
Cherrypal Launches World's First $99 Laptop - mjfern
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cherrypal-launches-worlds-first-99-laptop-79315337.html
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jws
What? These zombies are back from the dead? Bring a shotgun and aim for the
head.

Ok, that might be harsh. But they've taken a couple runs at the computer
appliance/cloud storage market. It isn't unusual to see "Product XYZ! Soon to
be released [date 6 months in the past]!" on their web site.

They might need to work on the website too. I'm getting a cloud of database
errors mixed in with the page:

    
    
       1062 - Duplicate entry '3d4c38322166524845a005d0d2c87438' for key 1

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simonk
"launched Cherrypal Open Store, which features products designed by Apple,
Dell and others. All non-Cherrypal products featured in the Open Store are
priced at least 30 percent less than the manufacturer's suggested retail
price, but carry Cherrypal's unconditional 30-day money back guarantee."

Except they kind of just made up the suggested retail price of the Mac's. Just
selling them for $50 less; but don't include shipping so same price as any
other retailer.

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alaithea
How much of that $99 is the Windows CE or XP license? At those prices,
including a non-free OS, it seems too good to be true.

Why do they preach open source, yet not got all the way and use an open source
OS?

~~~
anigbrowl
They say Linux too, though not which flavor. Might be a charity writeoff for
MS, I doubt the volume license for CE is more than $5 or $10 per seat anyway.

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nicpottier
They are 'available' in the store:
<[http://www.cherrypal.com/openstore/product_info.php?products...](http://www.cherrypal.com/openstore/product_info.php?products_id=5&osCsid=cd8446c6c8fda2baf511bfa7388def7c>);

Though I don't think I'd trust it. If they can actually afford to sell them
for $99 it is actually kind of a neat product just from a hacking point of
view.. I could think of lots of little projects to build using one. $99 is
about the same you'd pay for an Arduino + WiFi, and that doesn't include
battery, display etc..

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zokier
"Laptop" ... yeah right

Smartbook would be better term to describe devices like this.

edit: It seems silly to call this laptop when there even is far more powerful
phones on the market.

~~~
netcan
Do older laptops cease to be laptops when they are surpassed by phones?

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tdoggette
The only pictures I can find are small and generic on their website. If no
one's held it and written a review and taken pictures of it, it doesn't exist.

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jasonlbaptiste
Enough with the toy computers. This race to the bottom is sickening.

I understand the third world could benefit from this. I ask though why do they
have to get crap? They don't need as much as us, I understand that. Why can't
we work on giving them good hardware? We can bail out banks and try to cure
aids. I think were more than capable of a better solution and making the
economics work.

~~~
ghshephard
You do realize, of course, that just 20 years ago, this computer would have
been considered "Outrageously over-powered, no individual could conceivably
need so much performance/memory"

I sometimes wonder why it is that, as individuals, we look at the systems that
were shockingly powerful and capable, and now consider them to be "crap."

~~~
Retric
One of the more amusing things to do with mondern computer system is to find
the most recent year when they would be the most powerful computer on the
planet. My guess is a 400MHz modern CPU would place this around 1985 if you
include the graphics system etc.

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Luyt
256GB ram? My PC only has 4.

~~~
Tagith
Talk about getting your money's worth!

~~~
SingAlong
Luyt was pointing out a mistake in the Press release :) The ram spec is
mentioned as "256 GB"

Also, here's the direct product link:
[http://www.cherrypal.com/openstore/product_info.php?products...](http://www.cherrypal.com/openstore/product_info.php?products_id=5)

Only caveat is that battery lasts only for 4hrs. Would have been good if that
was expandable to 6hrs or 8hrs (maybe for an extra sum). But it's value for
money.

Specs offered sound a lot better than the Wikireader which is also $99 and
does lesser than this

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netcan
They seriously need a marketing person on this team. Besides the fact that it
is pretty hard figuring out how to buy the product, when you do get to a shop
page:

 _Cherrypal 7" Africa mini-laptop (small, slow, sufficient) [C101] $99.00

..The 7" Cherrypal was designed with developing countries in mind._

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spthorn
Go to their site, click the Open Store link, then click Buy Now. phpMyAdmin
entry page.

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ThinkWriteMute
I'm sorry but at 400Mhz/256MB I can't possibly use that as a computer. Firefox
would barely load 3 tabs.

~~~
misuba
Do most people need 3 tabs?

~~~
wgj
Concurrent nav is a big feature for power users, but for the rest of the
world, probably not.

Edit: I'm surprised that this is such an unpopular point of view.

