Re:On One Laptop per Child
by bitwize on Tuesday July 28, 2009 @10:51AM
(#728006)
Every reports I've heard has said the OLPCs have major hardware and software problems and my own died pretty shortly after I opened it up.
Sorry to hear that. Mine works beautifully.
The OLPC is a quirky little product -- beset by flaws, yes, but also boasting some remarkable innovations. The display is one of them but it's just one. The networking hardware, the ruggedized case, the fact that they built the motherboard and all critical electronics into the display unit, so when you open it up the hot parts are kept off your lap and you can use it as an actual laptop -- all of these little details being built into a machine of such low price make the OLPC a literally game-changing machine. (The entire netbook market owes its existence to OLPC; the EeePC got started when Asus wanted to develop a competitor.)
The flaws are mainly kinks to be worked out, save one: I really wish that they hadn't written Sugar in Python. It's too slow and memory-consuming. Maybe if they precompiled the hotspots into native code...
Sorry to hear that. Mine works beautifully.
The OLPC is a quirky little product -- beset by flaws, yes, but also boasting some remarkable innovations. The display is one of them but it's just one. The networking hardware, the ruggedized case, the fact that they built the motherboard and all critical electronics into the display unit, so when you open it up the hot parts are kept off your lap and you can use it as an actual laptop -- all of these little details being built into a machine of such low price make the OLPC a literally game-changing machine. (The entire netbook market owes its existence to OLPC; the EeePC got started when Asus wanted to develop a competitor.)
The flaws are mainly kinks to be worked out, save one: I really wish that they hadn't written Sugar in Python. It's too slow and memory-consuming. Maybe if they precompiled the hotspots into native code...