OLPC partners with Marvell to base XO-3 on Moby tablet

 When I first reported on Marvell Semiconductor’s $99 10” “Moby” ARM tablet, I mentioned that ARMdevices.net saw a parallel between that and the OLPC group’s goal of creating a $75 tablet device for their next XO device.

It turns out that the OLPC group has seen that parallel as well. Ars Technica reports that OLPC and Marvell are partnering up to base the XO-3 design on the Moby.

"Today’s learning environments require robust platforms for computation, content creation and experimentation—and all that at a very low cost," [OLPC founder Nicholas] Negroponte said in a statement. "Through our partnership with Marvell, OLPC will continue our focus on designing computers that enable children in the developing world to learn through collaboration, as well as providing connectivity to the world’s body of knowledge."

The $99 price point is still a bit higher than the OLPC’s announced $75 goal, but then the XO-1 didn’t meet its $100 price point goal either.

It remains to be seen whether the Moby can be ruggedized to survive harsh field conditions the way the XO-1 was. There’s a bit of a difference in sturdiness between a laptop that can fold up, protecting its most critical components within a plastic shell, and a tablet that always has one glass face exposed.