Green computing just broke its cherryGiving the Mac Mini a run for... much less moneyBy Rob Kerr: Wednesday, 23 July 2008, 3:44 PM CALIFORNIAN COMPANY CHERRYPAL has just produced the greenest of the green computers, pulling just a meagre two watts in power.It looks like a KVM switch, it has no moving parts, 80 percent fewer components as compared to other PCs and pulls in 112 fewer watts – with a cost of just $249.For that one-off-fee, what you actually get is a thin client-esque computer still needing a monitor, mouse, keyboard and internet connection, but is still a PC nonetheless.The CherryPal C100 boots within 20 seconds and is powered by Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT processor with 800 MIPS, or 400 MHz running an embedded form of Debian Linux. There’s 256 MB of DDR2 DRAM and a 4GB NAND flash-based SSD, although there’s access to a free cloud-based 50GB of storage, sans any monthly subscription fees.The latter is all performed from the built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi or 10/100 Ethernet port, for all your emailing and reading The Inquirer needs. In terms of software, there’s OpenOffice on board, iTunes, a media player, a CherryPal-branded instant messenger supporting most IM programs and a Firefox-based browser.In fact, everything you need processing wise and even applications, all without killing the rainforests.Incidentally, Cherrypal is also the very first company since the fruit logoed one with their dirty-macs to use a Power Architecture-based processor within a PC.There’s a patent-pending software encryption system securing both the hardware and software within a single layer, known as HyperCloud. Traditionally, there have been three separate layers of security in a system. Here they’ve collapsed the operating system and browser into one layer, making the C100 faster and almost cancelling out any risk of bugs or viruses for the user.On its website the company quoted some interesting and thought-provoking stats. "If you use a desktop computer eight hours a day, you will spend an average of $37 per year on electricity and emit about 300 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere. Using the C100, those numbers drop to only 65 cents per year and an average only five pounds of CO2”.All of which goes in to making it the most energy-efficient computer on the market, which we’ve looked around into qualifying and were actually hard pushed not to.So, we’re cheering the Cherry here at the Inq – let’s all save the world in our own way.
