<div dir="ltr"><div><br></div>Hi<div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div><div>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.<br></div><div><br></div><div>There isn't anything concrete from OLPC Inc about an XO-5 for several years now. <br></div><div><br></div><div>So what is the next reference laptop to recommend? What can keep the XO DNA going?</div><div><br></div><div>Perhaps a particular Chromebook? There is a huge and growing market for Chromebooks, and the Asus Chromebook Flip - <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2488836,00.asp">http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2488836,00.asp</a> - is now $240 retail in the US, so surely around the same as an XO-4 wholesale today - and will only get cheaper. </div><div><br></div><div>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! :) </div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>It seems the CHIP is an ideal in-between, at $9 retail, which did over $2M on Kickstarter, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer</a> </div><div><br></div><div>It seems the closest thing to an XO today is their <a href="http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip">http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip</a> - a 'dynabook' model for $49.</div><div><div><br></div><div>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. <br></div></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">Cheers<br>Dave</div>
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