Best $200 Laptop Ever?

The more  I play with my OLPC XO laptop the more impressed I become with it. I’m using it more and more for Web surfing at home. It fits very nicely on the armrest of my couch and I regularly use it to access the Web while I’m watching TV.

Today’s picture is of the Neighborhood view offered on the XO when connected to the mesh networking provided by xochat.org.  It’s easy to chat or even collaborate with other XO owners using the mesh networking capabilities of the XO.

This is just one amazing  little machine!

XO Posting and Picture

This posting was done from my new XO laptop, including the picture.  The image was taken with the XO’s built-in camera and Record application.

You know for $200, this is really one amazing computer!

XO Laptop

The picture shows my new XO laptop next to my Kohjinsha SH6. I received the XO about a week ago, having ordered it through the One Laptop Per Child program. I got one, and a child in a developing nation received one as well. In addition I got a one-year free T-Mobile Hotspot account. Not a bad deal!!

As you can see, the XO is a little larger than the SH6, but the screen resolution is lower. The screen itself is very bright and very nice for reading The XO is also quite a bit heavier than the SH6 – I’d guess anywhere between 50% to 100% heavier.

So far I’ve found the XO to be huge fun to play with. The “Sugar” user interface over Linux is quite different from anything I’ve seen before, and quite a lot of fun to use. The WiFi reception of the XO is phenomenal. The mesh networking is also amazing, although since I’m the only one around here who owns one I haven’t had a chance to really use it. Someone has set up a server on the net that enables mesh networking between XOs not physically near each other and I may check that out to see how well it really works, but the concept alone is awesome!

The built-in applications are definitely oriented for kids but are really very imaginatively done. I think this device will be a huge educational tool for kids.

The browser is really quite nice. It works well with all the Google apps. I can see using the XO with Google Docs as a “cloud-based” ultra-portable laptop.  It’s got three USB ports and an SD slot.

Right now the only downsides to the XO seems to be as follows:

• The software is Version 1 and a little unstable, although a software updated is scheduled for this month which will hopefully correct most of those issues – plus the update is supposed to increase battery life to 10+ hours!
• The device looks like it was built by Fisher-Price and I’d feel a little strange using it at an airport!
• The keyboard is definitely built for kid-sized fingers and touch typing is a bit difficult – even for someone who has become accustomed to the SH6′s rather small keyboard.
• It’s slooooow, having a 433 Mhz processor.

I haven’t decided whether I’m going to give this XO away to one of my grandkids, or to an XO developer, or keep it myself. I’m actually having so much fun playing with it that I may just keep it. If so, I’ll likely play around with the Python-based development environment and maybe even write some software for it.