The Sub-$100 Laptop?

Vollernurd writes "The BBC is carrying this article detailing Nick Negroponte's plans to deveop and distribute a sub-$100 notebook computer. It would be very basic and stripped down and be used in developing countries as a way of distributing school books and such. Interesting to see how they will cut costs. Yes, it does run Linux." You can read another slashdot story about this machine when it was discussed on Red Herring awhile ago.

Comments

Not just developing countries

[gclef]

I know the point of this is to be available in developing countries, but I can see this being very popular in "first-world" countries as well. (heck, I'd buy one) They may have to control how they're sold/distributed to keep the developed world from snapping them all up.

Re:Not just developing countries

[theVP]

all I would end up paying for is the price of mobility, really. I could care less how it performs at a price like that. Definitely wouldn't use it for my primary system, but for a CHEAP mobile secondary, why the hell not?

And I really like this guy's motivation for this. I think it just goes to show that technological gurus aren't money grubbers by nature.

Re:Not just developing countries

[vegetasaiyajin]

You ignorant. Not all third world countries are the same. I live in one and Iknow lots of people who cannotcurrently afford a computer, but would be able to buy a 100$ one. We don't have intermitent power. In fact our third world power infrastructure is better than some parts of the first world (e.g. California not long ago). These computers would be perfect for a country like ours.

Re:Not just developing countries

[tomhudson]

This is awsome. I wish they'd make a for profit version similar to this in the $150-200 range.

Just ask for your cash discount.

You can always find *someone* to sell you a brand new notebook for $150-$200. And, yes, they're making a nice profit ($150-$200).

Lots of your inner cities already have such discount retail programs.

The machines come with Windows pre-installed. Most of them even come with user data pre-installed.

They'll even make same-day delivery (some will even let you order the particular make/model you want).

Ain't capitalism grand. [tt]

Re:Not just developing countries

[greenhide]

These would be invaluable in things like health clinics, where a wealth of information could suddenly be made available, for much less than the cost of purchasing a set of books on medicine and diseases.

The point is that this technology is needed there; at the current price point, it's completely out of reach of the consumer. Offering these laptops at a reasonable price means that finally those who need these laptops can purchase them.

I sincerely doubt that these laptops will be used primarily for recreational purposes, so someone who really does need them might willingly take out a loan in order to purchase one.

NGOs, for one, will certainly be snapping these up. These notebooks will make their work so much easier.

Perhaps it might be useful to offer laptops to lower income westerners (I'm thinking particularly of urban and rural poor), but lower middle class westerners can suck it up and use a credit card if they really want a laptop. Even Apple has laptops starting for less than $1000.

The "intermittent power access" is why they're using laptops rather than desktops, which, if you think about it, would be much cheaper anyway. Laptops need less power overall, and you can plug them in during the 2-3 hours of scheduled "uptime" on the local grid. For clinics running off of generators, desktops, which would put a huge drain on the electricity, were probably just not possible (or, if they were, it might be one desktop computer for a dozen or more people). With laptops, they can now use several.

So there are a lot of benefits to offering these inexpensive laptops. While this is certainly a commercial offering and not a "donation" to developing countries, it is nevertheless a very beneficial thing being done. Although technology is not the "answer to the problem", it can be an invaluable tool for the real solutions. I believe that the available of inexpensive laptops just might transform developing countries as much as the introduction of wireless phones has.

Re:Not just developing countries

[ArsonSmith]

Some will even sell you the one you lost last week. I've seen the program before. It's great.

Only selling them to governments

[quokkapox]

I heard that they are only going to sell them to governments.

So it will be a day or two's delay until you can grab one off eBay.

Re:More pressing needs

[fwitness]

This gets brought up a lot. Yes, those people have more pressing, more basic needs. But if you can offer them *information* which is a good commodity. The best example I heard is the the farmer who would normally take his wares to the market and haggle price. Now he can use the internet to check other local prices, and decide whether or not the trip is even worth it (and for large amounts of items, and long trips, this isn non-trivial to farmers).

People in 3rd world countries have 'basic' needs, but they also realize that there are some tools worth having. If a computer is going to cost you 5 years of income, then it's not an issue. But if you can get one relatively cheap, access to information can be extremely valuable.

I don't think they need these in Africa

[AtariAmarok]

From looking at my inbox, Nigeria is populated by thousands of princes worth tens of millions of dollars each.

Meanwhile, on eBay

[XxtraLarGe]

Looking at old PowerBooks (Pre-PowerPC), you can get several color screen PowerBooks for under $50. Many have a built in modem or Ethernet, you can run Adobe Acrobat to handle PDF's and it will also support Internet Explorer for web stuff. I am sure there are comparable Windows laptops selling for the same price or less. IMHO, we really should be making an effort to use older computers with proven hardware/software first before manufacturing newer computers for people who have never owned them before.

As an IT Director in education

[TeeJS]

I have to admit that I currently hate laptops. Part of it is that they are expensive and fragile, but mainly because when someone can carry a computer about with them, it becomes "MINE" - they assume they can do whatever they want with it. I could envision using these as a mobile lab or textbook running off of a LTSP type host, but otherwise I'd be afraid at the upkeep time needed for them - even running Linux!

Re:Error in TFA?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Smaller processors (with slower memory busses) don't require cooling fans, even in tropical climates.

If you have ever worked in a factory or with a piece of remote instrumentation, cooling fans are the bane of your existance. They die quietly, and next thing you know you have random crashes, or worse, damaged components. And they have a great way of sucking dust, dirt, and other undesirables into the inner workings of the machine.

Plus, you save on the cost of the fan, the cost of the connector for the fan, the cost of the holes in the PCB to run the pins to supply the fan, and can chop that much more power off the requirements for the supply. You also have one less part that needs to be assembled onto the final product.

All of that can add up to a few hundred thousand dollars of savings over a production run of a few million computers.

And for the record, a textbook program is NOT all that CPU intensive. There is not rule that says you can't scale the format to the capabilities of the machine.

Dateline 2006, after sub-$100 laptops deployed

[Anonymous Coward]

"United Nations officials report a mysterious 50,000 percent increase in Ethiopian pr0n online...