Hardware hacker reviews the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop
Virtuoso hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang has posted a fantastic review of the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop, from a hardware engineer's perspective. Bunnie is the founder of Chumby, a truly elegant hardware gizmo, and he (literally) takes apart the XO and showcases the excellent design choices that went into it.
Link
If I were to make one general comment about the OLPC XO-1, it's that its mechanical design is brilliant. It's a fairly clean-sheet redesign of traditional notebook PC mechanics around the goal of survivability, serviceability, and robustness (then again, I've never taken apart any of the ruggedized notebooks out there). When closed up for "travel", all the ports are covered, and the cooling system is extremely simple so it should survive in dusty and dirty environments. Significantly, the port coverings aren't done with rubberized end caps that you can lose or forget to put on–they are done using the wifi antennae, and the basic design causes the user to swivel them back to cover the ports when they are packing up the laptop to go. That's thoughtful design.
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Such simple and function design rivals even Apple, even though the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop is having its bumpy moments now. The design qualities could inspire more developers to build better and simpler products. This review was a great read.
Thats pretty impressive, but first maybe they should design some state of the art sandwiches for kids who are to close to death to be very concerned with laptops.
It's not the job of a technology company to feed people, obviously. They are filling a need just as much as a food distribution charity fills a need. Many parts of the world are technology poor and the people there aren't directly starving. The technology this provides will give children a more up to date education and that will give them more options to make money to support their families, thus providing more food in the long term.
I got mine yesterday morning. Poking around a bit and seeing the features was a great experience. And knowing that I supplied one for someone less fortunate felt great too.
This was my best purchase last year.
#4 are you American? I'm only asking because I'm Canadian and trying to estimate the delay on mine shipping across the border. :) I'm so excited to get the chance to finally see it.
Why is there always one person in every discussion about the OLPC who doesn't get it? Not everyone in the developing world is starving, and those who are do indeed have bigger problems than connecting to the Internet. However, there are plenty of people who have that food and infrastructure problem solved. Read up on the locations of the first two deployments, Uruguay and Nigeria. Both have relatively strong economies and good infrastructures, and can afford to hand out OLPCs to their kids. It's all about bootstrapping the next stage of development and getting the next generation out of a local mindset and into a global one. The project probably should consider the USA as a deserving nation. The next generation might actually learn something about the rest of the world.
Thank you so very much Mr. Greenwood.
And a big old raspberry @ #2.
The developing world doesn't need to be given handouts or "saved" by wealthier nations or people, it needs to be given the tools to sustain and further develop itself and meet it's own needs, and even then you have to look on a country by country basis instead of lumping the whole developing world into the "close to death" category. It's one thing to give a sandwich to someone, but it's another to give them the means to raise their own crops, grind their own grain, make their own bread, etc. And there are different charities for each end of that chain, saving people from death and saving them from the exploitation of globalization by giving them the tools they need to stay productive and competitive.
My XO-1 is the most adorable stack of brilliance I've seen for a long time, filled with smart design ideas (black & white mode! a battery so durable you can recharge it with a juryrigged car battery! a stylus area where your wrists sit!) and pre-loaded educational software that makes me grin (LOGO!).
I also love that it's truly 1.0. There's a half-dozen keys on the keyboard that do nothing at all... because they haven't been developed for yet. The XO is a living work in progress.
Is it my new favorite computer? No, because it's made for kids to learn with, not a 30-mwahmwah guy with big monkey hands to blog with at Starbucks. But it's a piece of history, as much as the LISA or the first Mac laptop.
I've got one.
So far I'm not too impressed with the UI and default software. But maybe I'm not thinking enough like a child :-)
Wow. That is one well-designed laptop. I'm kicking myself now for not getting one when I had the chance. Here's hoping there's another round of this sometime. Not that I'm too hopeful...they prolly only did this to get rid of the laptops with the AES module that they'd have trouble exporting.
*sigh*
I love my XO -- now if I could only figure out how to get it on the Apple network...
@lentil: you probably need to change the passphrase to hex :)
Another thanks to Simon @ 6.
Why do people assume that everyone in the developing world is listlessly sitting by the side of the road with an empty bowl on their lap and flies walking on their faces?
You could make a good argument that a solar- rechargeable LED light could provide more economic benefits to more people, by allowing folks to do work and study after sunset, but if a charity was set up to distribute those, I'd donate to that too.
Me, I bought TWO XO laptops via the Give One/Get One program. To judge from the reaction of people at work to my sample, the manufacturer could sell dozens to my cow-orkers alone.
@ Sue Grant:
Yes, I'm in America (Hawaii). Sorry for the late reply - time zones and all.
Yo #6
I get it, and I think that one laptop per child is completely awesome. It's just that if I had an large amount of resources and funds to focus towards charity, I would first look to the more basic human needs that are currently not being filled before turning towards laptops, fully considering all the good they can do. You can't completely shoot that down.
and #13
Why do people assume that everyone in the developing world is listlessly sitting by the side of the road with an empty bowl on their lap and flies walking on their faces?
I don't think that, I'm not an idiot, those are your words.
I got an OLPC XO computer, and am disappointed with the software. Application platforms have evolved over time from batch processing to the Internet. It is a LAN system in the Internet age.
The XO features innovative hardware and support for sharing on a LAN is "baked in," but it is not Internet ready. In areas where good Internet connectivity is not available, that will not matter, but in areas where it is, XO desktop applications will seem lame compared to their Internet-based counterparts. The user interface also has problems that will confuse kids and crashes can result in geek-diagnostic messages.
Nicholas Negroponte has expressed confidence that the market will bring connectivity to poor areas of developing nations, but the evidence does not support his optimism. The XO rollout should be coordinated with connectivity (as is being done in Uruguay), and a strong development community and development tools are needed to make it ready for kids and the Internet. An XO (or Intel Passport or any other machine) is obsolete without the Internet -- second rate technology for the third world.
For more, see:
http://cis471.blogspot.com/2008/01/olpc-lan-machine-in-internet-era.html.
It works fine with Google documents for those with a decent internet connection. So why load it up with more software though other users have reported bypassing Sugar completely and:
"Xfce - Lightweight desktop environment. It runs quite well, surprisingly!
Pidgin - Cross-network instant messenger.
AbiWord - Word processor (The real deal! I had to uninstall the libabiword package first, which probably broke Sugar's Write activity.)
Wifi Radar - I use this from within Xfce to connect to a Wifi network."
http://olpc.osuosl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8209#8209
Though to me they are missing an opportunity to comment on improvements. But hey, it is theirs to use as they see fit. I am neither a programmer or hacker per se, but figured from the day I heard about it it was a way to help someone out and have a bit of fun in the process. A famous philosopher is reported to have once said "The poor will always be among you." So I try not to guilt out over all the things I could be doing. So I was a bit greedy and got one for myself rather then living in a rented room so I could give more to others.
Even if the venture fails, I am glad to have promoted the idea of access to knowledge will do more in the long run then anything else.
Saw these at SIGGRAPH '07. A lot of the display models were broken. I thought they felt cheap (duh) especially the keyboard. The plastic was not sturdy.
And the software was incredibly confusing.
The OLPC people might be able to make these on the cheap but what will it cost to fix them, provide upgrades, etc.?