14 DAY TRIAL // OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) might not be the first name that one may think of when talking about tablet PC manufacturers, but it appears that this newest product type has garnered enough popularity to incite even this foundation. In its ongoing effort to provide every child in the world with a means to gain access to modern education, OLPC has allied with Marvell in its fresh quest to make a low-cost slate with capabilities above those of the current XO laptop.
Marvell already has the very promising Armada 610 applications processor, which lies at the heart of the slate demonstrated at the Netbook Summit. This chip has a clock speed of 1GHz, supports 3D acceleration and can render up to 45 million triangles per second, as well as control four 1080p displays at the same time. It is this component that OLPC intends to use in its upcoming XO tablet.
Giving up the idea of physical keyboard completely, the new XO will rely on touch and a multilingual software keyboard for input and, besides the capabilities conferred upon it by the Armada 610, will boast Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi, FM radio support, a GPS module and Adobe Flash support. Additionally, being based on the 'Moby' reference design, the device will come pre-loaded with Android, Windows Mobile or Ubuntu. Nevertheless, what is most intriguing is the pricing plan, along with the power efficiency.
OLPC hopes to have this tablet run on only one watt of power (the current XO consumes 5W). It is unclear what kind of battery life this will allow, but it should be long, if not very long. As for how much it will cost, the target point is a fairly attractive $99.
"While devices like eReaders and current tablets are terrific literary, media and entertainment platforms, they don't meet the needs of an educational model based on making things, versus just consuming them. Today's learning environments require robust platforms for computation, content creation and experimentation – and all that at a very low cost," said Dr. Nicholas Negroponte, Founder and Chairman of One Laptop per Child. "Through our partnership with Marvell, OLPC will continue our focus on designing computers that enable children in the developing world to learn through collaboration, as well as providing connectivity to the world's body of knowledge."