Cheap PC's are en vogue. Thank you Linux.

While Moore's Law marches on for processors and consumer electronics most Americans are opting for technology that's "so last year". But Linux is the OS at the forefront making netbooks affordable and keeping Microsoft at bay by forcing them to offer XP on comparable offerings. If/when Windows 7 debuts it will already be well behind the curve for a portable operating system and will come in several flavors that will probably make most consumers scratch their heads with confusion.

This new emergence of low-end computers is made possible by running Linux. This allows PC's to run as little as 2GB and 4B SSD hard drives, 512MB, and 900mHz processors. Most PC's with those specs and other operating systems with bloatware/antivirus/customer service add-ons would not even boot much less run seamlessly all day accessing full versions of Java, Flash, and Silverlight web apps.

My 2yr old Asus Eee 701 PC is still running strong with minimal specs and it just keeps going and going and going and going.....