WalMart PCs??

terrible terrible terrible idea. I can see it now, buy 3 notebooks, get 1 free!

Wal-Mart will concentrate on the low end of laptops. Sager is a high end laptop for the most part. So I don't think there will be a lot of impact unless they make some deal with Toshiba or Dell. I have a feeling they will be low end HP/Compact models that are light weight but not very powerful.

Even worse it will probably be an eMachines laptop running Lindows.

Wal-Mart put pressure on Sager - ha! Not in this lifetime sonny.
It would be like saying GM puts pressure on Ferrari. Yeah right - NOT!

If I owned a Dell, HP or other consumer junk machines (I exclude the Toshiba's here) then I would be worried. If I owned a factory that turned out sausage laptops I would be pleased. If I were a dumb-ass consumer looking to buy a laptop I probably should be worried but would be too ill-informed to even know I should be worried.

Given Sager is mainly sold to those in the know , nothing would change.

Edit: change that - there would be more work for us sysadmins cleaning up n00bie laptops, charging massive fees and being able to pour scorn and derision on lesser Wal-Mart models whilst we bask in the total god-like status of owning a Sager and knowing that we do .

Somebody pass me my 8890 whilst I smite some lesser being...

Geeze aussie, I just have my SAGER do the smiting for me using a background program called SMITE. Like SETI it uses those otherwise cycles to scan the internet for signs of unintelligible life and randomly SMITEs it.

Sometimes, based on the profile of the smitee, it will download oodles of porn that will pop up at inopportune moments, like when the kids or spouse is logged in. Or it may download a trojan that sends out explicitly perverse email to John Ashcroft and/or Russian Mafia leaders. Other alternatives include instituting a series of coded Messenger dialogues with known terror suspects and sending the real financial data to the IRS.

So, why use your valuable god-like time, get SMITE, the automatic way to deal with lesser beings!!!

i think it'll be great. they'll probably sell self branded desktops under $200. would be a nice play(not game play) box for servers and tinkering and the like. will be interesting to see.

Those Walmart PCs are CHEAP, and CHEAP for a reason, because they are CRAP, and they perform just like it too.

WalMart shold start using there own special case badges: Sh1t inside.

I think they should sell them, and I also think that Walmart will get some market share.

Unlike us, everybody does not need the fastest thing under the sun. I would like for all of my family to be able to use VTC or voice/data conferencing over the net. Most of my family thinks that computers take up too much room and they are too expensive.

A low cost system that is readily available may make that a reality.

Marquis do you have a link for that SMITE program ?

The original question posed was if Wal-Mart selling laptops would hurt Sager and smaller outfits. The fact that people would buy a six-pack of laptops from them is not really at issue.

As long as Sager/Clevo target power users, then they are safe. Other smaller brands that are just generic spec systems would have to be concerned.

You most certainly get what you pay for! All they are going to be is little internet notebooks not desktop replacements its not going to put anyone under stress!

Saying a Wal-Mart notebook would put pressure on Sager is like saying a Yugo would put pressure on a Ferarri. However i still think they will do fairly well with people with low PC standards.

Hmmm, I don't know if it wouldn't affect Sager at all -- unless Sager is entirely content with just catering to the niche market. And we ARE the niche market. As it has been pointed out, most users would go for mainstream notebooks, i.e., the ones that run like crap. Not knowing the philosophy of Sager, I can't say that they feel any heat whatsoever but, if Sager's goal is to become another Dell (God forbid) in terms of market share, it'd be hard not grimacing at another super-duper-company coming in to take away the already meager portion of the market Sager has.

And I mean absolutely no disrespect when I say that.

But then again, I could be (and probably am) wrong. Again, I don't know what Sager's goals are. But it'd be hard to say that they don't want to make as much money as they can.

Woohoo, let the flames begin.

always possible...

It is possible that the offering of a wal-mart laptop could have a "trickle down" effect. That is, a price drop would cause some people to go for the next lower model, dell and the like would then shift down their prices, and their high-end models would draw some people from sager.

That said, i doubt it. Reasons:
1. Sagers can not really be much cheaper than they are.
2. Wal-mart says they will start at about $750, which is only about $50 less than current "cheapo's"
3. Dell etc. could easily spread their price spectrum to overlap these computers without affecting top-end models.
4. lower prices would also lead some people to buy additional machines

randy

hey JeffL, was your avatar made with Bryce Metacreations....i think i remember the sky and the look of the sunset...or i may just be wrong....with that said...itll be fun to walk into walmart and tell a worker that im interested in a notebooks....and hear him tell all the features that it has, knowing that it is a complete lie..."top of the line screen" and "fastest hardware out there!" then ill go home and play HL2 and have a great laugh, id prolly go back every day just to laugh at them

That cruel Darkpete, but I like your line of thinking .
I must admit I did a similar thing when I first got my 8890. I wanted to check out the DVI based external LCD's. So I went down to the local computer megamart and asked to plug my laptop into the respective monitors (I finally liked the Samsung 191T btw - it matches the SXGA of the 8890 really well). Anyway here I am with my 8890 loaded up with some of the top end ATI demos and the 1080p Coral Reef video testing away. Along comes another sales guy and stops, stares at the screen, asks what sort of laptop it is (as we know Sager is virtually unheard of ) and then asks about the specs. I rattle off a few. He scurries away to check the specs of his top end models, comes back and says - no that can't be right - you can't get that in a laptop.

This guy was just asking for it. I proceeded to give him a *full* demonstration of the 8890 in full flight. Showed him the system config. Then offered to give him the demos to put into his systems. Copied to CD and watched this guy make a fool of himself. Only one of the top end Toshiba's (the P20) could run the demos smoothly if at all. He tried to make some lame ass excuse that the laptops were not configured properly but I knew otherwise.

Somehow I think he had a bad day after that .

Naughty Naughty - I'm afraid to go into any computer store and try that with my 8887. Not sure if I could find a store with enough LCDs on display to make it worth while. The hard part is walking away and pretending it only weights about 8 lbs.