Amazon to sell OLPC's XO laptop starting Nov. 17

11.11.2008
One Laptop Per Child confirmed it will start selling the XO laptop through Amazon.com on Monday.

The XO laptop will be sold through Amazon in the same way as the , where a consumer donates US$400 for two laptops, with one of them delivered to a child in a developing nation.

Only Linux-based XO laptops will be available through Amazon, said Jim Gettys, vice president of software engineering at OLPC. A Windows version will not be sold.

For now, Amazon's U.S. storefront will sell the XO. OLPC is reviewing the possibility of selling the laptop through Amazon in other countries.

Designed for use by children in developing countries, the laptop has been praised for its innovative hardware features and environmentally friendly design. It comes with 1G byte of internal flash storage, 256M bytes of RAM, a 7.5-inch liquid-crystal display screen and wireless networking.

Depending on usage, the XO includes a specially designed lithium-ferro phosphate battery, which OLPC claims is more power efficient than commercial laptops. The laptop can also be run on solar power, foot pedal or pull-string, making it useful for situations where power is unreliable or unavailable.