Last fall, I found out about the OLPC and after seeing the 60 minutes special, I was hooked on the prospect of the idea. The fact of giving this technology can have quite a tipping point effect; one that came to mind was the Sinclair ZX80 that spawned a generation of hackers in the 1980’s in Great Britain.
Last Christmas, I decided to donate a laptop, and at the time, you had the option to also purchase a second one for yourself. Intrigued, I bit the bullet and got one for me. It arrived last week:
Note the minimalist packaging. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do with it, but it is a pretty amazing piece of technology so far (for the price). Opera is the default browser which was a bit of a pain (i.e. no flash worked natively) but I did get firefox on it. It is also tricky to get hooked up to your network if you run WPA for your wireless. The screen is visible in bright daylight–remarkable! I wish my eeepc had that.
Fun to mess around with though, and if you were a kid, it would be a great learning tool. I’m hoping it becomes more readily available here in the states.
Posted under reviews, tech gadgets, Unbox