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OLPC Australia Launches the XO Duo Laptop, Runs Android Jelly Bean

When the new XO tablet didn’t ship last year, OLPC and its efforts to build educational hardware fell off my radar, and that’s why I was surprised to discover the XO Duo laptop today.

One Education, OLPC’s partner non-profit in Australia and New Zealand, is now selling a version of the XO-4 Touch laptop which runs Android:

xo duo

This device runs Android Jelly Bean on a dual-core 1.2Ghz CPU with 2GB RAM and 8GB internal storage.  It has 2 USB ports, an HDMI port, Bluetooth, Wifi, and it is specced to have an estimated 8 hours of battery life.

The screen measures 7.5″, and packs in a touchscree on top of a Pixel Qi-based dual-mode display that offers both a color mode and a sunlight visible grayscale mode.

It just came across my desk today, but from what I can find the XO Duo has been available to schools in Australia (and on the One Education website) since early last year.

The list price is $250 AUD. That looks like highway robbery for an Android device, but given that this laptop is both much more easily repaired than your average Android and comes with educational software, I’m inclined to avoid passing judgement.

If nothing else, this laptop could double as a training platform so kids could learn the basics of electronics repair as applied to the gadgets they break. And since it runs Android it is also far more open than Sugar, the OS which was originally developed for XO hardware.

P.S. This device turned up while I was looking into reports that One Education is developing a new laptop called the XO Infinity. I have yet to find much, but what I’ve found so far is exciting. Stay tuned.

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Comments


puzzled February 17, 2015 um 3:32 pm

AU$250.

Translates to AU$227 after you take out the 10% GST (our VAT).

Becomes US$177 at today’s exchange rate. Not sure how that ranks for Android devices.

Remember that there will also be the 'Australia Tax'.

This brings up another subject: websites charging in dollars should indicate which country the dollars are for. There’s one New Zealand site I’m not buying from because they don’t clearly delineate if they are charging US or NZ dollars. It looks like they are charging US$, but I’d rather be charged in NZ$ due to the exchange rates.

Nate Hoffelder February 17, 2015 um 7:39 pm

Stuff does cost more down under, yes. My mother almost took a position in Australia, so i am quite familiar with your ridiculous prices, taxes, etc.


Paul February 17, 2015 um 8:15 pm

Hey, great article 😀

Just thought I’d jump in and address the question of the price of the XO-duo on our store.
The cost price to us for purchasing an XO-duo 1GB is $208 USD, and the price for a 2GB is $218… which in AUD (current exchange) works out to be: $266 and $279 respectively.

So we’re actually selling them at a loss, and that’s before we reach the shipping costs from China/etc.

Everything you say in the article is pretty much correct. $250 is expensive these days for an Android device. Which is why we’re semi-secretly developing the mysterious XO-infinity (we’ll announce soon, I promise.)


OLPC Australia to Launch a Modular, Hybrid Laptop/Tablet Called the XO Infinity ⋆ Ink, Bits, & Pixels February 18, 2015 um 5:13 pm

[…] HDMI port. And as I reported yesterday, One Education is distributing a version of the XO-4 Touch. They call it the XO Duo, and it runs Android Jelly […]


Agora vai! OLPC XO Infinity, um híbrido tablet/laptop modular February 19, 2015 um 12:00 pm

[…] o XO-4 ainda não saiu oficialmente (na verdade uma versão dele, o XO Duo que roda Android está sendo distribuído), a OLPC resolveu tentar mais uma vez: estão prometendo […]


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