RSS$100 Laptop Is Getting Pricier
By the Betanews Staff | Published September 17, 2007, 3:51 PM
Although its aim was to bring the price down, the organization behind the so-called "$100 laptop" is moving further away from its goal. The One Laptop Per Child Foundation said the device, now known as the XO Laptop, will now cost about $188. This is up $12 from the price tag the group gave in May of this year. Behind the price increase are rising costs of certain components and currency fluctuations, says OLPC, however they are committed to keeping it from rising any further.
Reports say the OLPC has commitments for about three million devices, but the group will not confirm where the devices are going until production begins in October. While the device currently uses AMD chips to power it, Intel recently dropped its efforts to deride the project and said it was working with the group to put its chips in the second version of the XO Laptop, though no release date for that has been set.
The laptop has the same prize, it's just that the dollar is gettin owned. You voted so!
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|As the value of the dollar sunk in the past year or two, a hundred dollars only buys about 75 dollars worth.
I'm amused at how people made fun of even the idea of a hundred dollar laptop, yet always expected their next computer to cost less. I can understand why Microsoft used to make fun of it, as it didn't allow for the cost of paid software. I can understand why Intel made fun of it, as it had the highest power CPU's at the time the project started. Since their early calls of silly and stupid, both companies have since stated they want to be a big part of the project. No real surprise.
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|All I can say is that you get what you pay for.
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|I wish they'd stop calling it the "$100 laptop". It's bad enough that there are enough lies in marketing/advertising as it is - we're going to keep perpetuating this one?
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|You can get a real laptop for around 299, and that's retail price. So I don't understand why they cannot do it? So I guess that $100 is the cost of labor, and the 88 is just hardware.
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|Somehow, I don't think that laptop cost that much when it was brand new. I bet the price of outdated technology will, at some point, be lower than the cost of the hardware it was made of.
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|Did you see the way they want to build those laptops? They would be even sturdier than laptops that go in industrial and construction sites because they would be used by KIDS. It takes a very solidly made toy to survive what kids can do to their toys. So will those laptops. So, yes, you can get a "real" laptop but it wouldn't survive a week in the kind of environment those "$100" laptops will have to endure.
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|Galway, you stole my idea.
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|Maybe they should make Sony make it, it would come with Blu-ray and they could sell it at a huge loss to hit the $100 target. It would sell like hot cakes ... fitted with sony batteries it would literally be a HOT piece of hardware.
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|ROFLMAO!!! You got the point :)))
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|that's still damn cheap for a laptop. most mobile phones cost more than that
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|Yeah, but mobile phones are actually sold at a loss, subsidized by the cell plan that they're on.
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