$90 Laptop on sale in Nepal

An unbranded, so called laptop, costing Rs. 6,500 (less than US $88 in today’s conversion rate) is going to be on sale, starting July 1, 2010, in an information technology fair to be held in Kathmandu.

Information Communication & Technology Association of Nepal (ICT) is going to organize the 2010 edition of the Info Trade Fair at Exhibition Hall, Bhrikuti Mandap, Kathmandu on July 1. The third mega event of information, communication and technology will run till July 5.

The notebook will be powered by ARM VT8505 processor, 128 MB RAM, 2 GB storage capacity. It uses card readers and pen drives for additional storage needs. The laptop will feature Windows CE operating system, WiFi for internet browsing. The battery however can only run for a maximum of two hours – not enough for the load shedding we have in Nepal.

The event will have 12 pavilions and 110 stalls to display various products and services on information and communication technology. The gadgets on display in the event include desktops, laptops, mobile phones, iPods, DVDs, Pen Drives, printers, and many other electronic gadgets.

The event will feature many international brands including Acer, Akkord, Altec Lansing, Aoc LCD Monitor, Anid, Asus, Aztech, Belkin, Benq, Brother, Creative, Dynamic, Edifier, Edimax, Epson, Foxcom, Genius, HCL, HP, Hyundai, Intel, Kaspersky, Lenovo, Lexmark, M-Audio, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Motorola, MSI, Nokia, Philips, Pinnacle, Powercom, Quickheal, Richo, Samsung, Silion-Power, Sony Ericsson, Storium, Sukam, Techcom, Toshiba, TP Link, and Verbatim.

The news about the cheap laptop and the event was published in every Nepali newspapers. The published news shows the lack of technical reporters in Nepali journalism and also shows how rampant copy-paste journalism is there in the internet.

For example:

• Nagariknews – says the laptop has 2GB ram and 128MB hard drive. It has Windows-C operating system (screen-shot attached).
• Kantipuronline – says it has Winda-z-C operating system. …has WiFi, Word File, PDF etc facilities…(screen-shot attached).
• Nepalnews – This site was a bit technical in writing the news (understandable, Mercantile is a computer and internet company).
• Other news were copy-paste of these news.

Details on the specification of the Netbook to be sold in the fair:

Place of Origin: Guangdong China
Screen Size: 7.2″
Processor Main Frequency:300MHz
Weight:1.6KG
Processor Type:ARM VIA-VT8505
Hard Drive Capacity: SSD 2GB
Memory Capacity:128MB
Optical Drive Type:NO CD ROM

Display Diagonal Size: 7 inch 16:9 TFT LCD
Max Resolution: 800X480
Display Technology: TFT
Ports: 3x USB 2.0,1x SDCard slot,1xRJ45
Operating System: Windows CE 6.0

Pointing Device: TrackPad
Battery Type: 1800Mah smart lithium-ion batteries
Dimensions (W*D*H): 255mm x 167mm x 38mm