Apparently Asus and Everex aren’t the only ones hoping to cash in on the nascent market of budget PCs. Shuttle is also getting into the game with its $199 kPC, which will be based on a Mini ITX chassis that includes a Celeron 420 processor, Intel 945G chipset, 512MB of DDR2 memory, a 60GB or 80GB hard drive, and will run a version of Ubuntu Linux.


To keep costs down, the company is reportedly still deciding whether or not it will include an external 5.25" optical bay and a PCI Express expansion slot. Shuttle says that a $99 barebones version of the kPC will also be available, giving users the option of upgrading to a Core 2 Duo processor and 1GB of memory. Both versions should be available for purchase within the next couple of months.