ELONEX is preparing to launch a £100 Linux-based laptop, aimed it says, at the education sector.

Called the ONE, the ultra-portable laptop offers wireless internet access email, word processing and sheet spreading. Although Elonex won't tell us what form these take, we'll have a guess at Open Office.

The laptop weighs less than a kilogramme and offers a claimed three-hour battery life. It sports a 1Gb Flash-based hard drive and a seven-inch screen. It's not unlike the Asus Eee, we hear.

Elonex will launch the One at the Education Show in Birmingham on 28 February. The outfit won't tell us anything more about what's in the box until then.

It does say the One, "removes the cost barrier that has prevented the one-laptop-per-person, large-scale uptake of computers in the education system that has for so long been just a pipe dream."

The firm also promised to donate one One laptop to underprivileged children for every one hundred sold. µ

L'Inqs
www.elonex.com
www.education-show.com