[IAEP] What can be done to keep the XO DNA going?

[Dave Crossland]

Hi

So, it seems that the most successful way to get Sugar into kids hands has
been by selling XOs with it preinstalled.... so I figure that Sugar Labs
ought to have a recommended or reference laptop, and currently that's
 seems to be the XO-4. But this seems like a bit of a dead end.

While the XO-4 is still available new, its $200 price point is becoming
more and more expensive in relative terms as it ages, and delivery
schedules from Quanta seem to be quite variable even if we did raise
$20,000+ to buy 100+ units.

There isn't anything concrete from OLPC Inc about an XO-5 for several years
now.

So what is the next reference laptop to recommend? What can keep the XO DNA
going?

Perhaps a particular Chromebook? There is a huge and growing market for
Chromebooks, and the Asus Chromebook Flip -
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2488836,00.asp - is now $240 retail in
the US, so surely around the same as an XO-4 wholesale today - and will
only get cheaper.

But I think $200 is still expensive, and the power consumption is still
quite high... I'd like to say that low power consumption is becoming less
important as PV becomes better and cheaper, but power consumption should
get lower, so solar improvements are compounded! :)

I wonder that something better than the XO-1 should be now available for
like under $100 given that its 10 years since "the $100 laptop" was made
world famous. And indeed the Raspberry Pi Zero is $5 retail and seems to
have similar specs to an XO-1, while a $35 Pi seems good.

It seems the CHIP is an ideal in-between, at $9 retail, which did over $2M
on Kickstarter,
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer


It seems the closest thing to an XO today is their
http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip - a 'dynabook' model for $49.

I kind of wonder if a XO-1 could be frankenstein'd to retrofit a CHIP. I
guess it would need a 2nd board to interface the screen, keyboard,
touchpad.... but that would cost like $10 or something.

-- 
Cheers
Dave
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