Comments | mbrubeck: xogiving.org: 9 days left

mbrubeck

xogiving.org: 9 days left

Nov 18, 2007 19:46

I ordered my XO laptop on November 12, as soon as the "Give 1 Get 1" program started accepting donations. The XO is the $200 computer created by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation for students in developing countries.

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olpc, education, computer, hardware

Comments 11

zudini November 19 2007, 05:47:05 UTC

The eeePC has everything you list (including the camera) except the tablet mode and the GPS. You could get a usb GPS dongle for less than $100, I feel sure, and you'd still be under the $500 price point. Plus, unlike the XO, the eeePC is nice to type on. Having used a thinkpad X41 for over a year, I've come to realize that tablet-mode is nice, but not quite as nice as it sounds in theory.

I truly hope that you and your daughter enjoy the XO. I really really wanted one until the day that I got to play with one and feel the keyboard. I hope you'll let us all know how it goes. I've had my eeePC for two weeks now and I seem to love it a little more each day.

mbrubeck November 19 2007, 13:54:32 UTC

Yes, it was basically a toss-up between the Eee PC and the XO for me. I agree that the keyboard is a major point for the Eee; I would also love to have video output and SD slots. But besides the tablet mode, the differences that pushed me toward the XO were:

Despite having 4 times the area of the Nokia tablet's display, the Eee PC has the same number of pixels, making it only somewhat more useful for web surfing and ebook reading. The XO has 25% more pixels in backlit (color) mode, and 125% more pixels in reflective (monochrome) mode. If I didn't already have the Nokia I might not care as much, but this lowers the "marginal utility" of the Eee for me.
Longer battery life.
And as I said, I'm interested in supporting and learning about the XO as an educational tool.

In another year or two, I'll probably get a second-generation Eee PC (or a similar device) for myself, and the XO will be for experimentation and/or toddler use only.

omega697 November 19 2007, 09:23:49 UTC

Ahh, HyperCard.

Those were the days.

dclayh November 19 2007, 18:47:38 UTC

Word.

amoken November 22 2007, 15:27:24 UTC

Yeah!

martian687 November 19 2007, 15:39:32 UTC

The ETC (graduate program I went to) has a project team this semester working on developing games for the XO. They hosted a Game Jam this past weekend in which teams of 4-5 people spent all weekend creating a game for the XO. saerulj, a fellow Interbots owner, was on the winning team. I think she's planning on buying one (or two rather) as well.

chanusa November 19 2007, 23:36:11 UTC

Do you think that these will ever be available to non-developing countries later? I like the idea of having a Chloe laptop and a grown-ups laptop, (as does Chloe with the way she's drawn to the computer; insert `more' sign here) but I'm not sure that we're quite ready for one yet...

Thank you for letting me know about the program; if I do decide to get a toddler laptop, I'll buy this one since I trust you on such purchases.

mbrubeck November 19 2007, 23:52:55 UTC

OLPC is mostly only working with national or regional school systems. They aren't set up to sell to and support retail customers. So "Give 1 Get 1" is a one-time program with no firm plans to repeat it (and no ongoing support for the laptops, either).

But I hope that when Chloe and Eleanor are 3 or 4 years old, most of the ideas will have been picked up by other companies who will sell similar computers running the same open-source software. (If not, one of my start-up ideas is to do so myself!)

carrollumpherv October 17 2008, 02:58:53 UTC

Also if you know where I can get one free somewhere else. Thank you. Colleen R Galloway, NJ angellwingsaol.

Not impressed anonymous March 20 2008, 22:30:17 UTC

Well we also donated under the "Give One Get One" promotion. That was back in early December and its now March 20th and we still haven't recieved ours. I am truly thinking that this company is a complete scam. We had done this as a pilot program, as we had 150 people ready to donate to a whole rural school with them in the Philippines. But after this there is not a hope that I would recommend to anyone this program or this computer. I can't wait, if we ever recieve it, to just donate it to someone and chalk up the whole experience and maybe be a little wiser in the future.

Re: Not impressed mbrubeck March 21 2008, 00:19:36 UTC

That's too bad -- I hope your laptop arrives soon. Two of my colleagues ordered theirs in December and just got them this week.

One thing to remember is that the OLPC Foundation is not a company. They're a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and their main mission is to work with national governments and school districts. They unfortunately have no real infrastructure for supporting retail sales and fulfillment, which is why "Give One Get One" was a one time fund-raising event instead of a regular distribution channel that a for-profit company might run.

My XO arrived around Christmas, and I'm very impressed with it. I've updated the software to a recent development version and installed a developer key so I can start contributing to the code. My toddler likes playing with the music-making activities.