South Africa’s Capsule Technologies has today announced that the IMPI Mk1 is now market ready and can be purchased immediately on the Capsule Technologies Web Store from ZAR 3399 including VAT and Shipping for South Africa.
IMPI Mk1 comes with a six-year limited warranty! at no extra cost and probably the longest standard warranty for a personal computer in Africa.
The Cape Town-based Capsule Technologies said it was designing and developing a computer that would answer the specific needs of Africa-lack of Infrastructure such as Electricity and Telecommunication, availability of brand new spare parts for computer. The firm took the 20W (20 WATTS) prototype and evolved it into the IMPI Mk1. IMPI is Zulu for warrior, and uses only 20 Watts of Electricity and runs Android 4.4 KitKat. Here are the differences between 20W and IMPI Mk1:
| ID | 20W | IMPI Mk1 |
| CPU | Quad-Core ARM® Cortex A9 processor at 1GHz | Intel Atom D2550 dual core processor 1.86Ghz |
| RAM | 1GB of system memory (not upgradable) | 2GB of system memory (up to 4GB in option) |
| Electricity Usage | 20 Watts | 20 Watts |
| Operating System | Android 4.3 Jelly Bean- Ubuntu 14.04 | Android 4.4 KitKat – Ubuntu 14.04 |
| Warranty | N/A | 6 years |
Why IMPI Mk1 is different (and so special)?
IMPI Mk1 is completely designed in Africa by African for African.
Performance:
Because we can control the durability of the chosen components, we can offer a very long warranty period and guarantee to our customer that they will find spare parts from us in more than 5 years from now.
It is then worthy to invest in the optimisation of the operating system.
IMPI Mk1 is shipped with a pre-installed dual boot system for Android 4.4 and Ubuntu 14.04, as we are certain that our processor, GPU, I/O chipsets won’t change for years and full-fill the need of million of users in term of performance, our software development team can focus on a really optimised Linux kernel (valid for Android and Ubuntu), OpenGL drivers,etc. and offer the best user experience possible.
Performance is guarantee for years.
Highest Durability possible:
Our customers want a product that last. Many of them are computer-illiterate and a computer constitutes a big investment for them.
Beside the six-year warranty, we are using components designed for Industrial PCs that are proven to resist to extreme condition in dusty factories, in battle fields.
IMPI Mk1 has been designed to resist to dust, temperature and humidity. Nothing to do with the cheap plastic Android device imported from Schenzen.
For the devices of today (and yesterday):
A principal issue when renewing a computer is the change of technology, difficult to find a brand new PC with PS/2 ports to connect old keyboard and mouse or a Parallel port to connect a old printer.
With IMPI Mk1, we use what we got, and it is the way we do it in Africa: IMPI Mk1 comes with modern DVI and USB connectors but also with legacy connectors such as VGA, PS/2, Parallel ports.
Legacy and new devices can be mixed and it matches!
IMPI Mk1 still have the same key features from 20W:
– Max electricity requirement of 20 Watts so it can be powered by solar panel.
– Built-in wireless MESH networking to create community network between computers. (feature currently in development)
– Possibility to use recycled parts from e-waste for the common components (keyboard, monitor, etc.)
– Android distribution for a better desktop usage (printer drivers, scanner drivers, burning CD drivers, etc.)
If HP and Lenovo are releasing Android / Linux PCs in 2014, these machines have been designed for the Western market (or spoiled rare parts of Africa) where a majority of us need is expecting machines that address the need of million of African.
