Slashdot Log In
Lenovo Aims $199 PC At China's Rural Population
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:31 AM
from the there-might-be-a-sale-or-two-there dept.
from the there-might-be-a-sale-or-two-there dept.
athloi writes "Lenovo has announced they are gearing up to sell a basic personal computer for 'China's vast but poor rural market'. The pricetag could be as low as $199. 'The new Lenovo unit will include a processor and a keyboard and will use a buyer's television set as a monitor, Chen said. He said he had no details on the processor size or other features. The new PC goes on sale later this year at prices of 1,499 to 2,999 yuan ($199-$399), Chen said. Lenovo is the world's third-largest PC manufacturer, behind U.S.-based Hewlett Packard Inc. and No. 2 Dell.'"
Related Stories
[+]
Politics: Lenovo Looking to Buy Seagate, May Raise Political Concerns 255 comments
andy1307 writes "According to an article in the New York Times, Lenovo has expressed an interest in buying Seagate. This has raised concerns among American government officials about the risks to national security in transferring high technology to China. From the article: 'In recent years, modern disk drives, used to store vast quantities of digital information securely, have become complex computing systems, complete with hundreds of thousands of lines of software that are used to ensure the integrity of data and to offer data encryption.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Yea, right (Score:3, Insightful)
Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, I live in a country where personal computer ownership is near-ubiquitous, where the only people that don't have a personal computer (or more than one) are those who simply don't want one. But if I were a poor Chinese peasant, who has no expectations greater than what I had back in 1978, that TV-based computer might be considered a Godsend. It's all relative, and that TV display is a one Hell of a lot better than nothing.
At the rate China's industry is expanding, I would venture a guess that the people who are the target market for this system will eventually have the opportunity to raise their expectations as well. But that takes time, and you have to start somewhere.
Parent
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
An SD TV makes an OK monitor if you can live with 320x480 4-bit graphics -- and there was a time when many Apple ][ and IBM PC folks did. I'm sure many Szechuan villagers would consider such a setup the epitome of high tech. The problem I see is that nowadays people want computers mainly for connectivity — and making an ultra-cheap PC does nothing to create the necessary infrastructure in China's many rural regions.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But the OLPC is designed in the U.S. and made in the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Some of the components are made in the PRoC, and the designs are all available royalty-free, so they could use them if they want and produce the machines locally. Alan Kay said he hoped that a lot of countries would do this, and produce their own copies locally, supporting the development of a local technological economy.
An SD TV makes an OK monitor if you can live with 320x480 4-bit graphics
Why 4-bit colour? TVs are analogue when it comes to colour, so the limit is the quality of your DAC. 24-bit colour on a TV is certainly feasible. The interlacing means you don't want
Not only price but law (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In a capitalism, when stock is limited, prices go up and demand gets lower. In a centralized economy they put you on queu
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's for sure. China itself is far from a centralized economy, although some regions within it may be. Some of the autonomous regions there are more free-market than most Western countries. In the rural provinces, I doubt you'll find the kinds of restrictions you find in the urban areas. You definitely find far more entrepreneurism than you would expect in a "communist country". Yo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1975 (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In at least 3 medium-large cities I visited these amazing 6+ floor computer stores that puts PC world and anything else in the UK to shame. The choice was amazing, from whole computers to obscure parts, which I would expect to have to mail order in the UK. Bags of dirt cheap OEM hard drives, and quality branded RAM.
Bottom line, if you have the cash then anyone, Chinese or otherwise can go and buy a pc, the parts to
It makes me laugh. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/18/749939/ [fatwallet.com] (laptop for $181 after rebate)
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/18/749936/ [fatwallet.com] (desktop for $180)
What I'm trying to say is that Fry's should open up a location in rural China.
bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
So much for M$'s Conquest of China. (Score:2, Insightful)
It should be obvious, but Bill Gate's victory lap was premature [slashdot.org] and I told you so [slashdot.org].
Old times... (Score:2)
I just bought a 163 pc (Score:4, Insightful)
Essentially there is a mini-itx motherboard with a Celeron CPU for $79. CPU included, add 1G memory for $24 and case for $60, and it came to about $160. I can get a hard drive from newegg for dirt cheap and have a Linux PC for under $200.
Yeah, the mini-itx celeron system will not be the fastest and it is certainly not a gaming machine, but for a desktop pc to surf the web and all that, it is pretty cheap. I'm guessing if you include a monitor and mouse / keyboard it would be more, but I have that so, this is a realy cheap deal.
Not worth it (Score:2, Insightful)
China already has cheaper PC's (Score:5, Interesting)
These PC retail for the equivalent of $5 US!
There is only a single chip in a cartridge the rest is just buttons and interconnect, no chips. They have at least 15 models that I have seen.
They support printers, modems, a mouse, and supports 100 of video games from perfect clones of most Atari 2600, and early Nintendo like Mario Brothers.
I have been trying to track down this company, there products are in shops everywhere, but there is no Address, website or any information on how to contact the company.
Even the shop owners don't know how to contact them because there are just people that come around selling then to the shops.
Model numbers look like GLK-6102, GNC-1133, GLK-5002, GLK-1119, GLK-2012,GLK 98, GLK 1339, GLK 5002
They also seem to come under many other brand names, and make lower end game clones that are sold here in the US, and even in Walmart China.
With a little bit more work, they would be able to add a web browser and many other cool apps.
I would really like to get in touch with this company.
Here is an example:
http://famiclone.emucamp.com/goldleopardking/glk.
http://www.museo8bits.com/famiclones.htm [museo8bits.com]
http://ultimateconsoledatabase.com/famiclones/gol
http://n-europe.com/special.php?sid=retro3&page=2 [n-europe.com]
This is really just .... (Score:3, Insightful)
PCs are now cheaper than free (Score:4, Informative)
So anyone who wants a three or four year old PC can have on for the asking. and if they work it right can have hundreds of them. All of these are usable and better then the using a TV set for a monitor.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I thought that China was communist. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks for the memories ... I loved my CoCo2 (16k upgraded to 64k ram) - I learned assembler on that old box. When the CoCo 3 came out, with 128k of ram (which I upgraded to 512k + 3 floppy drives + 2 tape drives + multi-io + speech synth + mouse + touchpad + remote electrical control unit, etc., Microware OS9 + RGB monitor yadda yadda yadda, I was one happy camper. People with their early PCs were stunned! True multi-tasking, a graphical environment, multiple console terminals + multiple consoles per scre