The iWebleaf laptop designed by Chandrasekhar Panda and Saswat Swain priced at Rs 5,000. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 27: Looking for a decent laptop but don’t have enough money? The iWebleaf laptop could just be the right pick.

Designed by Chandrasekhar Panda and Saswat Swain, two young techies from Biju Patnaik University of Technology in Orissa, this gadget is priced just at Rs 5,000.

The device comes with a basic configuration of 320GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, 10.2” screen size , built in web camera, speaker and LAN port.

“The current market price of any laptop a with a similar configuration would cost not less than Rs 22,000,” said Swain.

“Our primary aim was to minimise the price as much as possible. Even the processor, DXA 16, is designed in the college lab and is equivalent to an Intel Atom N450 processor. Some parts like keyboard and inbuilt speaker were to be fabricated with the help of some MNC cos,” said Saswat Swain.

The techies had to work on the idea for about a year before it shaped into reality.

“Today iWebleaf laptop is designed and has passed the Consumer Electronic certification process. We are working out to provide inbuilt anti-theft technology on the laptop by using the GSM technology so that in case of theft, the laptop can be tracked easily,” said Chandrasekhar.

“Currently, no laptop in India is using pure anti-theft technology. But we are working to make some modification on our laptop so that it can’t boot if the SIM module is tampered or fabricated by any means,” he added.

The students now hope that their innovation catches the fancy of the Union HRD ministry, which last year launched the world’s cheapest computer Shakshat at Rs 1,500.

The low-cost computer aimed to fulfils a key mandate of the government, to provide high quality E-content free of cost to all learners in the country under the National Mission on Education. However the project has made little progress so far. Although the government has invited individuals, entrepreneurs, firms and industries to produce the device, nothing has been finalised as yet.

Shakshat has got a 2GB memory, as much as a pen drive.

“Our device is much more capable and will solve several purposes,” said Swain adding that they have been trying to approach various ministries to seek support for marketing and large scale production of the device.

“We have already met the IT department officials and have an appointment with the chief secretary soon,” Chandrashekhar said.