Wal-Mart, the world largest supermarket chain, is offering a laptop for only $498 (about Rs 21,000) during the festive season in the United States!

Walmart.com and Linspire Inc. have come together with this stunning offer. The laptop, called Balance, is loaded with the Linspire operating system and the OpenOffice.org office suite.

The two companies said that Balance is the cheapest laptop available.

It features a VIA C3 1-GHz processor, 128MB RAM, a 30GB hard drive, a CD-ROM drive and a 14.1-inch liquid crystal display. It comes preinstalled with applications like word processor, spreadsheets, presentation tools and a mail client.

The software includes a built-in firewall to protect users from viruses, spam and pop-ups.

The laptop launch serves as part of Wal-Mart's efforts to promote low-priced consumer electronics. The Balance laptop is available on Wal-Mart's Web site in the US.