Fry’s Electronics is selling a tower PC for US$159 (with a keyboard, mouse, and external speakers!). Now, you’d think that a computer that costs little more than the coins in your dresser change jar would be a complete piece of crap, but Lloyd Case of ExtremeTech found this computer surprising servicable. Unfortunately, like many of these low-cost systems, they skimped on the RAM (at 128MB) making performance of even its Linux OS (Linspire) sluggish. So, a memory upgrade is required. Case also recommends a bigger power supply (over the included 250W), if you want to upgrade the baked-on graphics chip for an AGP-based graphics card.
It’s not the prettiest box on the shelf, nor is it going to win any benchmark challenges, but if you’re looking for another node in your network, a granny PC, or a bare-bones system to experiment with and upgrade, you won’t likely find this much metal, plastic and silicon for less. And, it comes in our favorite non-color: black.