While Psion, at one time, laid claim to the word "netbook" and Asus is generally accepted as the pioneer that popularised the small form factor it's the OLPC, or One Laptop per Child, project that showed us what is possible when it comes to ultra-portable computers.

The OLPC team, lead by Nicholas Negroponte and members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sought to make a robust and reliable laptop that could be built for just $100USD. The aim was to then distribute them to children in the poorest parts of the world so that they wouldn't miss out on an important educational tool that would help them drag themselves out of poverty.

The result was the XO. The name comes from the Roman numerals for ten and zero. Put together, they make the digits for 100 - the original goal of what was known as the $100 Laptop Project for a time. The XO is designed around five core principles: Child Ownership, Low Ages, Saturation, Connection, and Free and Open Source tools.

The XO doesn't look like any other laptop or netbook on the market. Rather than the slick, smooth casings we've become accustomed to, the XO has a hardy, textured body with a built in carry handle, sort of the like Apple's first iBook. To open the lid, you flip up the two antennae and lift the screen. When you hold an XO for the first time, you realise that this is a different style of computer.

The XO's target audience is children who may not have access to a traditional, indoor classroom so the display has to be easily read in bright sunlight. Take your netbook out into bright sunlight and you'll see it's not made for the great outdoors. The XO's 7.5-inch 1200×900-pixel display is able to use sunlight as a light source.

Built for the Outdoors

When outdoors the XO's screen reverts to monochrome but is incredibly clear. The display technology, developed specifically for the XO, has been licensed bringing more revenue to OLPC so that more XOs can end up in children's hands. Oh - and when the screen is opened at a right angle, it can be rotated and flipped, converting the XO from a mini-laptop into a slate or tablet. There's also a button that toggles the screen between portrait and landscape so it making it an excellent reading tool. These are features we're only just seeing in the netbook market.

Look at the keyboard on your current netbook or computer. See all those gaps between the keys and body. Those are all places where dust, liquid and other contaminants can come into to contact with your computer's innards causing all sorts of damage. The XO's keybaord has a silicone casing so dust and water don't get to the electronics. Despite this unusual design the keyboard was comfortable once we were used to it.The combination of the screen and sealed keyboard highlight that the XO is meant to be used outdoors.

Come Together

The "connectivity" principle isn't just a word on the OLPC mission statement. It's backed up with some of the nifitest networking and sharing systems we've seen on any platform - including corporate setups costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Every XO is both a network router and a network client. When an XO is powered up it searches for other nearby XOs. When it finds one it networks with it. Computers connected to either of those two XOs can then see each other using them as intermediaries. This is achieved by using both 802.11 b/g and a variant of the 802.11s protocol to form a the mesh network. This mesh facilitates simple collaboration between students. For example, if one student is drawing a picture with the drawing application, they can invite a friend or teacher to work with them from their screen.

While sharing and collaborating on documents has proven tricky for some businesses, the XO does this very easily. Inviting collaborators and sharing work takes just a few mouse clicks and doesn't require any extra software or hardware. In other words, everything an XO needs to support a student is contained within the XO. The mesh networking supports chat and video-conferencing. As a result, it has increased the level of communication and community in some remote areas.

In Uruguay, parents joined their children in using the XO with reports that some families were using their child's XO to schedule pick-ups from dairy farms and planning trips by accessing maps of other cities.

Power to Go

In order to manage the cost of ownership and support using the XO where access to electricity is unreliable the XO employs some power-saving features that we hope to see in our own netbooks. A typical notebook screen consumes about 7 watts of power. When working indoors, an XO uses just 1 watt and a mere 0.2 watts when outdoors.

The processor, a 433Mhz AMD LX700, represents a balance between energy efficiency and performance. It can power itself down when not in use - even between keystrokes. The charger uses a standard connector so if its lost or broken it can be easily replaced. That's one of the OLPC's most important features. The hardware and software are not only robust but must be able to be easily repaired should there be a problem.

The XO's hardware is put to use through a customised version of Linux distribution Fedora that's overlaid with a user interface called Sugar. The XO is very easy to use and every application saves its data in an open format for easy sharing with non-XO users.

OLPC XO vs Netbook

By Anthony Caruana