[geeks] One (Windows) Laptop Per Child

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>Date: 2006/09/30 Sat PM 07:00:48 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] One (Windows) Laptop Per Child

>Sat, 30 Sep 2006 @ 20:10 +0300, Geoffrey S. Mendelson said:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 03:06:15PM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> > >I think given the specs, the price is awfully high.
>> 
>> Go back and look at the specs for the handheld device I'm trying to
>> bring to market. With an AMD 1gHz processor, and 1/4 VGA screen, I can
>> build them in Q10k for about  $150 to $200, and Q10M, which is what
>> a gaming device would be, for under $100, closer to about  $85. 
>
>I'm not saying they are deliberately making the price too high, as I
>realize it is difficult to cut costs and get something worth having.
>
>However, the fact remains that the prices on even decent hardware is
>falling all the time, so a lot of people will just decide to spend
>another $100 and get a real laptop.

The intel piece is a real laptop - I would argue that I could install Open Office 2.0 on it without incident (Open Office says it requires 200 Meg of HD space and 128 Meg of system RAM to operate). Aside from games and software that is installed from DVDs due to space requirements, most software in a CompUSA would run as-is. Of course, without 500 Gig of HD space, you can't install them ALL at the same time. ;^)

>The other issue is that I don't see what people are going to run on it.
>It lacks the power for a ton of software, and certainly lacks enough
>storage and storage speed.

I'm curous what you think is missing? It can run Mathmatica without alteration (requires 128 Meg RAM, 550 Meg HD - of course more RAM is better) [0], it can run Framemaker 7.2 (current) (requires 256 Meg of RAM and 380 Meg HD) [1].

[0] http://support.wolfram.com/mathematica/systems/allplatforms/hardwarerequirements.html

[1] http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/systemreqs.html

>It will need people to write applications about like they write PDA
>software, and I wonder if that will happen.

See above.

Lionel