OLPC XO Scales Up for High Schoolers

By Geoff Duncan June 14, 2010

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The One Laptop Per Child project, which promised $100 laptop computers for education in the developing world, is giving its original XO notebook a bit of an upgrade: a larger keyboard to accommodate the larger hands of secondary school students, along with an expanded software package the dual boots the OLPC’s own Sugar interface as well as Linux with a Gnome desktop environment. The new laptops—dubbed the XO-HS—have been ordered by Uruguay’s Plan Ciebal, which wants 90,000 of the XO-HS units to complement the 380,000 OLPC laptops the country is already integrating into its educational system.

Plan Ceibal has also ordered 10,000 Classmate PCs from Intel.

“Until now, the 1.2 million students worldwide using XO laptops had no comparable computer to ‘grow up’ to,” said OLPC Association CEO Rodrigo Arboleda, in a statement. “The XO high school edition laptop demonstrates how the XO and its software can easily adapt to the needs of its users.”

The XO-HS will feature the same basic industrial design as the existing XO laptops, although they’ll be based on a VIA processor and offer about twice the performance and four times the RAM and storage of the original XO—that should equate to 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of storage. The XO-HS will also sport a dual-boot Linux operating system, offering both the education-focused Sugar interface developed by the OLPC, as well as the the Gnome Desktop environment that can let students have a shot at mainstream productivity applications. The XO-HS laptops will also be bundled with age-appropriate learning software, and OLPC plans to offer case color variations on the high school model.

The OLPX XO-HS laptops should start reaching Uruguay in September. Although the XO notebooks have been made available to U.S. consumers through giving programs, there’s no word yet on whether the spiffed-up and larger-keyed XO-HS will be generally available.

Last month, OLPC announced a partnership with Marvell to create a series of low-power, education-focused tablet-based computers.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Web

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Computing

How to set up Windows 11 without a Microsoft account

microsoft surface laptop 5 review 04

The best way to use Windows 11 is with a Microsoft account. You can sync different settings, use the Microsoft Store to download apps, and restore Windows by using backups from OneDrive. All of this is part of the reason why prompts to use a Microsoft account with Windows 11 will show up during initial setup of the operating system.

Computing

Samsung’s creator week sale knocks up to $1,000 off top monitors

Cyberpunk 2077 running on the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9.

For great monitor deals, head straight to Samsung. The manufacturer is responsible for many of the best monitors and panels around, but even better, it’s just heavily discounted many of them. In all, there are 24 different models in the sale so we suggest you click through on the button below to see everything for yourself. However, if you’d like some guidance on what we recommend, keep reading while we take you through some key highlights.

What to shop for in the Samsung monitor sale
Not just one of the best gaming monitors but pretty much the ultimate gaming monitor is the which is down to $1,100 from $1,800. The monitor is the world’s first 49-inch OLED monitor and it looks spectacular. It has a 240Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms GtG response time. There’s also DisplayHDR True Black 400 support for spectacular color and depth expression, while the dual QHD resolution and 110 PPI ensure everything looks incredibly sharp. The curved design means this is a truly immersive experience and one that’s worth investing in if you have a high-end gaming rig.

Computing

HP sale: Up to 68% off laptops, printers, monitors, and more

Photo of an HP Envy 16 laptop.

HP has a huge sale going on now with awesome laptop deals, monitor deals, and many other deep discounts. If you’re keen to buy a new device for less, this is your chance to do so. There are over 50 different items in the HP sale from high-end laptops to mice, so the best thing you can do is tap the button below and see for yourself what’s out there. Alternatively, if you want to see what we recommend, keep reading while we take you through our choices.

What to shop for in the HP sale
The biggest discount in the HP sale is being able to buy the for $989 reduced from $3,098. Perfectly suited for business users, you get an Intel Core i7-1255U processor, a huge 32GB of memory, and 512GB of SSD storage. A 14-inch WUXGA screen with 100% sRGB, 400 nits of brightness, and 1920 x 1200 looks great, while there are extensive security provisions courtesy of HP Wolf Pro Security Edition. From one of the best laptop brands, you can’t go wrong.