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:
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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