Cherrypal surprised most of the technology industry on Tuesday by announcing the CherryPal Africa, a $99 computer based on a relatively unknown Chinese microprocessor.

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Cherrypal has begun taking orders for the device on its Web site, where the small computer is described as “small, slow, sufficient”.

“At Cherrypal, we’re extremely conscious of the so-called ‘digital divide’,” said Max Seybold, the company’s founder, in a statement. “We’re constantly looking for ways to bridge that gap, and the Cherrypal Africa is a huge step in the right direction. Plus, everyone who has tried it has absolutely loved it!”

The Africa uses either Windows CE or Linux. It’s also small, with just a 7-inch, 800-by-600 display; in total, the Africa measures 213.5 mm by 141.8 mm by 30.8 mm, and weighs 1.2 kilograms or 2.64 pounds.

Cherrypal also said that the Africa is designed to consume as little power as possible, and to do so, runs a 400-MHz processor paired with just 256 Mbytes of memory and 2 Gbytes of NAND flash. Connectivity is supplied by 802.11b/g and 10/100 Ethernet. One odd weakness: the Africa only contains two USB 1.1 ports and a single USB 2.0 port. SD card slots and what appears to be an unpopulated hard drive slot are also included. The Africa includes an 86-key keyboard, with a “built-in touch panel” that I assume to be a trackpad. A pair of speakers and a microphone are also included.

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