004 was no. 1 Embarcadero, Suite 4100, San Francisco, CA 94111. The current address is Medison Europe Limited hovedadresse i England på 27 Ruffets Wood, Gravesend, Kent
• According to several boards the privacy policy on medisoncelebrity.com is copied directly from Apple.com
• Several buyers have cancelled their purchase and got a refund. 2Checkout.com has released a public statement, it basically said, don’t worry you’ll get your money back if this is a scam
• According to Medison, the delivery time is 4-6 weeks, maybe a couple of weeks more because of the huge interest. If you haven’t received your laptop within three months, you’ll get a refund. You can read their press release on the Medison Celebrity Yahoo Tech Group

So what do you think is this a scam? Maybe a publicity stunt?

Personally I wouldn’t worry about getting my money back. I trust 2Checkout to handle that, they can’t afford to lose any customers because of one Swedish company.

I believe in giving everybody a second chance and if this works, great for those that got a cheap laptop, if its a scam you lost $150 for a couple of months and then you get them back. Perhaps this will open the eyes for some of the cheaper laptop manufacturers such as Acer.

Let me know if you ordered one, if your friend or relative did and what his/hers experience is

UPDATE: It’s now 2008 and what has happened? Read the follow up on the $150 laptop here.