By Andrew Jay Rosenbaum
ANKARA
A personal computer for $50 or less is set to provide a fresh challenge to the traditional home computer market when it goes on sale in October.
The Remix Mini PC has already been snapped up by 30,000 customers in 125 countries, including Turkey, manufacturer Jide Technologies told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday.
Beijing-based Jide has adapted the Android mobile operating system to provide PC functionality, Jide CEO David Ko said.
The hand-sized computer does not come with a keyboard, mouse or monitor but has Bluetooth, USB ports and supports Wi-Fi and is to retail for between $30 and $50 depending on extras.
“The key thing is that most people use their computers for surfing and checking email and that means they never touch most of the resources on a traditional PC,” Ko said. “So we asked: Why should they spend $1,000 on a big PC?”
Technology analyst Charles Custer’s website described the Remix Mini as looking “like a very cool computer that’s capable of doing most of your everyday computing tasks”.
Jide claimed the project has broken crowdfunding records by raising $1.6 million after a funding campaign was launched on Kickstart in June. The company had hoped to raise $50,000 but 20,000 investors bought in.
“That provided the funds we needed to ship the Remix mini worldwide,” Ko said.
The Remix mini uses 10 watts of power, as opposed to nearly 250 watts required by a conventional PC. It has 2 gigabytes of RAM and a 16 gigabyte hard disk.
Ko said the low price had generated tremendous interest in emerging markets and would prove popular with schools, libraries and small businesses.
The challenge to traditional PC manufacturers came after worldwide PC shipments fell 6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2015 year-on-year, according to the International Data Corporation, who said that computer sales would continue to slow over the next two years.
