Old model, same price [LWN.net]

Old model, same price

Posted Nov 18, 2008 0:43 UTC (Tue) by proski (guest, #104)
Parent article: Give 1 Get 1 2008 Started in Europe and USA! (OLPC News)

As far as I understand, it's still the same model as the last year. It's not the shiny XO-2 model with a touchscreen instead of the keyboard. And the price is the same as the last year. In the meantime, other laptops are cheaper now than they were a year ago. The target price of $100 is not a penny closer, yet we have a stronger dollar now.

I'd rather donate some money directly to those in need than to a failing company.

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Old model, same price

Posted Nov 18, 2008 1:53 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

of course it's the same model as last year. That's the only model that exists.

the XO-2 hasn't even reached prototype status (it's not expected until 2010)

as for the price, remember that this includes the overhead of selling in single-unit quantities, the $100 each was based on country-sized quantities (minimum 50,000 or so). A year ago they were saying that the manufacturing cost was running ~$180 each. it's probably dropped a bit, but I haven't heard a recent figure, but even if it's dropped fairly substantially $200 each is still a small markup

and how did you get to calling OLPC a 'failing company'? Yes it's true that they didn't ship 5m laptops their first year as they had been dreaming, but they shipped a lot (probably over 1m, I believe they sold ~400,000 just to Peru)

they haven't done everything right my any stretch of the imagination (see my other post for some criticism, but that's a long way from them being a 'failing company'