The $100 Laptop is finally here. But it isn't Sugar.
The CherryPal $100 Laptop is here
For over two years now, we’ve been covering the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) saga. Brave Prof. Negroponte embarked on this adventure years ago and after much wrangling with corporations, the loss of his CTO and other staffers, and cost over-runs, the OLPC Sugar still hasn’t quite hit that $100 number. For a while, the Pakistan Government was involved in the OLPC project too, but bailed soon after. The OLPC project has certainly had its fair of challenges.
Meanwhile, innovation continues unabated in the private sector and today we have a hundred dollar laptop offering from none other than that vendor with a questionable reputation… CherryPal!
At 400Mhz, 2GB of storage and 256MB of RAM this is no powerhouse, but with Linux, it’ll probably get the job done for basic activities like simplistic (non Adobe Flash!) browsing, text editing, and some educational applications. The 7′ screen size is another inhibitor, but hey, what do you expect for $99?
Of course, as time goes on, Intel continues to innovate with their Atom line of processors and we can expect price drops in single core Atom systems soon. Once Pine Trail makes it to the mainstream, today’s $200 Atom netbook will likely get to $149 and the next price barrier is $99. Give it 12-18 months. With Atom systems at that price, with an 8′ screen, low cost computing for the masses would have arrived. The “next 2 billion” internet users can now go online and we can all officially have closure on the story that Sugar started.
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