Lenovo Aims $199 PC At China's Rural Population

athloi writes "Lenovo has announced they are gearing up to sell a basic personal computer for 'China's vast but poor rural market'. The pricetag could be as low as $199. 'The new Lenovo unit will include a processor and a keyboard and will use a buyer's television set as a monitor, Chen said. He said he had no details on the processor size or other features. The new PC goes on sale later this year at prices of 1,499 to 2,999 yuan ($199-$399), Chen said. Lenovo is the world's third-largest PC manufacturer, behind U.S.-based Hewlett Packard Inc. and No. 2 Dell.'"

Comments

Not only price but law

[jshriverWVU]

I was under the impression, there was limits on what people could buy in China. A chinese class mate was telling me how you would get slips, that would authorize you the ability to buy 1 computer. But you were limited on how many or what you could buy. So even if you were rich, it wasn't like you could go down to the store and buy 10 computers for a home cluster. Anyone know more on this?

Re:Not only price but law

[suv4x4]

I was under the impression, there was limits on what people could buy in China. A chinese class mate was telling me how you would get slips, that would authorize you the ability to buy 1 computer. But you were limited on how many or what you could buy. So even if you were rich, it wasn't like you could go down to the store and buy 10 computers for a home cluster. Anyone know more on this?

In a capitalism, when stock is limited, prices go up and demand gets lower. In a centralized economy they put you on queue and first-in gets first served. So for some property, yes, you gotta prove you need what you buy (from the bigger stuff, cars, apartments, and in the past computers, I don't know about presently), since the prices are sub-market and the stock is limited.

But China today isn't so black-and-white in terms of the economy model. It's a weird mixture of capitalism and communism.

Plus, this limitation of purchase applies to a person though, not companies. Companies still exist in China and they can make clustered servers for their business without troubles, trust me.

Re:Not only price but law

[E 99]

But China today isn't so black-and-white in terms of the economy model. It's a weird mixture of capitalism and communism.

That's for sure. China itself is far from a centralized economy, although some regions within it may be. Some of the autonomous regions there are more free-market than most Western countries. In the rural provinces, I doubt you'll find the kinds of restrictions you find in the urban areas. You definitely find far more entrepreneurism than you would expect in a "communist country". You also find far less of a "safety net" than you find in Western countries. One of the common struggles in rural families is coming up with tuition to send their kids to school, whereas most Western countries have state-run free schooling.

It makes me laugh.

[selain03]

It makes me laugh everytime I see someone develop a "cheap" computer with substandard, obsolete technology. The irony is that I can buy a nearly top of the line computer for $199 here in the states. It just takes some smart shopping and rebate forms. Examples:
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/18/749939/ (laptop for $181 after rebate)
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/18/749936/ (desktop for $180)

What I'm trying to say is that Fry's should open up a location in rural China.

Re:I bet you 1 yuan

[trolltalk.com]

Thanks for the memories ... I loved my CoCo2 (16k upgraded to 64k ram) - I learned assembler on that old box. When the CoCo 3 came out, with 128k of ram (which I upgraded to 512k + 3 floppy drives + 2 tape drives + multi-io + speech synth + mouse + touchpad + remote electrical control unit, etc., Microware OS9 + RGB monitor yadda yadda yadda, I was one happy camper. People with their early PCs were stunned! True multi-tasking, a graphical environment, multiple console terminals + multiple consoles per screen on both text and graphics, and v and pascal compilers. w00t!

Sometimes the "good old days" really were the "good old days."

China already has cheaper PC's

[John Sokol]

Gold Leopard King GLK has computers the are selling all over Asia, from China to India.
  These PC retail for the equivalent of $5 US!
  There is only a single chip in a cartridge the rest is just buttons and interconnect, no chips. They have at least 15 models that I have seen.
  They support printers, modems, a mouse, and supports 100 of video games from perfect clones of most Atari 2600, and early Nintendo like Mario Brothers.

  I have been trying to track down this company, there products are in shops everywhere, but there is no Address, website or any information on how to contact the company.
  Even the shop owners don't know how to contact them because there are just people that come around selling then to the shops.

    Model numbers look like GLK-6102, GNC-1133, GLK-5002, GLK-1119, GLK-2012,GLK 98, GLK 1339, GLK 5002
    They also seem to come under many other brand names, and make lower end game clones that are sold here in the US, and even in Walmart China.

    With a little bit more work, they would be able to add a web browser and many other cool apps.
    I would really like to get in touch with this company.

Here is an example:
http://famiclone.emucamp.com/goldleopardking/glk.h tm
http://www.museo8bits.com/famiclones.htm
http://ultimateconsoledatabase.com/famiclones/gold _leopard_king.htm
http://n-europe.com/special.php?sid=retro3&page=2