Remember Cherrypal Africa, that $99 netbook which made headlines a few weeks ago? Well, the machine is now available for purchase worldwide through the Cherrypal website.

The Cherrypal Africa is a severely underpowered netbook running on a 400MHz processor with 256GB of RAM. As you can probably guess, this netbook is no speed demon. Its purpose is simple: help people in the developing world to connect to the internet.

Africa can run Windows CE or Linux. For storage there is a 2GB flash memory. Other notable features include WiFi b/g and 3 USB ports. There is also a lithium battery which is expected to last for four hours. Cherrypal says that Africa is very environment friendly. It has fewer parts than most average netbooks and consumes very little energy.

There have been some previous attempts at producing a $100 laptop. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, for instance, tried producing a cheap laptop in 2006.  They, however, failed to cut the costs beyond a certain level and had to sell the laptop for $199 instead. OLPC is at it again. This time around they are building a tablet, but they don’t intend to sell it for $100. It seems Cherrypal has succeeded where Negroponte and his ambitious project failed.

CherryPal has launched a dirt-cheap netbook. Called Africa, it is selling for as low as $99. As you can probably imagine, the CherryPal Africa doesn’t have impressive specs. It is powered by a 400MHz processor. Up to 256MB of RAM is available. You will also get 2GB of flash storage. The device has a 7 inch display featuring 800 x 480 pixels. Other features include Wi-Fi 802.11b/g. The battery is rated at 1800mAh and is expected to give up to 4 hours of uptime.

Of course, the specs are reminiscent of a mobile phone. But at this price point this machine is indeed worth considering.