CherryPal: A No-Impact PC That Makes a Statement

Posted on July 4, 2008 at 7:15 pm ET
Don Willmott , Forecast Earth Correspondent

Now this is interesting. A mysterious new company called CherryPal has announced the development of a tiny new computer that will consume an astonishingly low two watts of power, or about one fiftieth the power of a typical desktop PC. The stated mission: to free us from the tyranny of Microsoft, Apple, power-hungry desktops, and expensive laptops.

The CherryPal will use the 400-MHz Freescale mobile processor and leave out a hard drive, opting instead for 4GB of flash memory. Also include: 256MB of RAM, WiFi, USB ports, an Ethernet port, and a VGA port for your monitor. In other words, it's a computer designed to encourage you to do all your work—and store all your work—online or, as they say, in "the cloud." There's no price yet, but CherryPal says it will the cheapest computer around.
Engadget's article about the CherryPal generated some great comments.

"Isn't this all a little disingenuous? I mean these two-watt computers are great but the processing is still going on somewhere, right? I'm not trying to discourage innovation or anything (not that I could) but it's kind of a misdirection, 'Look two-watt PC!' but how much power does it take to run the server farm that supports these things out 'in the cloud'?" Good question. And this: "It's not a computer, it's a smartphone. Without the phone... or the smart." Given the specs, that's a pretty accurate assessment.

CherryPal may end up being most useful as a pointer toward a future of "cloud computing," but we're not there yet. It'll be interesting to hear what the reviewers say once they get it into their labs.

Don Willmott's blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company.
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