Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 17th Jan 2008 20:44 UTC
El Reg has an in-depth review of the XO laptop. They conclude: "There's a lot to like about the XO laptop. It's tough, it's great as an eBook reader, it has a big (for its category), high resolution screen. It runs silent and cool, has good battery life, and the clean design of the Sugar interface is easy to use. But several areas need work. The browser should be replaced by Firefox, and the Journal needs to support folders to match how people actually organise their work and play. Multimedia performance needs to be improved, which can hopefully be done through software. The XO needs a unified media player that supports all media types, along with playlists, and should be integrated with the UI. Most of these changes come down to the OLPC organisation placing more emphasis on real-world usability and less on their ideals of a perfect interface. If they can manage to do this, the XO laptop could be a great tool for learning and play."
Permalink for comment 296654
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:
2005-07-06
The flawed assumption is to think the XO as another laptop. That is mostly Western mindset. You can find document on www.laptop.org or wiki.laptop.org that should cover some question. I will try to answer some below.
You mean for developing countries which are OLPC? Most of them don't have the concept about mp3. Remember the OLPC only bundles free and uncumbered patent format which is the logical decision. There is an application called OggConvert that allow to convert proprietary audio/format formats into ogg so it is a no-issue.
You think too much into the old semantic. One keyword, share. The XO is desgined to share between other XOs. To transfer a critical file you worked, simply insert either a USB pendrive or a SD card, access to Journal activities (it contains saved files from different applications, drag the file into media icon. Granted Journal activites does not have folders concept outside the XO, you can address the issue through bug report. The XO still uses Unix method in the background.
* Hardware/software problems. Here's a computer long overdue and quadrupled in price, but yet there's defective hardware, and software that doesn't work like it should. Just how would OLPC issue mass refunds or recall repairs for millions of computers distributed to remote locations around the world?
You talk about Give One Get One program where you donate one XO you receive one. It already ended since the end of 2007 and there is plan to launch similar program in Europe. You will be surprised the XO is fairly easy to repair. XO value is USD 200 which should drop to USD 100 in a few years..
The operating system is not fully optimized yet. It is unavoidable that some new features cause regression. Now that number of XO reached some public, expect a much faster optimization and bug fixes.
There is a bunch activities (applications ) for XO available from wiki.laptorp.org in .xo format. It is clear if you run a non-xo version application, then you will have to go through terminal.
Very responsive although the keyboard is small and get some used to.