The Negroponte very affordable US$100 laptop will be out for testing in February — some journos have already played with it and speak of it quite highly — and should, deo volt, be shipping in July. But perhaps a touch later.

Negroponte and his $100 laptop

Negroponte’s $100 computer is designed to bring affordable computing the developing world, though there are suggestions that it will also be available in developed world, but not until 2008 at the earliest.

Quanta Computer will be making several million production units so it does seriously seem to be happening although there are still many doubters.

There has been skeptism over the capabilities of the machine but Nicholas Negroponte said, ‘I have to laugh when people refer to XO as a weak or crippled machine and how kids should get a “real” one. Trust me, I will give up my real one very soon and use only XO.’

And, indeed, this seems to be true of some journalists who have actually used it. So perhaps it will happen and it is a real computer. Which means a lot of people who could not afford a computer will now get one. Hoorah!

Related:

Entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 3:39 pm under Technology.

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