Indian Company Shows Off Sub-$200 Laptop

geo_2677 writes "The Indian company which came out with the Simputer has now come with a PC which cost roughly INR 10,000; that's just about US $200. The project was backed by the Indian government R&D department Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)." Geo2677 points out an article on the low-cost computer at hinduonline.net and another at the Times of India, and writes "The new PC is Linux-based and has office applications, a browser and audio/video capabilities. With a keyboard that can be rolled up, it looks pretty sleek. A U.S. company is already using it in pilot projects, and many more have shown interest. The Indian government hopes that this will push the PC revolution to the masses. It aimed for home users and small businesses/shops. The PC penetration in India is very low, at a measly 13 million, due to the high costs involved."

Comments

Ok, so, no storage...

[garcia]

It will have no hard disk but will have built-in memory and facility to plug in memory cards for any storage over and above that provided for in the built-in memory. It will not have games. High-speed computing is ruled out. The reasoning is that "while adding to the cost, these are of no use to many users.''

The one link is slashdotted already and the other doesn't say how much memory it has built-in. Yeah, it's sub-$200 until you realize that you have to pay another $150+ for a decent sized memory "stick" (or two or three).

Also featured on public radio

[DaveInAustin]

The radio show Marketplace has a http://members.aol.com/adnascar/thepark.html> story about the same machine. Not much details in the story. It doesn't mention linux, but says "it doesn't do windows".

their website here:

[t0mhannen]

http://www.ncoretech.com/mobilis/index.html with pics and info

Numbers numbers numbers

[mattmentecky]

First off, not to nitpick but the title of the article is misleading. The laptop is not sub-$200, 10,000INR is $230 http://www.xe.com/ucc/

The PC penetration in India is very low, at a measly 13 million, due to the high costs involved

Although a $230 laptop is great for people in developed nations unfortunately it is still in the realm of high cost for someone in India.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ us.html
The GDP per capita in America - $40,000

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ in.html
GDP per capita in India - $3,100

For someone in America, hell a $2,000 computer would be 1/20th of income, while a $230 computer in India is 1/13th.

Re:Interesting..

[harrkev]

Back in my day, I remember having 640x480 and being grateful for such high-resolution graphics.

You are spoiled by today's systems. So am I. I run 1600x1200 every day. But if you run 0x0 every day because you don't have a computer, 640x480 seems beautiful.

Don't forget that people used to do useful work on a 80x25 mono screen without graphics. No photoshop, but good enough to word processing to drive a daisy-wheel printer. This thing is bound to be at least as powerful as a Pentium-120. And a Pentium 120 (with 24MB and a 1.2Gb HD) got me my Master's degree by running Matlab and Protel.