Is a $199 PC too expensive?

At PC Expo, you can snap up a "Buddy PC" for $149.95. Two companies at PC Expo are coming up with decidedly different answers. MICROWORKZ.COM, a Seattle-based PC vendor, has received some attention over its iToaster - a Model T of a desktop that can do anything you like, so long as you only want to word process, surf the Net and e-mail friends. The iToaster, which is equipped with a variation of Be Inc._s operating system, will retail for $199 when it starts selling on July 1. "It kind of sells itself," said Microworkz e-commerce marketing specialist Michael A. McNaughton, although he allowed that, at first glance, PC Expo_s foot soldiers are "pensive" about what_s under the hood of a $199 PC. The other ultra-bargain basement original equipment maker at PC Expo - Vega Technologies of Emeryville, Calif. - undercuts even the iToaster, with its $149.95 Buddy PC boxes. "It_s very popular," said Vega CEO Arvind Patel. But there_s just one catch: The Buddy is more a terminal than a computer. Whereas, with the iToaster, for $199 consumers get a stand-alone fully functional PC, the Buddy works by piggybacking on a parent PC with a Windows 98 or 95 operating system, 18MB of RAM and a processor at at least 100MHz. Patel said the Buddy, which launched in the United States in January and has chalked up more than 70,000 worldwide sales, operates as a clone of the parent or host PC - running all its applications. "Time-sharing with your host PC is what it_s doing," he said. Both the Buddy and its host can operate simultaneously.