OLPC Cost Rises To $188 Per Laptop 270
Arathon writes "The amazing '$100 laptop' designed by the 'One Laptop Per Child' program isn't going to make it out the door for that price. CNN reports that the laptops are now expected to cost $188 apiece when they come out later this fall. This is expected to make the program's appeal potentially much smaller, since the developers were relying on the mind-bogglingly low-price to hook governments into the concept of buying laptops for their people. OLPC's spokesman guarantees that the price won't rise further, to 'above $190'. The price differential is being blamed on raw materials costs and currency fluctuation. Is this the end of the OLPC's newsworthiness, or should we continue to hope that it will make the difference that so many have said it will?"
Price will drop fast (Score:5, Insightful)
Price did not rise much outside of the USA. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not going to matter in Argintina, Brazil, Nigeria (well maybe there...), and so on.
Price difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Price difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Hehe, do you realize how deliciously ironic your post is [hothardware.com].
And that machine I link to is actually better than the OLPC. And will sell for the same price to everyone (you'll need to pay 2x or 3x the OLPC price to get it yourself). And can run Windows (XP and less) if need be.
In fact, what OLPC proved is, that commercial entities are already doing their best. Negroponte ranted left and right how the greedy vendors could make a cheap PC but couldn't, but now his dream is vaporware and he's arrived at a pretty pedestrian sublaptop, that has its analog for the same price with the good ol' commercial vendors.
Re:Price did not rise much outside of the USA. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even expensive laptops are not produced in the US, and the reason is costs. In the USA it would cost you $100 per laptop to just power it up, check that it works, and put it into a box. I seriously doubt that you could squeeze into this price the large amount of manual labor that assembly of notebooks typically requires. Anyone who opened a notebook knows how complicated these things are, because they are so densely packed, and you can't really automate most of the assembly steps because they require human hands and vision and touch (like the tiny Molex connectors which must be installed with tweezers.) It's best, cost-wise, if these laptops never even come close to the USA.
we've discussed this months ago (Score:3, Insightful)
It's OLPC's recent goal of being operating system agnostic, rather than linux specific. We know that specially tailored linux distributions can run on very old (and very cheap) hardware, but Windows and OSX can't. If the goal is to be able to run any operating system, then the specs have to be pretty recent, and that means more expensive hardware.
The issue is that OLPC are pressured into running Windows by American and other rich Western schools that like the idea of buying a cheap PC and don't care that much if the price is $100 or $190 as a result.
$90 is 90 days pay for poor people who live on $1 a day [wikipedia.org]. In those countries, the governments will never buy massive numbers of OLPCs, and at $190 a pop they'll even buy a whole lot less of them.
To be fair (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, while I'm certainly going to snap up an ASUS Eee - it looks like an awesome little subnotebook, especially since laptops that size are usually only available as fancy $2000 machines - I'd also buy an OLPC if I got the chance. Being cheap is about the only thing they have in common.
The ASUS Eee is light and has a tiny screen (even for a subnotebook) and a 3 hour battery life, while the OLPC is a rugged machine with sunlight-readable display and a hand charger.
Re:Price will drop fast (Score:5, Insightful)
currency fluctuation means everything bought in foreign countries with american dollars is currently much more expensive. Perhaps noticed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6990570.stm [bbc.co.uk]
(this is again the price of the euro, but the situation is similar for several other currencies, I do not know where OLPC buys most of their components, but I guess they have to pay more in dollars now).
Currency "fluctuation" (Score:5, Insightful)
Currency fluctuation doesn't refer to inflation, but to the low exchange rate for dollar
> may raise this by $5 tops
The dollar has dropped 10% in value compared to second largest currency (the EURO) since the announcement of the OLPC.
Re:Price difference (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Price difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Does the Asus have its own manual power source, like the OLPC's crank or pedal? Nope? There goes everyone in the world without reliable electricity.
Does it have super-idiot-proof software? Not really. Heck, even I (as a fairly experienced computer-user) don't instantly understand half of OpenOffice's features. How is that gonna work for people who've (a) never used a computer before and (b) have no access to tech support?
Is it durable? Like, durable enough to make up for the fact that some potential users would have no access to any sort of computer repairs?
And so on. I'd personally prefer the Asus one, living here in the US with regular electricity, WiFi, and so on, but a whole lot of the OLPC's target audience would be using the Asuses (Asi?) as paperweights pretty quick.
Re:Currency "fluctuation" (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Price difference (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) The ASUS Eee PC is priced at $249. That is 30%+ more expensive than the OLPC XO-1.
(2) The ASUS Eee PC *only* *exists* because Intel hates the AMD-based OLPC project. Intel created and funded a competitive reference platform, the Classmate PC, and this forms the basis for the Eee PC.
Of course, the OLPC is a non-profit social welfare program that actually achieves its goals when it forces Intel to dramatically drop prices and cut zero-profit deals with the likes of, say, Pakistan.
This is not irony. This is *accomplishment*.
And yes, I'll be buying an Eee, and thanking *Negroponte* -- not Intel -- for making it happen.
Re:Price difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, contrary to what you're blathering on about earlier, the ASUS EEE and the OLPC are hardly comparable. They don't target the same users or market. The OLPC is designed to be eminently durable (it's well sealed against dust and water), to last a long time on battery (it gets 2000mAh more than the OLPC to get 3 hours run time vs 5+ the OLPC offers), it has a monitor that's better suited to reading textbook style information on the computer, and is designed to have incredible wireless range, so it can serve as a mesh network node. And the ASUS recently became more expensive-$199 to $250.
You need to learn that "better" is a subjective metric when you're comparing stuff like this. Is a Cray faster at computing stuff than the computer on your desk? Absolutely--but that doesn't mean that a Cray makes a good desktop machine, any more than a desktop makes a good super computer. Each is completely unfit for the other's job. Apple and oranges.
Re:Price difference (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Currency "fluctuation" (Score:2, Insightful)
The Euro market is only nominally larger than the USD market. An impressive accomplishment still, but try not to over-hype it.
The EU isn't nearly as strong of a confederation as a single country (the US) and those independent nations can potentially chose to opt out of the group/market.
So I don't think the dollar has anything to worry about. The Euro includes a bit more risk, is a bit less open, and really just doesn't offer anything substantially better. I'm sure most will simply continue using the USD.
Re:Never blame the market for problems that are re (Score:3, Insightful)
How much do you think the 1GB flash and 256MB or ram are adding to the cost of this machine? I could buy them (not in bulk) for about $30. Do you honesty think it would be appreciably cheaper to use 256 and 32? It would cost a few dollars less at most (the cost of ram is not proportional to the amount purchased, as ram must be built in modules), and dramatically limit the functionality of the machine.
"One of the nice things with older hardware is that the factories already have everything in place to produce it."
No, in the case of 32MB ram chips, the factories are not set up to produce it at all, because no one uses it. They've all moved on the more modern, cost effective technologies. Moreover the majority of the cost here is coming from the actual cost of assembling the machine. The ram and flash memory are inexpensive.
It's not about price (only).. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
They already have a bunch of orders for other countries that are buying millions. Their plan is to let the price drop now that hardware is set in stone.
Just have to remember that you're getting a much different machine when buying one of these then buying a 300 dollar computer with monitor.
Re:Price will drop fast (Score:1, Insightful)
Rebate offer void outside the us, owner of the laptop must be over 18 to qualify for rebate, rebates may be honored, honored rebates may take 4 to 6 weeks for processing but likely will arrive in 6 months to never. In the event a rebate is issued the rebate check may only be cached after 30 days of recieving it but no later than 31 days (rebates may never be cashed or deposited, only cached). Rebates received before the 30 day waiting period and after the 25 period to mail in rebates will be discarded.
Re:ASUS Eee (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus
These laptops are designed for children, especially in developing countries, not the Starbuck's MySpace/Facebook crowd.
Re:rehash (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Everytime I see something about the OLPC... (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe the thought is that the previous attempts to provide infrastructure, hospitals and contraception have done little to impact the overall situation in Africa.
This attempt attempts to provide access to education and communication, with the thought that a better educated populace that has access to communication and technology would be able to improve their own quality of life.
Kind of like the "give a man a fish/teach a man to fish" adage. Plus, giving a community contraception and hospitals are really consumables. Education, once given, can't be taken away.