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."

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

Just to note..

[Anonymous Coward]

A comparable Dell workstation without Windows, and with a regular keyboard, mouse, memory, and 40GB hard drive will cost about $200.

radio show on it

[GweeDo]

The Marketplace [publicradio.org] has a story online [publicradio.org] about this pc.

their website here:

[t0mhannen]

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

Re:Also featured on public radio

[GweeDo]

Did you mean marketplace.publicradio.org [publicradio.org]?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Just to note..

[GweeDo]

The cheapest "Alternative OS" desktop from Dell is $319 [dell.com] and that includes no monitor. Would you like to prove your claim?

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.

Nice looking pics of the laptop

[shyampandit]

Here are some good looking pics of the laptop. Im not sure you can call it a laptop though, it looks more like a hybrid version of a pda and laptop. New segment?

Check out http://news.com.com/Photos+Low-cost+computing+with +style/2009-1005_3-5701496.html [com.com]

Re:Ok, so, no storage...

[Roger_Wilco]

Give me a break.

The first hard disk we had was 20 MB, and it was huge when you consider only a few executables and text files. Granted, we ran Stacker on it to compress the contents and approximately double the capacity.

When my brother went to university, he replaced his 40 MB disk with a 560 MB; unfortunately, his BIOS only supported 512 MB, so his new disk wasted more space than the old disk had available.

We had a word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, and so on with only a 20 MB drive. Heck, we ran a BBS. 512 MB of disk would feel like heaven, with appropriate software. I've had useful GNU/Linux installations on disks smaller than that.

Low power...

[klubar]

This unit was also featured on NPR's Marketplace last night. One of the features that they touted in the interview was the units very low power consumption. It's designed to be run off batteries or unreliable (which I assume means varying voltage) power sources. As they mentioned, this will help many more third-world villages have computer access. Remember even at $200 it's still a substantial amount of a year's salary.

See http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/05/1 0/PM200505102.html [publicradio.org] for more details

I'm skeptical, but not for the usual reasons

[shm]

I've tried to buy Encore's Simputer. They're not really into retail or for that matter anything close to "consumer electronics" as we understand the term. They like to sell stuff "vertically" - i.e. they use their Simputer as a platform for specific applications. Look for a link to their handheld military version with GPS etc. Very cool.

I would expect them to do something similar with this device.

You can see a bit of that happening already with the reference to the US company which is planning on using this for some kind of security application.

Also, they are a very Linux centric shop.

The real reason..

[bpuli]

why PC "penetration" is really low in India is because a majority of the population has to fight hard every day to *eat*.
The reality is quite different from that created due to the "outsourcing mecca" image. IT and related services employ only about 6 million Indians (out of a 1.1 billion total). IT related products/services are only about 1.5% of the Indian GDP.
It is going to be a long time for the PC to become a part of the average Indian's life.

Re:If someone really tried...

[MagPulse]

You're missing a case and power supply. Also in India the power is not as clean and stable as it is in some other countries, so you'd want a UPS too. Laptops basically have a built-in UPS.

This adds at least 3,000 INR, which puts you at around $400. As another poster stated, you can buy a Dell for less than that.

Re:Shared use

[the_2nd_coming]

1)"3rd world" is a term that the 3rd world member countries decided to call themselves as an organization of states who needed to have a strong voice on the world stage.

2)India is not part of the 3rd world any longer. they are part of the developing world. that means that they have a stable government and a growing economy.

Re:hmmm.... piracy

[corngrower]

I'll bet your right about it using an ARM chip. I'ld bet it's one of Sharp's chips. The chip has an onboard LCD driver, although it's limited to a 1024x640 resolution, if i recall. It's also got PS/2 compatible ports, serial ports, USB ports, and probably enough flash for a bios of some sort. In effect, all you'ld need to add is some sort of memory, and some supporting components to build a thoroughly usable PC.

I'm sorry, but I didn't see anything in the pictures that would convince me that it was a Windows OS I was looking at.

More info

[Quixote]

More info in PDF here [ncoretech.com].

Built-in: Ethernet, Analog modem, 2x USB2.0 ports, CF-II, SD/MMC, VGA out.

With 2 USB ports, you can add on a lot of other crap.

Even if this doesn't succeed: it is good to see them experimenting.

Re:hmmm.... piracy

[corngrower]

An article referenced somewhere below indicated the device is using an Intel XScale chip (ARM based), not a Sharp chip.