Lenovo launches $199 PCs for rural China

7 August 2007 14:08 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, known in the UK as the company who bought the Thinkpad marque from IBM, has announced an affordable PC for China.

Lenovo is to sell low-cost PCs targeting the country's rural market and is said to be marketing the systems to parents as educational tools for their children.

The computer will be priced around the $199 mark and will include a keyboard but, to save costs, will hook up to a television set as a monitor.

These new models will apparently come pre-loaded with agricultural software and will hope to take advantage of the 23% increase China saw in PC sales last quarter.

This is just one in a series of efforts to offer computing solutions to developing nations, most famous of these being the OLPC project.

In contrast, in India Lenovo has partnered with the Walt Disney Company to produce desktops geared towards children in India.

Lenovo will produce 3000 limited edition Power Rangers Mystic Force themed desktop computers starting at about $1000.