Up front: I am not recommending (yet) the Cherrypal you have been hearing about. That might even be vaporware for now. But there finally is a real alternative, above, and you can get it by mail, from Canada, every-day low price, brand new, only need to buy one, just $99 ... (stay tuned).
The $100 PC has long been talked about but has been a long time coming.
I toldja about it 5 years ago! It almost obviates the objective of this blog, which is:
Revolutionizing the Computer Industry By Provoking a PC Price War!
HOW TO BUY:
Click here. ................. Don't have to ship from China. It's close by in Canada. And it is $99 all the time. Something everyone can use. (If you think you are a techie, you can just play with it. For everyone else, the normal ones, it has Microsoft programs for just about every common application.) Easy to use and very useful. Note: The same deal is available for the same price in China, but that costs about $45 more just for shipping. Canada shipping cost to the US is MUCH less -- about the same cost as within the US, just a few dollars. The company is Merimobiles.com , a company long known to be dependable.
CLICK HERE, and there's pages and pages of cool stuff.
And it is almost a secret. Almost. You can thank the Chinese for making the $100 PCs (manufacturing cost is more like $50 for a 7-inch low power mini-laptop) possible. You can blame Microsoft, Intel -- and just about everyone else in the PC industry, including magazines, PC reporters, market analysts, and websites like Cnet.
Finally, you can order a PC for under $100 -- any day, no contracts or strings attached, brand-new, not refurbished, no shipping charges from Asia, no minimum quantity, or any other catch -- and now you know how. If you want one, you can have it in hand in a few days.
MICROSOFT, INTEL, ENGADGET, ARSTECHNICA, GEEKS.COM, ASUS, HP, BEST BUY, FRY'S, ETC., WANT THIS THING KEPT UNDER WRAPS
C'mon, you already know why....
How they did it it (kept netbook prices high) is that Microsoft resurrected its old, dead XP operating system and practically gave it away to keep control of the smallest computers after the Asus Eee came out in late 2007. Their partner in crime, Intel, actually named the genre they were taking over, called it the "netbook" and started making cut-rate Atom chips for "netbooks. Microsoft and Intel dictated to their PC-maker licensees sizes of memory and screen that would guarantee netbooks" would get larger and more expensive. Asus and One Laptop Per Child caved in, and their promises of a $100 PC failed, derailed by US corporate interests at the expense of your interests.
I even discontinued this blog for a time, put it in limbo and went on a hiatus. Nothing new to report after the World's Cheapest Laptop, the $169 Alpha-400, was discontinued by Sungworld and Geeks.com. Well, the concept is back, for
way less than $200, as I always knew it would be, and so are we.
THE GOAL: PCs SOLD ON BLISTER-PACK CARDS (Seem strange?)
The accompanying photo gives you PART of the picture. What is so special about that picture?
Think of it this way: Where do you get the cheapest consumer products? Forget about performance for a moment and forget your ego about being a techie or geek. You don't need a 19-inch laptop, 5 billion transistors, and an OS that takes all day to turn on or off. No one needs that for most computer work.
As to what is so special here, where do you get calculators for $1 or $2, or even a *graphing* calculator for less than $15? (Sorry, Texas Instruments.) Where do you get a radio for a buck? Where do you get everything for a dollar or 99 cents or less? And how are these things packaged?
DOLLAR STORES SELL GRAPHING CALCULATORS FOR $15 ON BLISTER-BACK CARDS HANGING ON A PEGBOARD.
The first scientific calculator -- never mind the first graphing one -- revolutionized electrical engineering and other scientific professions at a cost of over $700 apiece in the early 1970s. It put the slide rule in the museum with the buggy whips. Grizzled old engineers grouped around the first colleague to get one, and drooled, at first. Now they are old hat you can get them for about $3 or $4 (Balzic brand-name) at:
Drug stores
Hardware stores
Dollar stores
Discount stores
THEY ARE PACKAGED ON BLISTER-PACK CARDS, and the same thing will happen to PCs.
Now of course an engineer will have to spend close to $100 or more for a professional graphing calculator, and TI still is making those.
Same thing will happen with computers. The masses will buy supercheap PCs, for perhaps $20-$50,
destroying 100s of companies and 100s of thousands of jobs in designing, marketing, retailing, advertising, and reporting on $500-$5000 PCs -- and these expensive PCs will become the niche market. They won't disappear, of course.
THAT'S WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT BLISTER-PACK COMPUTERS
They won't eliminate all other computers for consumers, let alone professional users. However, when you actually see one like that in the photo to the right, you will know the revolution has begun. The blister-pack PC hanging on a pegboard at the dollar store won't be out this year, but you CAN get a mini-laptop for $100 any day of the year, everyday low price like Walmart (just follow the link above). We are on our way. Even Apple is having to intro cut-rate notebooks.
Clayton Hallmark
