Is a 100 USD laptop really worth having?

KoliTech

Posted by Felix Okoli on Monday September 2, 2013 at 17:48:40:

If laptops were sold at just around N15,000 in Nigeria, they would sell like hot cakes. Well, that is the price at which most cheap laptops are being made in China. The rate at which China is exporting mini tablets and cheap laptops to tech hungry countries Nigeria is much higher than the rate at which Nigerians are buying other known brands of laptops.

In developing countries like Nigeria where there is a growing number of tech savvy people, the quest for affordable or cheap computers is a growing one as more and more people would like to have laptops that they can really afford.

The market demand is such that people hardly care about quality but rather price is what rules the market. For sure most Nigerians who have been in the tech business for a long time know of existing brand names like Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Apple and Lenovo laptops but the market demand for cheap and affordable laptops from China is a growing one and this is mostly from your students just looking for a small computer to get started.

Already, manufacturing and export based countries like China are producing a lot of laptops and tablets that are targeted at African countries and these are mostly affordable laptops that are designed to sell well in computer hungry nations like Nigeria. These cheap laptops sell for at least N15000 per unit and in most cases as low as N8,000 which is all under $150.

The desire for cheap laptops is as a result of the fact that the country has a huge youthful population who are mostly digitally driven and spend most of their time on the internet looking for opportunities and also helping with their academic work.

There are websites like Aliexpress.com and DHgate.com which offer people in Nigeria the ability to place orders for cheap laptops and have a free home delivery if they buy a minimum number of units, say 5. Besides, in the local market, these devices are already massively available selling at less than $150(~N20k) per unit which is well at the range most people prefer to spend on laptops.

Are cheap laptops really worth having? Well in Nigeria, it is as long as it's being used for some small basic things. It is almost impossible however to find a hard working and high quality laptop at a price range below N20,000 in Nigeria. In fact, you may be able to find cheaper and ms are more durable laptops at around N40 to N50k if they are refurbished and the brand new ones sell for around N60,000 at least.

I think, if you must buy a cheap laptop from in Nigeria just because of the price, you can probably do ok if you just want to do small work with it. Mini laptops and tablets however don't last long, offer poor performance and can't do much processing as a standard laptop would do.

Cheap laptops are probably good if used for basic academic work and small computing work. For professionals however working full time, a cheap laptop worth under $150 in Nigeria would not be an ideal long term investment.

Comments:

Re: Is a 100 USD laptop really worth having? Reply by emeto christian on Saturday October 19, 2013 at 13:42:53:

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