You know how excited people get when you talk about $100 laptops? Well, how about a $73 notebook computer, although I’m using the word computer generously here. Shenzhen, China based PC maker Sungworld is putting out a clamshell-style device with a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel display and a $73 price tag.

Of course, for that price you shouldn’t expect much in the performance department, and to be brutally honest, I’d be surprised if this thing is half as useful as an iPhone. The Sungword mini-laptop has a 300MHz VIA VT8500 ARM-based CPU, 128MB of RAM, 1GB of storage space, and runs Windows CE. It does have WiFi, a QWERTY keyboard and an 1800mAh battery.

The laptop weighs just about 1.5 pounds. I’d be surprised if it shows up outsided of China anytime soon, but you never know.

via Cloned in China

Remember when we used to call the OLPC XO Laptop the $100 laptop? OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte overpromised and underdelivered when it came to price and the XO now costs closer to $200. That’s still pretty impressive, all things considered, and the XO really did launch the netbook revolution. But the price never dropped to the promised $100 level, and so the idea of a $100 laptop was a bit of a marketing mishap.

But since then we’ve seen several companies push out fairly crappy laptops that really do run closer to $100 than $200. And you can often find refurbished first generation netbooks like the Eee PC 701 going for $150 or less.

Now DMP Electronics in Taiwan is getting in on the $100 laptop action with a machine called the Edubook. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because the computer seems to be based on a similar design and concept as the Nohrtec Gecko Edubook. Both the DMP and Nohrtec versions run on AAA batteries and feature a modular design that lets customers choose the components they need and assemble the laptops themselves to save money.

Nohrtec is selling the Edubook for about $200, but the company has been promising for a while that you’d be able to pick it up for a lower price if you choose barebones units and order in bulk. With that in mind, it’s not entirely clear what you get for your $100 if you order a DMP version. I’m not betting on WiFi being included in the cost.

What you do get is a cheap netbook with an 8.9 inch display and a low power CPU. If the DMP Edubook uses the same processor as the Nohrtec model, it’s an x86-compatible 1GHz Xcore86 CPU that can run Windows or Linux.

via SlashGear