

Chinese netbooks break $100 mark... - netbookstation
http://netbookstation.com/2009/08/chinese-netbooks-break-the-100-mark.html

======
mahmud
OT: Fellow foreigners trying to import this need to be aware of the messy
electronics business in ShenZhen. Please look carefully where the companies
you're dealing with are located. Get a map of ShenZhen and try to find where
the companies are located. Anything in Hua Xiang Bey, or Hua Xiang Lu is
probably just a reseller or a front, or a scam; even though Hua Xian Bay area
is THE Electronics _mall_ , reputable companies have their offices and
factories in the suburbs, usually outside the free zone (say, Bo'An or
Nanshan) and until recently foreigners where required to have a permit to
enter. (I would be suspicious of any electronics firm that didn't have an
office in Guangdong Province, specially those in Fujian (Fuzhou, Xiamen, etc.
Taiwan proximity notwithstanding); anything in Beijing or such odd-ball non-
business location should be avoided with extreme prejudice.)

Most _Chinese_ electronics companies are in Southern China, but you will have
to be a veteran to know where specific specialties congregate. There is
nothing in Guangzhou, at least not computer or multimedia electronic gadgets;
but you find everything else in GZ. DongGuan is mostly textiles, heavy
machinery and manufacturing equipment; I wouldn't trust a company based in DG
to sell me a netbook. Avoid Hong Kong by all means, you will be paying premium
for someone to take the 40 minute KCR train to ShenZhen.

Laptops are extremely expensive in China because of local demand. In fact, I
exported IBM Thinkpads from U.S. to China at handsome profit. There are
"shell" laptops that look and function like any other laptop, but they're just
_shells_. The Chinese are excellent at making flash-memory based gadgets, but
their harddisk based gadgets have plenty of catching up to do (we bought
Chinese stuff and fitted them with harddisks in our houses in London and New
York)

Most _good_ Chinese companies can afford sales staff with excellent English
communication skills. Though they're not always proficient, the professional
sales stuff are _polished_ and know their industry inside and out. Scammers,
OTOH, usually have impeccable English but are not professionals; legit sales
people will try to talk trash about a competition, while a scammer will tell
you he can offer you his competition's products as well. Legit salesmen don't
make decisions on the spot. If you tell them you want a container of this
products, they will ask you if they can come back with an answer. Scammers
have an enviable 'can do' attitude.

[Update:

Face, face, face! Don't lose face and don't cause someone else to lose face.
Every word you say will be remembered and will be held against you; don't hint
at a huge order unless you're going to place it. Your salesman is counting on
a commission, and if he knows he has a big order coming he might just spend
his few hundred last kuwais trying to impress you and host you for lavish
dinners (and if you're not there, he will pre-invest that money in another
client of his, treating him to expensive nights out.)

It's better to low-ball your ambitions and earn their respect when you place a
huge order.

A legit company's salesman will probably be asking about your budget and MOQs
right of the bat. That's how you can tell scammers, they're happy to sell you
a "sample" and offer to deliver it DHL. If your legit company does free
shipping, they will certainly don't wanna do DHL or FedEx or anything that
expensive; if your margins are good enough pay for the shipping yourself.

]

~~~
jacquesm
> There are "shell" laptops that look and function like any other laptop, but
> they're just shells.

Can you elaborate on that ? If the look like and function like any other
laptops aren't they simply laptops ?

~~~
mahmud
The best scam I have seen for this booted linux off a USB flash built into the
"laptop" deep down and inside and they gave you a VNC session to a nearby
beefy Windows XP running on dual cores and 4GB (these particular guys were
caught after I pulled out the ethernet, but I would have paid them a grand in
cash if they had the foresight to add a wifi card.) The laptop itself is
probably some kind of cheap ARM processor with 128 megs. Others have been
ancient laptops put into a brand new case and the Windows OS hexedited to
oblivion to report larger resources (this is even trivial when the sellers are
pretending to be Lenovo employees; they say it has no OS and they can boot the
machine to BIOS, show you the resources it has and peripherals but until it
fails to find and OS in the MBR; yyyyeah, you just been looking at a "demo";
the power button has been rigged to replay a video; press ALT-TAB and you will
end up in Windows 98 Media Player.)

P.S. If you suspect a scam _don't_ call them out on it. Just say you have no
money and walk away. Most of these "criminals" are just unemployed laborers
working for a local mafia anyway, no need to make the poor guy lose face.

~~~
jacquesm
Wow! Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
demo!

You have to hand them kudos for being creative though :)

Reminds me of a video compression box I was asked to inspect for an investor
in the mid 80's.

------
lionheart
Once again the market and technological progress produces something that a
dedicated group of smart individuals at a non-profit could not do.

I have no idea idea why this happens, but I've seen it again and again.

I wish that non-profits could be more effective at things like this, I've
certainly worked at enough that were going for similar goals. But for some
reason, somewhere, the incentives or the structure just don't align to produce
these breakthroughs.

Maybe one day we will figure it out.

~~~
DannoHung
Of course, it's a piece of garbage...

~~~
jacquesm
Do you own one or have experience with it ?

~~~
DannoHung
I once owned a computer with similar specifications... 11 years ago. It was a
piece of garbage too.

~~~
jacquesm
11 years ago ???

802.11b was the first widespread wifi standard and it was not even released 11
years ago (October '99), and yet you had a computer with similar
specifications ? I assume you refer to a laptop using 'wavelan' ?

The closest that I can remember from those days to what is offered here was
the compaq contura aero, after that the Toshiba libretto, neither of them had
built in wifi (heck, they had no networking at all, just a serial port, and a
pcmcia slot that you could plug an ethernet expansion card in if you felt like
spending more $ on that than on the whole laptop discussed in this thread).

Both of these machines were of a build quality that the machine you're looking
at here probably could not match, but their price points were _considerably_
higher.

What make & model was it ?

------
reedlaw
Here is a picture: <http://guangzhou.baixing.com/zanzhushang/t3122465.html>

It also has wifi and a choice of 2, 4, or 8GB flash drive. Only 800x400
resolution though.

~~~
mahmud
Resolution means jack squat if you will be using the thing as an Emacs station
at 25x80 ;-)

~~~
mhansen
Urgh, I can't stand coding on those tiny keyboards.

------
jacquesm
This is actually a pretty cool little machine, it looks to be a total knock-
off of the low end asus eee pc, except that they stuck an ARM in it.

Can anybody make out what that thing is to the top left of the right hand
hinge on the screen portion ?

Feature list:

7" 800x480 TFT

2G nand flash

266 MHz ARM cpu (AK7802Q216)

64 MB DDR RAM

mic jack

earphone jack

WIFI

SD slot

3x USB

RJ 45 Ethernet port

7.4V 1800 mAh battery

charger

Software:

win CE ms word viewer

ms excel viewer

physical dimensions: 213.5mm x 141.8mm x 30.8mm

I wonder that the battery life is, ARM chips are pretty frugal.

~~~
anigbrowl
Smart move on the SD slot - that and a USB flash drive would do the job for a
lot of amateur photographers. There's a pretty good selection of software for
ARM linux too.

------
chrischen
Costs as much as the iPhone, weaker, and it won't even fit in your pocket!

~~~
jacquesm
You don't buy an iPhone for $100, you get a plan that you will pay a premium
on that will pay for 'your' iPhone.

I'm putting the 'your' in quotes here because it seems that Apple thinks it
still owns it as well, even though they give you the thing and give you a bill
of sale.

~~~
chrischen
Yea I know. I'm just saying when get one of these china made _and_ designed
computers you'll realize they're probably worth far less than $100.

~~~
sho
What the hell are you talking about? I'm stunned that we've come so far, so
fast, that you can buy a fully functional portable computer for under $100!!

Your comparison with the iPhone, which is almost 10 times the price, is
completely invalid. And your little slur on "China design" is also wrong.
Countries don't design things, companies do. And it's not like America has any
kind of reputation for good design besides the output of a single company -
which is arguably largely due to the effort of a single man!

~~~
jacquesm
> which is arguably largely due to the effort of a single man!

I doubt that. I'm taking it that you refer to Steve Jobs here, and while he
has a ton of influence there are a lot more people making a lot of effort than
just him.

Steve Jobs by himself would - just like any other human being - have a hard
time designing a functioning and well packaged toaster from scratch.

There are a lot of people involved in product development at Apple, any item
they release is the product of the efforts of a very large team.

For the rest of it I completely agree with your comment.

~~~
sho
Hm, I meant more that he'd instituted a culture of design obsession at Apple,
not that he personally designed each and every product. I think the culture of
perfectionism and extreme attention to detail at Apple is largely due to his
efforts.

Thanks for the reminder, though.

