[geeks] One (Windows) Laptop Per Child

[Lionel Peterson]

Hey everyone, the other shoe has dropped in the "one laptop per child" competition - Intel has demo'd their Classmate laptop design.

Here's an informative link for a review: http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?page=8307&head=0

The long & Short of it is that Intel put a 900 MHz Pentium M CPU in a case with an 800x480 color display (TFT, by the looks of it), Windows XP Embedded O/S with 1 Gig of internal storage (USB device inside case) and WiFi (again, USB device inside case). It has a power brick, Fast Ethernet, and no hand-crank or Play Skool colors.

Estimated prices fluctuate between $250-400, based on qty.

Seems like a decent idea - it allows schools to build on existing WinXP software base, not rely on third-party software developers to create software for it, and it has usefulness in so-called first-world countries with wired and WiFi networking.

Thoughts?

Personally I think folks are way to excited about the OLPC from MIT/Negroponte - it is a PDA, and it embodies what I call "good-enough (for you) engineering", I can't think of many school districts in America that would consider spending the $100-150 price for one of those laptops... An argument could be made that for $400 you could buy a more capable laptop at retail, esp. with Qty. discount, but conventional laptops are very frail, and their O/S are as well (in mass deployments to dis-interested users).

There aren't that many schools in the US or elsewhere (public OR private) that deploy laptops widely, and many folks seem to think that the third-world should just roll over and adopt a solution we've never really tried ourselves... I think the Indian Education Minister was right in rejecting the OLPC initiative - he feels there are other priorities in the Indian educational system, and I trust his judgement.[0]
 
Lionel

[0] http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=4LUKL2MJ2E1Y4QSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=191902048