The OLPC price talks have subsided, and consumers that want to get their hands on an XO laptop will have to fork out $399 (£200/€225) on the November 12th release date. What was once considered to be the $100 laptop now actually runs $200 to manufacture, and therefore with every retail purchase an XO laptop will also be donated by a campaign known as “Give 1 Get 1.”
Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), had this to say about the big news:
Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home.
While I know that the extra $200 will be going to a good cause, I still can’t help but think that you can get a “real” laptop for a similar price. Maybe it’s worth it if you’re looking for a laptop with a swivel screen, but you should know some of the specs before committing to one of these:
- 433MHz Processor
- 256MB RAM
- 1GB Flash storage (serves as your hard drive)
- 7.5” display (1200 x 900 resolution)
- Dual touchpad supports written-input mode
- Integrated 802.11b/g (2.4GHz) interface; 802.11s (Mesh) networking supported
- Integrated color vision camera (640×480 resolution at 30FPS)
- Three USB 2.0 ports
- About 3.5lbs
So who plans on buying an XO laptop at $399? If you do decide to get one you’ll need to be one of the first 25,000 buyers on November 12th if you want to receive it before Christmas.
Give 1 Get 1 [via Engadget]
How about you just donate $200 to a charity? This kinda defeats the purpose of this whole project with has been kinda iffy from the get go.
You can buy a pimped out dual core Dell Desktop for this price.
If I were to buy one, it would be to donate both of them.
Since the main driver here is to “empower a child to learn in a developing nation”, I have to ask myself, how many developing nation have free public wi-fi? Since the laptop only has a 1 GB hard-drive I have to think that just about the only software that can be loaded is the operating system. If that’s the case then the laptop can only be useful when it’s online.
I think I’d be doing the same!
Very good point Cory – I don’t think these computers will be able to be used to their full potential.
I think their full potential is limited since the computer can’t be preloaded with language specific learning software. I’m sure there are some great educational titles that are available in a variety of languages. It only makes sense to ship these system loaded with educational titles.
I would think that the wireless will become more widespread as these are being made available, but the wireless can always be used to connect multiple computers to eachother. So a teacher can share documents with a student.
And you could always do that…they have a donate button on their site.
That’s kinda what I was thinking, but that was the less charitable side of me speaking.