[geeks] FS: OLPC XO Laptop (barely used)

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com>
>Date: 2008/03/17 Mon AM 09:04:11 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] FS: OLPC XO Laptop (barely used)

>On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 08:43:49AM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>
>> On the off-chance someone here is interested, I'd like ot offer up my
>> barely-used OLPC laptop for sale.
>
>I'd save it if I were you. Besides any comments I have made about its
>suitability, has anyone heard of them actually being deployed in large
>quantities?

There have been/will be two "major" deployments, on the order of 100K units, not Millions as originally thought (IIRC).
 
>After a few "test runs" and the announcment of the buy-one-give-one
>deal, they quietly faded away. 

People are pissed. OLPC folks screwed the pooch severly by offering "$100 Laptops" for $400, took peoples money,and then proceeded to have a database problem and they lost thousands of orders.[0]

>I may be way off base, but I expect in 5 years they will be collector's
>items.

Sorry, but I've got a garage full of 10+ year old hardware to shed, I'm afraid if I acquire any more my garage may just implode. ;^)

It will be a novelty as time goes on, but it won't be very valuable IMHO. Compared with the Asus eee, this thing is a distant second - it is not expandable, it is under-powered (by modern standards) and suffers a goofy interface. It is true that a user can fix two of the above, but it is not expandable, and as shipped it is very much like the original Mac - fun execution on a concept, but not really practical doing anything but running the software it came with.

Of course, opinions vary, and it loks like it has been taken already by someone on the list.

Thanks,

Lionel

[0] http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080125-olpc-angering-donors-give-1-get-1-some-day-probably.html