Building on its success with laptops designed for developing countries, the One Laptop Per Child project is set to unveil a long-awaited tablet at CES next week. Here’s what you get for $US100.
UPDATE: We now have pictures, if you’d like to take a look!
The OLPC has been kicking around the idea of a super-affordable tablet for over a year. Originally known as the XO-3, but now dubbed the XO 3.0, the tablet will feature an 8-inch 1024×768 screen with some models also offering a PixelQi 3qi display that mimics e-paper. A Marvell Armada PXA618 chip and 512MB of RAM reside in the tablet’s ruggedised shell and will run either Linux Sugar or Android OS.
With a bare-bones feature set, the OLPC tablet should cost about $US100 per unit — up from the original estimated price of $US75, but still way cheaper than virtually any other tablet on the market.
The coolest feature of the XO 3.0 is that it can be powered by hand-cranking — to the tune of 10 minutes of run time for every minute of work. Why isn’t this available on, well, everything? I’d gladly spin a handle for a few minutes if it meant I wouldn’t have to beg for outlet time at coffee shops, carry spare chargers and constantly dread the “low battery” notification. [Electronista]