The $10 laptop first announced last year has once again reared its improbable head. Can the Indian government really deliver an ultra-cheap laptop? And if so, how?

In July of last year, an interesting story flashed up all across the Web – India develops $10 laptop. Unfortunately, as suspected, it turned out to be too good to be true, and the Indian government rectified the mistake and stated the true price was going to be $100. The Indian Minister of State for Higher Education had missed a zero. Which is worrying given his job title.

Something bizarre has now happened though, with the story once again cropping up. This time, however, there is no mistake; the $10 price point has been confirmed.

According to Slashgear, the $10 laptop is due to be unveiled on February 3, 2009. The specs still haven’t been publicly announced but are thought to include 2GB of RAM, and Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity. The ultra-cheap laptops are also rumored to only need 2W of power to operate.

The price has been confirmed as $10 but that will only be achievable after mass production has brought the cost of the components down. Currently, each machine is costing double (around $20) the selling price to produce. While that may be slightly off the proposed price, $20 for a working laptop computer is still mightily impressive.

And maybe it’s a little too impressive. I still cannot for the life of me work out how this price point can be achieved. As Obsessable points out, 2GB of RAM costs $20 on its own, so how a computer with that amount of memory and a lot more besides can be built for $20 is a complete mystery.

When you consider that the One Laptop per Child initiative could only manage to produce a laptop for $200, ten times less than that for a similar scheme seems highly improbable.

There is one possibility – government subsidies. Not only would the $10 laptop be a PR dream for the Indian government, getting a laptop in the hands of a few million more of the 1.13 billion population of the country would surely be a good thing. Couple that with the Broadband proposals the Indian government has also made and you get quite a positive step towards embracing technology.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 8:40 am under Notebook, Opinion, Technology.

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