News.blog: Shuttle introduces budget PC

Asus' Eee PC and Everex's CloudBook aren't the only ones pushing down the price of affordable, open-source PCs.

Shuttle introduced its $199 (£100) KPC Linux PC in Las Vegas on Tuesday. The company didn't have it on display on the actual floor of the convention halls at the Consumer Electronics Show (too late did I find out you had to zip over to a private suite at the Bellagio for a look-see), but booth representatives were happy to talk details. "It's meant for simple tasks," said sales rep James Wonpu.

It'll have an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB hard drive. What it won't have: an optical drive or a PCI Express slot. Despite that, it's a pretty good-looking box, and comes in red, blue, white and black, each with a different icon stamped on the front.

Shuttle also says there will be a $99 (£50) barebones version of the KPC. That version will have the option of upgrading to a Core2Duo processor and 1GB of memory. Both will be available for purchase near the end of the first quarter.