$9 Computer Is Not a Scam!

Have you heard about the $9 computer from Kickstarter? It could revolutionize the way we do computing.

A first look at the $9 computer

C.H.I.P. is a mini-computer chip that is actually like the guts of a computer. You have to plug a monitor, mouse, and keyboard into it. So you still need to spend money on that hardware, which could drive the total cost up. Or you could just use your existing hardware and pay nothing extra!

Next Thing Co. was seeking $50,000 to realize the dream of this project. They wound up getting over $1 million from backers.

Here are some of the specs on C.H.I.P.:

• 1-gigahertz processor
• 4 gigs of storage
• 512 megabytes of RAM
• Linux operating system

If you think about what’s happened with tech, price points are always getting cheaper and the size of computing is always getting smaller. I recently saw $14.99 fitness trackers in a store. Some 18 months ago, a rudimentary fitness tracker would have been $150 and that’s at the low end. But the technology has become so cheap. A lot of we pay for is bells and whistles.

C.H.I.P. isn’t supposed to ship until late 2015/early 2016. Meanwhile, I’m betting laptops will be under $99 this Black Friday. I have no proof of this; it’s just a hunch based on the trend of price points I’m seeing.

You may recall my prediction several years ago of $99 tablets on Black Friday. Well, I was wrong then. But now tablets are commonly available at $50. And this $9 computer that so many people are asking me about is a real legitimate thing, not a scam.