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How Classsmate PC Stacks Up Against OLPC
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu May 24, 2007 12:47 PM
from the cheap-laptops-go-toe-to-toe dept.
from the cheap-laptops-go-toe-to-toe dept.
lisah writes "While the One Laptop Per Child project pulled itself together and shipped its first Beta machines, Intel was busy developing its own version, the Classmate PC. Inevitable comparisons will be made between the two (especially since OLPC's chairman Nicholas Negroponte called Intel's move "predatory"), so Linux.com's Tina Gasperson and her kids took a Classmate PC for a test run to see how it does in the real world. The upshot? Good battery life, easy to use, and great with ketchup. 'The Classmate is so adorably cozy it make you want to snuggle up on a comfy couch or lean back on some pillows on the floor while you surf. Good thing wireless is built right in. Too bad the typical Linux foibles apply. The first snag was having to log in as root to check the system configuration because the Classmate wouldn't log on to the network. Something tells me most elementary and high school teachers with nothing but Windows experience aren't going to get that.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
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Microsoft to Sell PCs, Starting in India 233 comments
kripkenstein writes "According to an Ars Technica report Microsoft will begin selling complete PCs, for the first time in the company's history. The program is aimed at customers in India. 'Dubbed the IQ PC, the machines will cost RS21,000 (about $525), are manufactured in partnership with Zenith, and will sport AMD Athlon CPUs. ... In some ways, the move to sell hardware is a natural extension of Microsoft's low-cost Windows initiative ... It may also be a response to projects like Intel's Classmate PC and the OLPC XO.' The Ars Technica summary is careful to state that they seriously doubt this will lead to Microsoft selling PCs in the US, yet the question must be asked: After Microsoft mice and keyboards, then the XBOX and Zune, Microsoft is increasingly becoming a hardware vendor. Is it only a question of time before Microsoft starts to compete directly with the likes of Dell and HP?"
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Classsmate... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Classsmate... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Classsmate... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The test-drive displays massive ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Below is the comment I posted under the story on linux.com. For those too lazy to read it there:
Five days with three active kids? The fact that you believe that this utterly minor quantity of abuse is significant displays an utter ignorance of the situation in which the systems will be used. And two hours? After which point it must be plugged in? Kids in many if not most of the locations in which the systems will be used will not have access to an electrical outlet. I know this concept is amazing to someone who has never thought about life beyond the borders of the first world...
The ClassmatePC is utterly unsuited to use anywhere outside the rosy, warm and comfortable existence that we in the first world enjoy. I'm sure it makes a very nice toy for your children, however. Be sure to get back to us regarding its durability after they've drug that gigantic (for children) lug of a machine through the dirt on their miles-long walk to and from school every day, mm?
(You can see that I am just as charming in other parts of the web as I am here)
The first world displays massive ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
Do third-world children really abuse what they own like that? Or is that the way a first world child would?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do third-world children really have a choice? Many do not have a roof over their head and those who do live in horrid squalor with no toilets, electricity, running water or even floors. Their machines will get dirty just from exposure to these environments.
Re:The first world displays massive ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure those are the children that the OLPC/Classmate are really being aimed for. Looking at the governments that are purchasing them, while they do have some poor areas, they're not exactly sub-Saharan Africa; I'm not sure that kids who lack electricity or a roof at home are probably going to be the first ones to get their hands on one. I suspect they're going to go to poor urban students, whose conditions are probably pretty deplorable by U.S. standards, but they're not dirt farmers either.
I'm pretty sure that the population of a lot of Third World countries supports this; they have fairly sizable chunks of the population living in crowded cities. The utilities may be old and unreliable, but it's not a shack-in-the-woods situation.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Of the six currently announced launch countries, three are in Africa, and two of those (Nigeria and Rwanda) are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Re:The first world displays massive ignorance (Score:4, Informative)
They probably don't. But their environment does. In contrast to the ClassMate, OLPC has no openings so that sand won't penetrate it. It also has a sealed keyboard so that water (read: rain) can be poured on it without damaging the laptop. OLPC was specifically designed to be used in a third world environment.
Parent
Re:The first world displays massive ignorance (Score:5, Informative)
The XO is not just designed to survive rain, but immersion in up to 5 feet of water.
The requirements for the accompanying XS "classroom server" are for it to be resistant to water from above (like rain) and to be able to operate in a constant 100% humidity environment.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The first world displays massive ignorance (Score:4, Interesting)
what's sad is that in their mind, they're imitating us. they break them to show that they don't care, to give the impression that they're rich enough that they can afford to break them (even if it's not true, it's part of an image that they want to give themselves)
Parent
Re:The first world displays massive ignorance (Score:4, Informative)
There are also significant security features built in at a hardware level. As an example, the laptops can be set to brick themselves if they don't show up at school.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And as you said, they ca
Re:The test-drive displays massive ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a little more worried about the battery life comment. A little over two hours? The OLPC is designed to be able to run for 10 or so if you use it to look at static stuff (like ebook mode). It's designed to run for ~10 minutes for ever minute of effort you put into it's charger (when you're not charging it with that new-fangled electrical outlet thing).
2 hours?
Yeah, the classmate is a revolution. Amazing. I bet you can't even see the screen outside very well!
This little "review" does nothing but sour my already dim views of the Classmate. It seems more proof that the classmate is nothing but a normal laptop that was miniaturized. The OLPC was basically designed from the ground up for this task. To be cheap, energy efficient, to be visible outdoors, to provide connectivity, etc.
The classmate may work for people here in the US, or in relatively developed areas. But these things sound like they won't do very well if you put them in rural areas without great infrastructure, which is one of the main areas the OLPC is targeting.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My sister-in-law lives in Nigeria, one of the target markets. In town, she says they are lucky to have more than a few hours of power and lets not talk about clean power. It's a neighborhood by neighborhood situation, and she lives in a relatively nice neighborhood. Out in "rural" Nigeria it will be
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not saying either of these projects are worthy or worthless. But there does seem to be a general pervasive additude in the 'modern' world that just throwing material goods at someone and saying a quaint homily is going to somehow help their situation.
Neither of these products are at all useful in stand alone situation. Children are not born with an instictive knowled
Re:The test-drive displays massive ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
The ClassmatePC is utterly unsuited to use anywhere outside the rosy, warm and comfortable existence that we in the first world enjoy.
The fact OLPC is targeted at the poorest countries of the world, where a family doesn't have an electic outlet, doesn't mean that all people who do have electrical outlets need to use cranks and pedals.
Take for example the new EU member countries, Bulgaria and Romania. They're on a much lower level, financially-wise and technologically-wise, than the rest of the EU. I'm in Bulgaria.
Trust me, we don't lack electrical sockets. We even have (gasp!) ADSL that can be delivered over the old copper phone wires in any school around the country.
You're complaining how come Intel just made this laptop for the "warm and rosy" first-world countries, failing to see that A) first-world countries also need a classmate PC and B) poor country doesn't mean we run around naked in the dust and can't read/write.
All in all, I feel OLPC and Classmate PC will fill two different niches, and both are great products. Now, Negroponte much be hurt that he's not the only one making children PC, but in the long term he'll realize that the world is a large enough place for two products of this kind.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is especially important because Negroponte actively avoids having the OLPC project being active in places outside of Asia, Africa, and parts of South America.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
[Rant]
It's always bothered me how many folks of a liberal bent (in America) will send money, doctors, and missionaries to Asia, Africa, South America, etc... As well as adopting children from those regions. Will they do so for the 'hood or for Appalachia? Many that I've talked with react with horror at the very prospect.
There's a word for that - racism.
[/rant]
No, the word for that is practicality. There comes a point where a large enough percentage of a nation has access to doctors, education, and the means of creating wealth, that giving them access to more of those doesn't equate to an increased consumption of them.
In parts of Africa, Asia and South America, these resources can have a far greater impact than in any part of the USA. Sending 100 more doctors into the Appalachians or inner-city New York won't noticeably reduce sickness in either place. Sendin
Re:and you don't OLPCs won't be laying unused ? (Score:4, Funny)
OLPC and this are feel good ideas when too much of this world does have clean drinking water and adequate medicine or food for the day.
But how will we be able to exploit these populations for profit if we don't get them addicted to expensive electronic gadgets?
Parent
Re:and you don't OLPCs won't be laying unused ? (Score:5, Informative)
Everything about the XO (the actual name of the OLPC project computer) is open source. That includes both software and hardware designs. If these countries had the proper facilities, they could, and would be quite welcome to, build it themselves and keep the money in their own economy.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, to be clear, i have no intention of criticizing the OLPC project. I think it's a great project. My joke was more about the general attempts to "modernize less-developed countries", and the expectations and motivations involved in that process.
Re:and you don't OLPCs won't be laying unused ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's long been too expensive to run phone lines all across Africa. However, once the mining companies starting throwing up cell towers, poor people got a hold of used cell phones on their own. Now they are lining up buyers for their crops in the field, instead of harvesting them, trotting them all the way to market, and then letting them rot in the hot sun.
I spent a 10 weeks with a poor indigenous family in Ecuador. They were more or less malnourished -- a 5-year-old looked like a 3-year-old. However, all their kids were in school. They brought home homework that they did in candle light in their open-air thatch-roof plywood-platform 'houses'. Poor people all over the world take incredible advantage of the meager tools they have in front of them. If they can talk to people in far away villages with an OLPC mesh network, they will. They will use it to communicate and improve their lives.
Most people in the world understand that education, whether it's how to hunt monkeys in the canopy, or how to speak English to guide jungle tours. It's only in relatively wealthy countries with enough infrastructure and social programs that people can afford to stay stupid.
Parent
Re:and you don't OLPCs won't be laying unused ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're not making any sense. They did better themselves (economically if not morally); the scams were the mechanism for doing so.
Sooner or later Nigerans will accumulate enough of their own wealth to want to protect it, at which point they'll crack down on the scammers themselves.
Re:and you don't OLPCs won't be laying unused ? (Score:5, Insightful)
So lets not work on anything else until these issues are solved. What are you doing posting on slashdot, you should be out feeding poor children.
What do you say, you have more experience working with computers and would rather work on something you will be more efficient at than food provider. Tough, can't go educating people until everyone on the planet has food.
Parent
no way the public will use linux on this (Score:3, Funny)
Since USB ports haven't apparently been discovered by the general public, what's the chance that "root passwords" and wi-fi configuration have?
I wonder ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why didn't Intel work *with* OLPC to make a laptop to help educate people? Now all they're serving to do is divide the market and confuse customers [re: governments] with a laptop which imho is less suited for the task.
It isn't like OLPC *has* to run a geode. I mean at this point a rework is out of the question, but they could have switched it to an intel chip a couple of years ago if a low power chip was suitable for the task.
Tom
Challenges of using Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
$200 classmate vs $100 OLPC (Score:4, Insightful)
I learnt to program back in 1978 on a 1MHz Z80 with 1K of RAM and no software other than a monitor program that let me type hex codes into memory. I turned out OK.
If the point of this is to get computers into as many kids hands as possible, where cost was previously a limit, then cost should in essence be the only consideration once any other minimal design goals have been met. Putting in more features (able to run expensive Microsoft bloatware!) for a higher cost would seem to be a detriment to the overall goal rather than a benefit.
Doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Misleading Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
1. The family "just using it."
I think there are enough admins here who understand that the OLPC will probably be delivered pre-configured.
2. So, wireless, much less a steady _Internet connection_ is widely available in developing nations?
The OLPC is getting destroyed quite publicly and there's nothing OLPC can do about it. They've been out-financed.
Today's lesson: Selling to governments without 10's of millions of dollars for bribes of all kinds (including campaign donations)doesn't happen. This is a text book case of what happens to anything innovative (read: new vendors) in government.
Ridiculous Review (Score:4, Insightful)
You can bet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The OLPC project was to provide educational resources to developing countries, centered around low-cost, reliable computing hardware adapted to the needs of education in the developing world and services and open content for that platform.
Yeah, yeah, the interesting part to first-world geeks seems to be primarily the hardware platform.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If Intel strong-arms the OLPC project into oblivion but continues to provide the same "philanthropic", so to speak, service, don't the children still benefit?
While I agree that we shouldn't feel OLPC needs to be the only platform available to these people, I think your question indicates the source of people's concern: What if Intel strong-arms the OLPC project into oblivion but then does not continue to provide the same philanthropic service?
Re:Predatory? Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Intel really has it right and proves Negroponte is an idiot.
Like I said in a comment above, I can see how this might be a better option for more developed countries (US, large cities, etc) where things like power aren't as big a problem. But like I said the other day, the more I see of this, the more it looks like a status-quo laptop that was made 20% (or whatever) smaller.
Not only is the OLPC hardware superior for a large class of people, I think it's design (including software) is fantastic, especially its emphasis on learning as opposed to "this is a computer, here, enjoy" that the classmate seems to have.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Predatory? Ha! (Score:4, Informative)
The OLPC is not about providing computing access to underprivileged youths its about "children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves." [laptop.org] The market droids are doing a good job of twisting this nonprofit educational project into a competition for "emerging markets" [classmatepc.com]
The people who developed the OLPC have been working on this project for years and they have experimented extensively in 3rd world countries before designing their learning device to ensure success in achieving their goals, Intel's objective as stated on their classmatePC website is simply marketing.
So you see, it is predatory, not competition.
Parent
Insightful? Shortsighted and ignoreant. (Score:5, Insightful)
OLPC is a humanitarian project which is trying to provide educational devices to third world countries. These devices are 100% open (open hardware and software) with minimal maintainance. They are designed for the harsh environments and to have minimal environmental impact.
Intel at first dismissed and made fun of the project, then realized that it could be a threat to their business. Instead of developing a better product with humanitarian goals, they created a piece of closed hardware junk with huge environmental impacts. These devices are not designed for third world environments, have a 2 hour battery life, etc, etc, etc. They are being sold well below cost, and Intel is flying all over the world to the governments which approached OLPC and spending millions to sell these devices to them. Not out of a humanitarian effort, but as a business transaction. While on the surface this may seem like competition in an open market, that is just not the case.
OLPC is not a market driven business project. OLPC did not go to governments to sell their program, they announced the program and the governments came to them. In order to provide the devices cheaply, and allow the governments to develop the devices themselves, OLPC needs 3Mil units ordered. They were close to having that before Intel came along and started lobbying only these governments, and offering these junk replacements (internal cost estimate at $400, NOT the $200 under priced value, nor the $50 'introductory' price).
The sole purpose of this is a predatory act to stop an AMD based device from gaining acceptance. This also ignores the software effort. The hardware laptop is only 50% of the OLPC project. The other half is the revolutionary new operating system and GUI being developed as part of OLPC, specifically for child learning. Intel doesn't want to be bothered, because they are not in the business of providing a learning device, they are in the buisness of selling intel chips.
So yes its predatory. VERY predatory, because that is what the computer business is, and that is what Intel is. The stock holders and board members would not have it any other way. OLPC is something completely different, and is being hurt by their actions.
Is this bad for the children? Just look at the two devices, and I think you have your answer.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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You could READ about OLPC and get an answer (Score:4, Informative)
Start with the mission statement:
OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program, nor is the XO a product in any conventional sense of the word. OLPC is a non-profit organization providing a means to an end--an end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap into their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community.
Q: why doesn't OLPC make a $100 laptop for the US Market?
A: That is not the purpose of the OLPC project. They do not have the resources nor the infrastructure to pursue such a commercial, non-humanitarian effort, nor the desire.
Q: Why do companies like Dell and Intel make a sub-$100 laptop for the US market?
A: There is very little profit in it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, no you haven't.
Windows 2000 needs things like a hard drive, lots of non-volatile storage, and a BIOS. It also costs more than the target price.
Windows 2000 is also designed to be difficult to use and discover: It doesn't include a development environment, a word processor, any wifi support, or introspection tools.
In contrast: the users of the OLPC are encouraged to extend th
Re:Fair to assume ghettos ~= third world environme (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since Windows doesn't install on any Toshiba currently being sold, I fail to see what your fucking point is.
You are confusing OEM Windows with Windows. Toshiba went and installed those drivers for you when they installed Windows.