The cheap laptop manufactured by Intel will compete against the OLPC and an Indian company’s product as the trio are in foray for the Brazilian government’s evaluation test before they select one of them.
The Intel’s laptop costs around $400 and about 700 to 800 will be supplied for a large scale evaluation. The laptop has wireless compatibility and uses Flash memory instead of HDD. It has been done keeping in mind the fact that HDD would not have been able to withstand the falls and abuse that a laptop might suffer at the hands of the children.
At present out of 187 million inhabitants of Brazil millions are without any access to internet or computer, a gap that the present President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wants to reduce. Public schools are at present offering no or some computer training to the students but the task is going to be a difficult one as many schools do not even have electricity connections.
As far as price gap is concerned Intel is planning to manufacture its laptop locally whereas the OLPC will have to be shipped from China.
The Intel’s laptop weighs around 2.9 lbs with a 7-inch display but it is still not clear whether the laptop is Windows based or Linux based.
As far as the Brazilian government is concerned they want free share software’s as it will be easy to upgrade them.
Via: Physorg
