Lowering HW costs while adding functionality for future OLPC

[animaniac]

The original OLPC is a good piece of hardware, but i don't think the plans for the OLPC 2 are the best way to go, even with energy efficient displays, having two of them just increases power demands while not adding that much actual functionality (more of a gimmick). Instead I think it would be better to use a single, larger display, maybe get Pixel Qi to make some 11.6" displays with 1366 x 768 full colour resolution, surely this would cost less than two displays while making it possible to comfortably run any application imaginable (say GIMP). Secondly, I think the processor is a poor choice, it would be better to have a good ARM processor (Snapdragon?) instead of a crippled x86, and probably for lower cost too. Otherwise, it would be good to keep the rest of the original OLPC in terms of spec, tablet is the best all-round form factor, although moving the speakers, controls, cam and mic to make place for the larger screen would be necessary. Well that was my $0.02, hope some of this gets through to the devs.

[manymny]

afaik, arm processors are x86, maybe a different class of x86.

they may be better than what the olpc used/will use, but it's always a balance of "better" and "cheaper." if you can really cut costs and make the design better at the same time, i'm sure they'll be glad to hear from you. just remember, "cheaper" is not always about what customers usually pay, it's also about business deals and contracts for specific parts in bulk. as for "better," there's never "better" that everyone will ever agree on.