A competitor for the XO laptop

The One Laptop per Child, or OLPC project, has been working in full force lately, attempting… The One Laptop per Child, or OLPC project, has been working in full force lately, attempting to get its XO laptop in the hands of underprivileged children all over the world. It seems to be having some success, as countries in Africa, South America and Asia are all strongly considering joining the club of OLPC investors.

Do not think, however, with a large percentage of the world as a possible market, that the laptop stands completely on its own, easily poised to become a monopoly. Intel, one of the major contributors to the XO program, recently announced it is breaking from the OLPC project to concentrate on an XO laptop competitor, the “Classmate PC.” With further backing from Intel, the Classmate PC may give the XO laptop a run for its money, as well as curb the expansion of the One Laptop per Child project.

The XO laptop itself seems highly promising – it’s inexpensive, extremely useful and filled with options that American customers buying full-sized laptops look for when making their next big purchase.

The laptop can be powered by hand crank, solar panels or good, old-fashioned AC/DC converters, making it highly energy efficient and viable for use in countries with underdeveloped power grids. Its software is Linux-based, making it powerful and customizable, but it is still designed with the child in mind, making it simple for beginner computer users to become familiar with it and thrive.

Up until now, the laptop has been designed with a low-power AMD processor, running a proprietary Linux operating system from a one-gigabyte flash memory module.

Intel had shown quite a bit of interest in the laptop project, however, and there were rumors that Intel would design its own low-power processor for inclusion in the laptop. Additionally, Microsoft was interested in porting a version of its Windows XP operating system to the XO platform.

After a recent disagreement between the project and Intel, however, Intel has left the board of OLPC in order to concentrate on its own, independent effort to produce an inexpensive laptop for the underprivileged.

The Classmate PC, as Intel calls it, looks very similar to the XO laptop, in that it sports a colorful, heavily constructed plastic casing, a small crisp monitor and a keyboard designed for the fingers of a child.

In the eyes of some potential investors, the Classmate has some advantages over the XO. The Classmate differs because it can be shipped with a version of Microsoft Windows XP professional installed. Customers can choose between the Windows operating system, a ported Linux kernel and a proprietary Classmate operating system.

Many countries that are attempting to choose between the XO and the Classmate may lean toward the Classmate simply because it supports running the world’s most popular operating system straight out of the box. It is not out of the question for the XO to run Windows, of course, but it might put up a bit of a fight.

The Classmate is also slightly faster. The XO laptop sports a 433 mega-hertz AMD chip, whereas the Classmate runs a faster 900 mega-hertz Intel chip. The Classmate is lacking in power options, however, for it appears most comfortable with its charging DC adapter. For many countries where the PCs will be outside of the range of a standard, reliable power grid, the Classmate might pose some power problems.

Whether the Intel answer to the XO laptop or the laptop itself is a better choice, the OLPC project may begin to sweat. The laptop has not sold as prolifically as it was originally expected to, and the appearance of the Classmate has led some governments to curb their enthusiasm and examine the two machines side-by-side.

This competition is by no means a problem, though, because the laptop, currently priced at $185, might be forced to reduce its costs to its original hopeful estimate of only $100.

Competition ultimately drives ingenuity, and the emergence of additional low-priced laptop brands on the market should only prove to make the individual laptop models better, more efficient and more prolific in third world countries.