SmokyHosts Support Forums - Webhosting and Webdesigning Support!

I've been interested in low-cost computing for a long time, specifically projects geared towards developing countries. One project working on this idea is called One Laptop Per Child, which is trying to develop a laptop that could be built and sold to governments in developing countries for around $100. The governments would then give the laptops to school children for free.

But in addition to selling them to governments, they're now talking about possibly letting a 3rd party build them and sell them to the general public, with a possible pricetag of around US$200, from which $20 or $30 would go to the One Laptop Per Child project to get more laptops to the kids.

The specs are still a bit iffy, but basically it looks like they'd have something like a 500Mhz AMD processor, 1Gb of flash memory instead of a HDD, and a 12-inch display. Oh, and it'll run Linux. They'd have Wi-Fi connectivity and maybe built-in 'mesh networking', where you can quickly and easily network the laptops together and share a single connection to the Net. Power consumption would be kept as low as possible, and they'd run on AC power, or batteries that can be recharged by either AC power or by using a some sort of manual system -- like a hand crank that attached to the side of the laptop or something.

So my question is, would anybody be interested in buying this kind of laptop? And if so, what would you do with it?

Cheers,

Wil

Good article. Thanks for the link!

I also like the 'indestructable' part. Sounds like it could be a cool way to give my 7-year-old his own laptop. Of course I wouldn't tell him it was indestructable -- he'd most likely see that as a challenge. :lol:

Cheers,

Wil

No i wouldnt. Mostly because the parts are probably poorly made..

If it looks and works like in the photos, I like it even more!

And I wouldn't assume it'll be built with shoddy parts. If the project ever gets launched, and they sell a few million units to various governments, it'll be a fairly high-profile thing for the companies involved. Why lose all that good PR mojo by reports a few months later that all those free laptops given to the poor Brazilian schoolkids don't work?

Cheers,

Wil

Good to see that AMD decided to sell the PIC in the US as well as in developing countries. I think it's a good idea, and it might be able to find a niche. Hard to say, though, since it's not significantly cheaper than low-end PC (real PCs) and secondhand PCs. But I think there could be a market for these sorts of things -- either for people who want a computer but don't need a high-spec machine (not everybody plays 3D games, edits video, etc.), or for people who already have at least one mid- or high-end computer, but would like to have a second (or third or fourth or ninth) computer around for doing simpler things. Like a 'sit in the living room and surf' machine. My Aunt wants a small, cheap computer in her kitchen -- mainly to use as a recipe database, but she'd also like to be able to surf the net, and use it as a TV. She doesn't need a dual-core Pentium 3.6 Ghz processor, or WindowsXP, to do that.

Cheers,

Wil

I wuldnt, i wuld rather buy or save up for a computer desktop than a laptop coz the big prblm with laptops is that it is hard to upgrade a single hardware on it and when one thing breaks down (hardware), its hard to find it and maybe u hav to replace the whole thing.

I don't think I would buy a laptop that cheap... :? I think it would be a waste of money, as the quality of the product might be very low. I would buy a more expensive one, from a certified-quality corporation, so I would be sure....

I wouldent because I can afford better, but I can see reccomending this to my poor friends who have no PC in their house at all.

probably not because it will most likely have really bad parts

who is joking laptop for 200 ???