Laptop below $100
By Bala Shah

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is one of the noblest ideas in the world.  Headquartered in Massachusetts, USA this charity has Nicholas Negroponte, Ashton Hawkins, Robert D. Fadel and Calestous Juma on its Board of Directors. In India, it is supported by the billionaire Ambani family.

OLPC?s aim is to improve humanity by providing a cheap laptop to every child. It targeted a laptop below $100, but for a number of technical reasons this cheap price has not been achieved.  And there were the battles with big business as no IT company would like to lose profits by helping produce such a cheap laptop. 

While OLPC is helping many children and working towards it goal of such a cheap laptop, now a Chinese company HiVision is claiming to be well on its way to produce a laptop for $98.  HiVision claims to have created a UMPC that now sells for $120,  but they are fine tuning the process to mass produce a laptop that will sell for only $98.

The Chinese company is claiming that this laptop will have a MIPS based processor, WiFi, 1GB flash storage, Linux, 3 USB ports, Ethernet and other basic features.  It will run Firefox browser and Abiword word processor.

Yesterday and this morning, International media have prominently run news reports crediting the Chinese company as if the laptop is a certainty.  The Chinese are being a bit coy and have only allowed TechVideoBlog to have overnight access to one such laptop for a quick review.

While cheaper hardware and software is recommended and will be a reality in the near future, it is best if the Chinese company gives every major tech media a laptop to test and review. Marketing and media hype have overshadowed the realities of such a laptop

The OLPC experience from USA has shown there are practical difficulties in producing such a laptop.  The Chinese company HiVision will gain credibility if they are more transparent about such claims which have got them millions of dollars of free publicity.

Interesting, the HiVision official website has made no such claims about producing a $98 laptop.