$100 Laptop Repriced at $175

prostoalex writes "The $100 laptop introduced by Nicholas Negroponte as part of the One Laptop Per Child program will end up costing $175, Associated Press says. The demand for the program is apparent as 'seven nations have expressed interest in being in the initial wave to buy the little green-and-white "XO" computers — Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya — but it remains unclear which ones will be first to pony up the cash.'"

Comments

Re:No story here.

[Dara Hazeghi]

Either you're a crazed hippie completely out of touch with reality, or you're a troll:

Euro value 4/26/05 = $1.29
Euro value 4/26/07 = $1.36

Not exactly spiraling out of control. Total loss of value in two years = 5.2%, not half.

Re:Why not....?

[burns210]

which are devices that hardly fit the description of "rugged"..
Have you actually used one? Like, at all? The machines are quite "rugged". Or were you just making a baseless claim?
As for why not desktop machines? Power requirements and portability are two of the reasons.

From TFA

[MonkeyINAbaG]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The founder of the ambitious "$100 laptop" project, which plans to give inexpensive computers to schoolchildren in developing countries, revealed Thursday that the machine for now costs $175

AND

Negroponte's team has always stressed that $100 was a long-term target for the machines, but recently publicized figures had put it in the $150 range. Negroponte says the cost should drop about 25 percent per year as the project unfolds. He added that Citigroup Inc. (C)'s Citibank division has agreed to facilitate a payment system on a pro bono basis; Citibank will float payments to Quanta and other laptop suppliers, and governments will repay the bank.

The project is still on track to its price target of $100, it is still in BETA FFS!

Quit with the FUD already! Theres nothing like working on something high profile to make you grow a bit of a distaste for /. hype!

Re:I'm just waiting...

[Cutie Pi]

As of today, one Euro = $1.36

It takes 36% more dollars to equal one Euro. The Franc doesn't exist any more. Your math abilities and world knowledge should seriously concern people.

Re:Expressed interest

[grcumb]

And in addition, if this were a Microsoft product, everyone would be yelling "vaporware!" and bitching about the price increase.

OLPC would qualify as vapourware if:

• The first production run weren't already going ahead.
• There weren't already programmes in place to deploy this laptop, and lots more in the works.
• The company producing them hadn't already stated their desire to market them into the consumer supply chain as well.

For those of you keeping score, India's attempt at this died on the vine, Microsoft's $600-cell-phone-attached-to-keyboard-and-TV alternative does meet the criteria for vapourware. Intel's ClassmatePC is barely out of the gate. And AMD's offering seems to have been shelved (wisely, perhaps) in favour of OLPC.

Near as I can tell, OLPC is the one project that least resembles vapourware of all the announced projects out there.

Cheops' Law

[Chas]

Everything takes longer and costs more.

Re:Kind of cool but is this really worth it?

[Ian Bicking]

Here's the features I can think of that the XO has that the listed laptop does not:

• Screen is readable in full sunlight
• Power consumption is targeted at 2 Watts
• Laptop can sleep while the screen stays on (e.g., when reading a book)
• No moving parts
• A minimal number of wires and connections (for instance, the motherboard is right next to the screen)
• Water-resistant design -- you can pour a cup of water right over the keyboard without damage
• 802.11s wireless, allowing connections with peers and connections to the internet via peers
• The wireless routing stays on even when the rest of the laptop is off
• Built-in camera/video
• NiMH (or LiFeP) battery, to avoid the safety issues of Li-ion batteries; generally toxic components are being avoided
• Targeting 2000 cycles of the battery (typical batteries are 500-1000)
• You can use a stylus on the touchpad
• Monitor revolves into tablet configuration

If you want a scaled-down version of a normal laptop, the Classmate PC is basically designed like that. You can see a direct comparison in this table. Frankly it looks clunky and lacking in creativity when compared to the XO.

Generally the XO is designed for durability and low power consumption, not speed. It also takes into account its very specific target audience in many small ways. It's not a general-purpose machine, it doesn't have any commercial aspirations, it's purely a laptop for children, particularly those in developing nations.

Unlike WebTV this has a very good screen -- it's small, but it's completely usable. It runs normal Linux applications (they don't fit into the environment that well unless you make some modifications, but they do run). The processor is x86. It has a reasonable amount of memory and disk -- small by today's standards, but still reasonable even by today's standards. 256Mb of memory is really quite good. Also, unlike those products, this is not a niche product. This is intended to be deployed in considerable scale, and so it's a viable target platform all on its own.

Re:Why not....?

[youthoftoday]

I was doing tech support to a school network in Uganda a couple of years ago. They had a room full of machines. This was a concrete building with a good roof, but even so the 'mud hut' effect still happened. The amount of dirt that got inside EVERYTHING was frankly astounding. I'll never forget the day I spent removing bat droppings from all the mice.
So in hot, dusty under-developed countries, it is a problem. And the OLPC's membrane keyboard and sealed widgets are certainly welcome.