14 DAY TRIAL // The long expected $100 Children's laptop will be delivered this year, as confirmed by manufacturer Quanta Computer. If orders arrive as expected, the company says it will be able to deliver several million such laptops (five to ten million), by the end of this year. The announced date for the start of production of OLPC XOs is July 2007.
The device is developed by One Laptop per Child (OLPC) trade association and will be sold to governments around the world, to be issued to children by schools. The starting price of this laptop will be around 140 US dollars, but producers are confident they will be able to lower it to the announced price of $100 in 2008. Several countries have committed to buying OLPCs for their children, including Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Rwanda.
The OLPC has flash memory drive and works on Linux, Fedora. The device has no moving parts because the producers wanted it to be as little power consuming and inexpensive as possible. Floppy disks, hard disks, CD drives, DVD drives and other such peripherals are connectable by USB port. It now uses LCD display, but future plans include a low-cost, low-power and high-resolution electronic paper display. The design is fairly nice, colorful and adapted for children's use (so it's not for gadget-addicts!).
One thousand prototypes of the OLPC were released at the end of last year, and mass production will start this summer. But not anyone can pay little over $100 and get this 'toy' laptop. The association clearly said it is not intended for the general public and they do not intend to make them available for customers.