Low cost computing

My uncle once offered to by me a laptop. It is a Pentium IV gateway laptop that will cost him $600. He told me that he will donate $100 for my cause and just ask me to pay him $500. Based on the exchange rate at that time, it will cost me about 35,000 pesos to pay him back. And I do not have that kind of money at that time.

In the last 10 years, the best pre-Pentium personal computers cost as much as thirty thousand pesos (P30,000) and this is too much for middle class families like ours. Right now, those pre-Pentium PCs are considered obsolete. You can't even buy one for just P500. Some one would probably give it to you with all their heart.

When I bought my AMD Athlon 1800 powered PC, it cost me P17,000. Five years later, a PC with the same processor speed costs only P9,000-P10,000.

A lot of low cost computer stores have been coming out. They sell complete PCs (with monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers) for as low as P3,000.

We would probably think that this is some kind of a gimmick. These PCs must be second hand from other countries. And most indeed are. Some products still have stickers from Japan or Taiwan. But the stores can give you a warranty from 3 months to a year for each product. The one year warranty is the same thing offered by vendors of first hand, first rate, high quality desktops.

Unless you want to show off to your neighbors your cool new branded PC, you can settle for the low cost alternatives they offer.

With a certain degree of discipline even families from the slums can purchase a P-III 500 MHz desktop for this kids. Hell, they can buy a television and cases of beer, why could they not afford a PC?

If only those low income families discipline themselves, we can claim to the world that in the Philippines, we have one PC per family. :)

And we will become the country with the most computer literate people.