14 DAY TRIAL // The computer industry has been, for some time now, trying to provide users with an affordable device that can function as a portable computer system. At first, netbooks were designed with that purpose, but in time, even these devices have grown distant from their original purpose. On that note, Cherrypal, a company that is dealing mostly low-cost computer systems, has just announced a new system that is said to be available for just US$99.
Featuring a low power, 400MHz processor, the Cherrypal Africa is touted as 'one of the best buys in the world of electronics”, according to the company's website. With additional specifications that include a 256MB of RAM and 2GB of flash storage, the Cherrypal Africa netbook will be available with either Microsoft's Windows CE or a Linux operating system. As you can imagine, looking at these specs, the Cherrypal Africa has been designed to be affordable, ultraportable and require less power than traditional notebooks.
In addition to the new Africa netbook, Cherrypal has also made some changes to its Atom-based Bing netbook, the 13.3-inch ultraportable system that sells for US$389 and comes with Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. According to the specifications of the new system, users will be able to take advantage of the performance enabled by 1GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD and an Atom N280 processor. Initially, the Bing netbook was featured with the more traditional Atom N280 CPU and was released as a Cloud-based netbook.
At US$99, the Cherrypal Africa is expected to become available worldwide, but with the limited performance that will be available through the aforementioned specifications, the netbook might only become a choice in emerging markets. With Google's Chrome OS gaining more popularity everyday, low-priced devices such as this one, have a chance at making it big.