If you know someone in America, now might be a good time to phone and call in that favour. Wal-Mart, owner of ASDA in the UK, in the America is selling a laptop for just $498 (£258).

The model is supplied a company called Linspire Inc, the company formerly known as Lindows, which was sued by Mircosoft into changing its name. Linspire has previously sold inexpensive laptops through Wal-Mart under their previous Lindows name, however it has still managed to get a VIA C3 processor 1.0 GHz, 14.1" LCD panel, 128 MB memory, and 30 GB hard drive. For an extra $50 (£25) you can upgrade to a 1.1Ghz mobile AMD Athlon, 40Gb hard drive, 128Mb of ram, 14.1in XGA TFT LCD screen, intergrated 802.11b wireless networking and a DVD-ROM drive in it.

Even with shipping, the laptop doesn't break the £300 barrier. What's the catch? For us brits only that the site won't ship online. Lets hope that the deal is such a success that it will be brought to ASDA in this country.

>> Wal-Mart - Official website of Wal-Mart