Low-priced laptops a theme at Asia's biggest computer fair

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

TAIPEI (AFP) — Computer makers are expected to showcase the latest of their lines of low-cost PCs in the Taipei computer trade fair -- the biggest computer show in Asia -- when it opens this week.

Most of those on display at the five-day trade fair, also known as Computex Taipei beginning Tuesday, carry price tags of less than 500 US dollars.

"Initially, low-cost PCs were designed for poor children in emerging markets," said Jane Tseng of the Topology Research Institute, a private think-tank in Taipei.

"However, PC vendors found demand also from developed countries which they had not previously targeted," she said.

"Since such laptops are thin and light in weight, they have become the second or third PCs of some individual users."

Among the...