OLPC XO laptop may be available in the UK this year

by Julian Prokaza
on Wed 02 Jan 2008 1 Comment

OLPC The OLPC Give 1 Get 1 programme came to an end at midnight on December 31, so anyone in the US who didn't get their order in for an XO laptop before the new year now has no way to buy one through official channels.

Unfortunately, no one in the UK has ever been able to buy one through official channels since the deal was US-only, but that could well change this year.

Talking to Laptop magazine, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte explained that while the Give 1 Get 1 deal in the US was deliberately short-term ("We are a charity and not a business. If we continued it, it would become "sales" versus a charitable promotion."), the OLPC Foundation may offer similar deals in other countries later this year - including the UK.

Negroponte also stated that around 170,000 XO laptops were ordered through the ' G1G1' deal - a figure that doesn't include large corporate orders.

In the meantime, eBay is doing a brisk trade in XO laptops and some charitable sellers are offering their models for a bargain Buy It Now price of a mere $500 (G1G1 charged $400 for two XO laptops, one of which was donated to a developing country).

[ Laptop]

Originally published on www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk, now incorporated into Broadband Genie
© Dennis Publishing

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Comments

  • neutral

    by at 19:18 on 27 Feb 2008Report abuse

    I would be interested in purchasing one of these and donating one, provided the scheme is up and running again.Any ideas when this scheme would be running in th UK. Families within UK could benefit from this scheme especially those on the lowest incomes.

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