As seen in Wired’s “Gadget Lab” blog, Intel is coming out with a very familiar-looking tweak to the design of its Classmate PC educational netbooks. The Classmate already began as a response to the OLPC’s XO-1 project in terms of mission and approximate price level. Now it’s borrowing the XO-1’s twist-around-and-convert-to-tablet form factor, too.
The device has a 10.1” touchscreen display, Intel Atom processor, up to 160-gig hard drive, webcam, wireless, and a choice of Windows or Linux operating systems. It has a sturdy rubberized construction designed to resist rough handling, and is meant to be used as part of a kid’s overall school experience.
Though Intel didn’t give Wired the price, they guess it will probably be higher than the current, non-convertible version which sells for $200-$400. Intel hopes to launch the new Classmate in the second quarter.
And the device will work as an e-book reader, as well:
One of the features of the new Classmate PC that Intel’s especially keen to tout is is its e-reading software. The device supports EPUB and PDF formats so you can download books from the library or from Google’s cache of free books. The touchscreen allows you to do the familiar “flick to scroll” gesture, though the experience is not as smooth as it is with a capacitive touchscreen. There are also hardware buttons and software icons for turning pages.
There is no mention of whether it supports DRM and in what format—though given that they mention EPUB and PDF, it is probably Adobe Reader, which means ADEPT.
This isn’t anything new. The original Classmate came in 2 variants: vanilla-clamshell, and convertible tablet. Those things have been around for years.