Wal-Mart selling $298 PC with OpenOffice

Last week Wal-Mart began selling a PC priced under $300, complete with operating system and office software.

The Everex Impact GC3502 system features Windows Vista Home Basic and comes with OpenOffice.org 2.2 pre-installed. The system has a 1.5GHz VIA C7 processor, 1GB DDR2 memory, integrated graphics, a 80GB HDD and a DVD burner.

Speakers, a mouse and a keyboard are also included but a display is missing.

he Everex machine will be competing for Wal-Mart shelf space with the low-cost Dells recently introduced to the world of brick-and-mortar sales. The retail giant currently sells the Dell Dimension E521 for $498 alone or bundled with a 19" LCD monitor and slightly faster Athlon 64 X2 CPU for $200 more.

Cost aside, the two centerpieces of the Everex offering are the inclusion of OpenOffice.org 2.2 and the absence of crapware typically bundled with low-cost PCs. Including OO.org instead of Microsoft Office or even Microsoft Works allowed the PC manufacturer to shave a few additional dollars off of the PC's price, and according to OO.org marketing project lead John McCreesh, the open-source office suite passed all of Everex's tests "with flying colors."

Everex also announced that this cheap $298 PC won't feature any pre-installed bloatware.

Source: ARS Technica