In e-book terms, the OLPC XO-1 stood out beyond its high-res screen. A few twists and you could turn the laptop into a tablet.
But a new Classmate 3 prototype from Intel closes the tablet gap and even include an iPoddish gizmo to switch automatically between landscape and portrait modes.
On the negative, the screen quality isn’t as good, at least compared to the XO-1’s monochrome mode. Choices are 7-inch 800×480 or 8.9-inch 1024×600 color LCD. Plus, battery life appears to be 6.5 hours, max.
And at a prices of $400 or so, we’re still talking about something twice as expensive as the XO-1, so I doubt this is by itself a death blow. Also the next-gen XO, due in 2010, has a better form factor for reading.
But as you can see from specs from Device Guru, the Classmate 3 is a vastly more powerful machine than the current XO. Chip is an Intel Atom N270 running at 1.6GHz, RAM is 1G. And get this. The Classmate 3 has a touch screen. What a contrast to the XO-1, whose touchpad-related software has been a major annoyance for some users.
Reminder: Intel is aiming for the education market. This is a prototype, and other companies will be involved I don’t know when we’ll see the Classmate 3 for direct purchase on Amazon, the way the existing Classmate II is.
Also see: YouTube demo, OLPC News, Google News roundup,
