9 replies to this topic

[pasten]

After showing off "Nano" the world's cheapest car, now its the turn of Laptops. As promised Indian government unveiled a cheap 20$ Laptop at National Mission on Education launch in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. The project was conceived in order to boost the educational infrastructure in India. Two years before, the Indian governemnt rejected the offer of 100$ laptop of MIT's Nicholas Negroponte, and now it seems to have given back the reason. As of now, they are still testing the prototype and would take about six months to launch it commercially.

Have a look at some of the specs told:

2 GB memory, WiFi, exapandable memory, ethernet and a lowly 2 watts power consumption. It seems that they have unveiled it a bit too early, with no other important specs. Nothing much of it can be expected until we atleast see a photograph of it. Also it is seen that the cost usually rises when it reaches commercial production as it happened with OLPC OX, for which the price came to around 200$ when it was offered to Indian government. But wait!

Quote

The government will provide these computers to educational institutions at a subsidised price. At this stage, the price is working out to be $20 but with mass production it is bound to come down.

- R P Agarwal, Secretary, Higher Education

If this works out to be true, we would soon be seeing Indian children carrying laptops to thier schools, a change which would improve the current scenario by leaps and bounds. Also the governemnt has plans to tie up with leading publishers to provide content on educational subjects, of which 5% would be free. It is also planning to provide broadband to even more universities and schools at subsidised rates. With broadband internet still messed up in India, we have to just wait and watch what happens next.

Source:Times of India

Update: Here's a picture of the prototype. It seems the price is rising from its inital 10 dollar. Stay tuned for more turnarounds...

Edited by pasten, 04 February 2009 - 09:00 AM.

[Veradesigns]

well i hope we make 1 TB laptops with a ultra quad core of a 4.2 ghz and some 16 GB ram and sell them for under 100 dollars, i am thinking that i wont be alive by the time the price of a supper computer like that comes to town. But around 10 years ago we had computers at that kind of potential and they where around 500 dollars so who knows maybe in a few years we might have better and faster and cheaper computers.

[onscreen]

Its a very good start IMO. Most likely it will be booted with Linux considering the cheap price. First read the news while in some hardware website and came in here to check on the photos. Looks promising though but the prototype seems to be abit clumsy, wires all over it .

[pasten]

Update:

And here we have some sources that tell that the prototype shown in the image is not that of a 'would be laptop' but a prototype basis on which another prototype of a laptop can be made. How can the government project it as a laptop? The present instrument is something like Kindle from amazon, for reading ebooks and notes. The instrument is 10 inch long and 5 inch wide. Here are some more related information:

Quote

http://www.merinews....icleID=15709651

http://www.digitimes...90203PD201.html

And keep watching what happens next...

[aloKNsh]

cool man
m an indian
its really cool and i didntn know abt dis thnx paten for the information and i hope i will also get an ultra low cost laptop with a bband service
thanku very much...........and i hope bfr i reach std 10 i would get it..........
thank u very much

[serverph]

i've been reading on this yesterday... when it was still $10 dollars.

if it's something like kindle from amazon, it's still a good thing. definitely can't be called a laptop, if it seems just like an upsized ebook reader.

i was wondering about the actual specifications and an actual prototype photo, to see how india can come up with this. considering all the components which comprise a laptop, i'm wary if it can be actually made. lcd screen, memory, cpu, etc. i even started considering it was a simple calculator (with the announced price tag).

hopefully we'll see this thing come into production stage, even with a higher price than the originally touted $10 price (now $20, and $30 in some)... just even be lower than the OLPC project or at par with the $100 dream price. and i wish it could be really a functional model of a real laptop, and not just some hub of sorts where you'll still need other peripheral devices to make it actually work.

there's a real market for these, at the price range affordable to ordinary folks. let's hope it's not just a pipe dream.

[Pankyy]

So, are you saying there won't be any $20 laptops, only a device that can be connected to the laptop, or are they saying that device is going to be used as a prototype for creating these 'famous' laptops? Those 2 last articles confused me :S

[Xalor]

That is pretty cool. I know about the Green PC going to Africa, built with little to do as a White-List Machine where it does only certain tasks like basic word processing, and basic internet ability based on a specialized version of Linux. This is also something that interests me. I have been to AP before to visit my family, mostly my grandparents, they come from rather small towns of Kovvur and Eluru. The thing that I would say is the problem is WiFi and Ethernet connection. The PC Hubs at local shops would be put of business by the coming of these laptops and along with that, finding a working connection is hard, you need to pay at least 200 rupees for a broadband connection, which is about a dial-up speed when used by WiFi, the other thing though, is these laptops need to be durable, unlike our netbooks which aren't very durable. I believe though they should make something that is even simpler than 2GB Ram, 512MB is enough for something like a Ubuntu or a KuBuntu Distro, maybe if it does get better they could begin something with their own custom style, that pertains to learning. I hope it comes out soon, so laptops will be more prominent over those desktops which aren't even of their time.

[sunracer]

No monitor, no keyboard. Once you tack the LCD on, the price is bound to rise...unless they make it able to connect to TVs, which are plentiful in India. An ultra-cheap, portable, barebones, modular system running Linux and capable of outputing to a standard CRT TV would be extremely useful in putting technology within the reach of millions of underprivileged children. Gives them atleast a hope of a brighter future if they make good use of it and hone their skills.

[contactskn]

pasten, on Feb 4 2009, 06:46 AM, said:

After showing off "Nano" the world's cheapest car, now its the turn of Laptops. As promised Indian government unveiled a cheap 20$ Laptop at National Mission on Education launch in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. The project was conceived in order to boost the educational infrastructure in India. Two years before, the Indian governemnt rejected the offer of 100$ laptop of MIT's Nicholas Negroponte, and now it seems to have given back the reason. As of now, they are still testing the prototype and would take about six months to launch it commercially.

Have a look at some of the specs told:

2 GB memory, WiFi, exapandable memory, ethernet and a lowly 2 watts power consumption. It seems that they have unveiled it a bit too early, with no other important specs. Nothing much of it can be expected until we atleast see a photograph of it. Also it is seen that the cost usually rises when it reaches commercial production as it happened with OLPC OX, for which the price came to around 200$ when it was offered to Indian government. But wait!



If this works out to be true, we would soon be seeing Indian children carrying laptops to thier schools, a change which would improve the current scenario by leaps and bounds. Also the governemnt has plans to tie up with leading publishers to provide content on educational subjects, of which 5% would be free. It is also planning to provide broadband to even more universities and schools at subsidised rates. With broadband internet still messed up in India, we have to just wait and watch what happens next.

Source:Times of India

Update: Here's a picture of the prototype. It seems the price is rising from its inital 10 dollar. Stay tuned for more turnarounds...

Dear friend thanks for the information and moreover it will help a lot in increasing competition in this field and more companies will come out with more cheaper modals etc. I am really waiting for the official launch of the laptop.