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Cherrypal Asia runs Android on the cheap, comes in 7- and 10.1-inch flavors
What do you do if you're CherryPal, and you've already released a $118 netbook named Africa? Uh, you replace it with a $99 netbook named the Asia, of course. Actually, CherryPal has slapped together its Asia in two versions, a 7-incher at $99 and a 10.1-incher with an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam for right around $150, both running Android 1.6 paired to a "good-enough" (their words, not ours) 533MHz ARM9 core sourced from VIA; both are available now. We had a chance to check out both flavors of the Asia at gdgt live in Chicago this week, and the phrase "you get what you pay for" definitely applies with these suckers -- they're not well-built powerhouses in any sense of the word, and we were told on no uncertain terms that the devices are geared at developing markets where price point reigns supreme. Closed, both smartbooks have the same slick, glossy appearance, but open, they're quite different; the 10.1-inch version has a simple, upscale, matte, MacBook-ish look to it while the 7-inch version just looks like a straight-up toy. Both were running pretty choppy -- a symptom of the low-spec processor, we're sure -- but Cherrypal told us that updates to newer builds of Android are in the works and will be available either online or via flash drive, so we suppose there's a chance that could help smooth things out a bit. Check out some shots below! %Gallery-93054%
