What Could You Do With a $35 Tablet? (NetworkWorld)

the only thing that OLPC used that was not an "ordinary component" was the display. And I think that the display was one of the bigger successes.

the mesh networking that OLPC supports (note that this is _supports_ not requires) is new, and didn't end up working that well, but the systems also support traditional networking as well.

from a hardware point of view the OLPC provided a much cheaper solution than anything available at the time it was designed. This proved the model and companies copies the basic idea, creating the netbook market.

I expect that the same thing would happen to this if it can actually be built.

if this is $35 of hardware components (and some things are indicating that it is actually substantially higher), then it's production cost is probably close to $100 (more in small quantities). In massive quantities this can drop noticably, but it will still be $50-$70 manufacturing cost. Then when you add all the other costs that need to be covered, you are probably not talking about something that is that much cheaper than the OLPC.

They have not released specs, and the pricing is very suspect. From experience on certain project I work on, the money they indicate is not enough for the components, not by a large margin even accounting for "old" chipsets and lowered costs in a year or two.

Designing and making something child-proof costs money. Good plastics that don't "chip", little bumpers here and there, safe and long-lived power supplies and batteries... all parts that add mfg cost (but save heaps in breakage and health concerns once fielded).

The challenges of an unprotected screen on a tablet for kids are self evident -- I've personally seen a few grown men cry at the sight of their smashed iPad and iPhone glass LCD.

Finally, the gear that they have in hand in the pictures looks exactly like "reference implementation" gear that various vendors have been showing to computer makers.

Hard to say what's vapour and what's substance but we haven't seen much of the latter so far.