Wondering what people here think of the XO (aka $100) laptop. Yeah, never mind that it's now more than $100; cost creep happens. Reviews I've seen the past few months are very intriguing. It has a number of hardware and software features unavailable on $2000 laptops, and lacks features (e.g. CD/DVD reader) of the cheapest Windows lappies.

It will be available for two weeks in November for consumers in North America (http://www.xogiving.org/). They will charge $400, the buyer gets one and a charitable donation receipt, and the other $200 provides one for a child. I signed up for their email notification, but as usual am conflicted. Yes, I'd like one very much. But $400 is a lot of money for what would be a curiousity. And if I want to spend that much, shouldn't I just give them the money to buy two for poor children? Or spend it on myself for Nokia's N900? But don't I already have a nice portable Internet tablet?

Anyway, read about the laptop (http://www.laptop.org/laptop/) and post your thoughts on the technology. Seems like great stuff.

I think it's a very cool idea, and the software they're building into it seems well suited for the intended environment. I think it will be very beneficial for increasing computer literacy with children in the countries that receive it. One feature I find brilliant is the one touch button that allows the user to look at the source code of whatever program or webpage they're currently viewing. They can then alter the code if they want, and see what happens. There's also the option to restore it to the original form. I think that will be a powerful tool for learning and fit in well with the natural tendency children have to explore.

I was considering ordering one of these using the buy one, get one deal you mention, but was planning on giving the device to my niece and nephews.

I think it is a great idea. I like to think that it might make a difference.

I Paypal'd them a couple hundred. I figure someone out there needs one of those laptops far more than I need another useless geek toy.

I've been thinking a lot lately about whether I want to buy the XO laptop, the EeePC laptop that's supposed to come out "real soon now", or to wait and see if I should upgrade to the N900 or whatever it will be called.

I'm a little annoyed that there will only be a small window of opportunity for purchasing the XO laptop. I think it's really neat, the battery life seems incredible, and it seems to be very rugged. I'd love to have one for those reasons, but it's large enough that I am unlikely to carry it around everywhere like I do now with my N800. I'm also not too sure how easy it will be to create and install 3rd-party software; because of the very limited time they're on sale, I don't see a very large non-third-world-child user base for these which may make developers reluctant to create software for it.

The EeePC laptop seems like it will be more powerful than the XO laptop, but I'm sure it will feel like a cheap, small laptop (which it is), so I don't expect it to be very rugged and I expect the battery life to be pretty poor. Still, if I'm going to carry around a small laptop, it'd be nice to have it running full Ubuntu with most or the capabilities of a larger laptop.

On the other hand, I'm really considering just saving my money for the next Nokia Internet Tablet. I absolutely love my N800 and I've only used my very-new laptop once since buying the N800 and that was for audio recording. It has very good battery life and there are a lot of people creating interesting software for it. It's also small enough that I take it with me wherever I go. My wife is also hinting that it wouldn't be so bad if I bought the next Internet Tablet so that she can have my N800

The XO, EeePC, and N900 are all likely to be around the $400 price point and they would all fill about the same roll for me so it makes sense for me to compare these three but it might not be the same for others. Every time I think I'm leaning towards one of these, I think of good reasons to go for the others. I appreciate the charity aspect of the XO laptop, but I'm making this comparison for myself based only on each device's utility to me. The XO is a really nice innovative piece of tech that I'd love to get my hands on, but I'm not sure it will do as much for me as the other two devices.

As a final comparison/note, I recently got a used Pepper Pad 2 for really cheap off of eBay. I though it would be a nice laptop-alternative with a faster processor, bigger hard drive and bigger screen than the N800. However, the battery life is awful (though that's probably just because it need a new battery but I haven't found out if it's replaceable yet, score another point for the N800 with the easily replaceable battery). Despite the faster processor, it feels a lot slower than the N800. It also feels pretty awkward to carry around. The big screen and big hard drive are pretty nice though.

This is all off the top of my head. so feel free to correct anything I've mis-remembered about these devices technical merits.

I'll get me an Eee, thankyerverymuch.