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Education Portables Hardware

First Review of Intel's New Classmate PC 79

Posted by timothy from the want-one-already dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Intel gave the press a sneak preview of its 3rd generation Classmate PC at IDF. It looks like this guy managed to kidnap the only working sample for a while and write up a full report. It looks like a major departure from the original, with a rotating touch screen and Atom processor. There's no official word on pricing yet, but no doubt the OLPC guys will try to rain on Intel's parade."
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First Review of Intel's New Classmate PC More

First Review of Intel's New Classmate PC

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  • meanwhile, OLPC firmware gets edits to support XP (Score:5, Interesting)

    by schwaang ( 667808 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:31PM (#24713019)

    Among other things [laptop.org], of course.
    OLPC seems to be plugging away as hard as ever since all that angst over XP.

    And some users are figuring out how to install regular linux desktops [reactivated.net] in an easier way. (Sugar's pretty hard for expert users to get used to.)

    Obligatory on-topic snark: does ClassmatePC come with a virus checker?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bstone ( 145356 ) *

      I thought the XP version that was allowed on low cost PCs had restrictions that prohibited using touch screens. Did Microsoft change those rules?

  • no doubt the OLPC guys will try to rain on Intel's parade

    Wow... frankly, that's pretty dick.

  • Let's remember who started the parade (Score:5, Informative)

    by bl8n8r ( 649187 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:36PM (#24713069)

    OLPC started the whole sub-mini notebook craze. It was Wintel that did the raining*. It's bad enough the American monopolies had to get their greedy paws in the OLPC pie; let's at least keep the facts straight.

    [*] - http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4472654.ece [timesonline.co.uk]

    • Re:Let's remember who started the parade (Score:4, Informative)

      by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:41PM (#24713123)

      the American monopolies

      American monopoly. Not plural. Intel isn't a monopoly anymore with AMD becoming more than just a clone manufacturer of x86 CPUs. And actually in most physical stores, AMD is just as common, if not more common than Intel CPUs. MS on the other hand, clearly has a monopoly.

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Intel isn't a monopoly anymore with AMD becoming more than just a clone manufacturer of x86 CPUs.

        I suppose those various anti-trust investigations in various countries were just a horrible case of mistaken identity?

        Yeah, that's it; they were actually after the other Intel that has a monopoly in the earwax removal market but they always get it confused with the perfectly innocent chip maker.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 )

        MS on the other hand, clearly has a monopoly.

        Oh, clearly. I mean it's not as if I can pick from one of a hundred alternate operating systems ranging from mainstream (Apple, several Linux distros) to obscure. Definitely a monopoly, because I literally have no choices but to buy Microsoft products. Apple doesn't exist. There aren't dozens of Linux distros for various purposes. It's just crazy how much of a monopoly Microsoft has.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrNaz ( 730548 )

          Flamebait is unfair on this post. It is validly pointing out that the GP calls MS a monopoly while excusing Intel. There are far more viable alternatives to MS products than there are to Intel. Intel at the moment, only has AMD, which only challenges it in its server space. AMD is not a realistic competitor, as things stand, in the laptop space.

          MS on the other hand is embattled even in the desktop space, its traditional area of total hegemonic dominance.

        • Ok, thats fair, but I can't go into any major retailer and get a system that isn't Windows.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      WTF? The OLPC may have started th fad but Wintel mini-laptops existed well before OLPC ever started tooting their own horn. The Gateway Handbook, the Toshiba Libretto's, the OQO, the various UMPCs, the list goes on and on.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Belial6 ( 794905 )
      Craze is right. Toshiba was making sub-notebooks over a decade ago. The OLPC is just a con job to make people think that they are donating to charity when all they are really doing is paying for someone else's R&D. At the end of the day, the OLPC is too expensive for an inferior machine.

      Oh, and did you even read the link you gave? That thing claims that we were promised a $100 laptop with a high res color display and a cool Star Trek keyboard. It claims we were promised this on a computer that w

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      It depends what you call the sub-mini notebook. My first two mini notebooks were the Tandy 100 and 200. Could do most of what a the microcomputer could do, but at a fraction of the cost. Ten year later there was the Apple eMate. None of these ran the same OS as the bigger machines, but we were not compulsive about every machine we owned running the same OS. That did not happen until MS convinced the masses that this was necessary.

      So, the one laptop per child may usher some interesting innovations, bu

    • Why does nobody seem to be able to figure this out?

      The idea behind OLPC is to teach, not to teach how to use a PC.

      • Re:OLPC is about the software, not the hardware... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by deanston ( 1252868 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @10:46PM (#24715023)
        On a high level, yes, but the stumbling block up to this point is that they cannot figure the hardware piece out to make it cheap but good. For $200, my XO is barely better than a USB stick, and less than 6 months later, my iPhone is 10 time the 'computer' the XO is, with just half the screen. Not taking Steve Jobs' offer for FREE OS X and then substituting with XP is IMO the single greatest disservice to the high tech education of the children around the world whom the OLPC claims to want to help.
        • so you mean not prohibiting the children and their teachers and the governments from knowing what the laptops actually do and being able to fix problems is a a disservice? how much were you paid for that post?
          • With XP, I supposed they will have to fix a lot of problems, don't they? Are you insinuating with Apple/OS X they will have no problems? How much are YOU getting paid? I donated a XO laptop with the $400 Give-1-Get-1 deal because I believed in the cause and the idea of low cost Linux. The switch to XP is a fraud and insult to my donation. How much have you donated to OLPC?

  • Are these kind of devises more for the show or ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BlueTrin ( 683373 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:42PM (#24713129) Homepage Journal
    Are these kind of devises more for the show or are they really useful.

    Personally, I always find myself writing notes faster with a pen and paper. I have tried several alternatives ranging from Palm, Pocket PCs, having a laptop with me ... but from my point of view nothing beat having a pen and a paper to take quick notes, making a drawing, ... during a speech/course.

    If anybody here know a good solution, I would be glad to know how I could find a good replacement. My principal issue with paper notes is that it is easy to lose and take more time to classify them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by bryxal ( 933863 )
      Have you tried a Tablet PC. The pricier ones work great. Just don't buy a cheap ones (HP had some awful ones for 800USD a while back and it turned a lot of people off them, personally Toshiba's have worked great, YMMV) you'll have a hard time writing. You need to pay ~1500-2000USD to get something that will really work well.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Personally, I always find myself writing notes faster with a pen and paper.

      I am as quick when using an already booted computer ...

      I have tried several alternatives ranging from Palm, Pocket PCs, having a laptop with me ... but from my point of view nothing beat having a pen and a paper to take quick notes, making a drawing, ... during a speech/course.

      For quick note taking, nothing beats paper and pencil, I believe. (To take audio recordings is annoying for your environment, and it takes much more time to re

    • A good dictophone. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Newer ones are basically flash based mp3 players using a different recording codec. Most plug directly into the usb ports on your pc/laptop like a flash pen, so you can just chuck the files on to review or transcribe at a later time.

      If you've got some well trained Voice-rec software, even better.

  • Seriously, why, if they still insist on sticking to XP do they have an application as part of the GUI but clearly still have the XP bar at the bottom? Wouldn't it be better for a system that is supposed to be low end and cheap to at least use the normal XP GUI or a totally different shell?

  • Only working sample? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:46PM (#24713171) Homepage Journal

    Then how come in one of the photo the laptop has the "intel inside" sticker and in another photo it's not there?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by slater86 ( 1154729 )
      What Intel Sticker? **Jedi Hand Wave**

      very valid point though :-)
    • One session has a round gray carpet table, missing Intel sticker, and 11 Quick Launcher icons. The other session has a hard Formica table, the Intel sticker, and 9 Quick Launcher icons.

  • Rotating screen (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:47PM (#24713185) Homepage Journal

    That tiny pivot in the middle seems like a good target for kids to break the computer.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Gates82 ( 706573 )
      While for children it may be a cause for concern it seems to work fine on my X61 tablet and I have a 3 year old who is pretty rough with it when in tablet mode (though he does not rotate the screen yet). I must say that with this connection and a few other tablet function based components that my new X series is not nearly as ironclad as my old A31 was.

      --
      So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?

    • The XO-1 has that same issue [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Actually it's not quite the same issue. As steveha said under a different thread:

        From the photos, it's a pretty conventional clamshell, which means lots of connections running through the hinge so the motherboard can be in the base and the display in the lid; the OLPC design has motherboard and display in the lid, so that all that needs to run through the hinge is basically a USB cable. Teen-aged kids, armed with simple screwdrivers, can take apart two broken OLPC laptops, swap parts, and produce a working

    • Not to mention all the ventilation slots for sand to get into...

  • I remember... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pembo13 ( 770295 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:48PM (#24713195) Homepage
    when this was about bring open devices to poor, but not too poor, children. Now it's just a new first-world toy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TheSeer2 ( 949925 )

      As far as I know OLPC hasn't ended. And... why can't we have both? There's helping the poor but why shouldn't those that can afford better computers be allowed to buy them?

  • XP to prepare kids for adult life (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ericferris ( 1087061 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @06:50PM (#24713227) Homepage

    From TFA: I can understand why a Windows environment would be considered desirable in an educational tool, since the children will be learning to use the OS and applications that theyâ(TM)ll be encountering in their adult life.

    What a brillant insight!

    See, a kid using Windows XP in high school will encounter Windows XP applications in ten or fifteen years. Why, he will work with only Windows XP his whole adult life. Otherwise, he'd have to be trained to be flexible and to learn by himself as soon as high school.

    This brilliant insight also explains why Vista has failed on the marketplace. Why, when the average worker left high school school in the 80s, all the Apple IIs and C-64s in the school computer labs were running only Windows XP! No wonder he refuses Vista!

    Thank God we have good, insightful journalists in this country. Otherwise, we might see all kind of crap printed on the web.

    Note: yes, that was sarcasm. All of it. Thank you for noticing.

    • Yet most elementary schools and high schools are 90% Mac based...

      I think students should be exposed to all the current OS's they may encounter in the workplace (XP, Vista, Mac, Linux) during their schooling, not just what-ever the teachers are able to figure out.
    • This brilliant insight also explains why Vista has failed on the marketplace.
      .

      Vista hasn't failed in the home and SOHO markets: Top Operating System Share Trend [hitslink.com] In these - global - webstats Vista is the only OS showing any significant growth at all.

      See, a kid using Windows XP in high school will encounter Windows XP applications in ten or fifteen years.

      He will most likely be using apps that will be recognizable descendants of those first published for the Mac OS in 1984 and Win 3.1 in 1992 and Win 95

      • Re:XP to prepare kids for adult life (Score:4, Informative)

        by Zerth ( 26112 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @11:35PM (#24715367)

        According to those numbers, vista is a failure. It isn't success if you're primarily gaining usershare through hardware failure.

        From September to July on that chart, the xp+vista+2k goes from ~90.4% to ~89.6% I was almost "generous" and went to lump "other" in on the assumption it was 95/98, but then the drop would be nearly 1.5%

        A .8% loss isn't horrible, but Macs grew 1.12% and Linux grew .33%

        If Vista is growing(in gross numbers, as opposed to percentages), Linux and Mac are growing faster in relative terms according to your chart.

        • It isn't success if you're primarily gaining usershare through hardware failure.
          .

          It isn't hardware failure that drives the home and SOHO user to upgrade.

          It is the chance to massively upgrade hardware and software at the OEM price. The HP Quad Core 64 Bit Vista Premium PC with 4 GB RAM and NVIDIA 9600 graphics and 1 TB of storage is $1000 at Walmart.com.

          The Duo Core 32 Bit Vista Premium PC with 2 GB RAM starts at $329 at Walmart.com.

          A .8% loss isn't horrible, but Macs grew 1.12% and Linux grew 33%
          If V

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bit01 ( 644603 )

        He will most likely be using apps that will be recognizable descendants of those first published for the Mac OS in 1984 and Win 3.1 in 1992 and Win 95 in 1995

        In other words: "I never look at alternatives because I'm going to be running the same OS for the rest of eternity".

        Yep, M$ loves it when schools subsidize M$ with free M$ product training. Typical M$ alley-cat ethics. No wonder M$ has so many enemies.

        ---

        DRM breaks ownership, the basis of capitalism and the free market.

        • In other words: "I never look at alternatives because I'm going to be running the same OS for the rest of eternity".
          .

          How difficult would it be the young woman who entered office work as a typist in 1888 to adapt to the office of 2008?

          The young man in accounting?

          Local museums have ledgers, correspondence and promotional material - paper ephemerals - from local businesses active in the 1850s ---and it is all quite familiar.

          You can turn the clock back another century to the fur-trading posts of the 1750s

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by bit01 ( 644603 )

            ...

            MS Office is what it is because it is shaped by the requirements and traditions of clerical work that go back hundreds of years.

            Then how come all the talk about "retraining costs" from the M$ astroturfers whenever anybody suggests moving an office from M$ to an alternative? It's not true of course but they do so love to go on and on.

            That is why it is so very, very hard for projects like OpenOffice.org to come up with anything truly innovative -

            That is why it is so very, very hard for any software pack

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Student discounts for software aren't really the developing trend. The shift will be to supply school notebooks complete with all (operating system, applications, simulations and digital texts) the required software in order to prevent the inevitable high corporate profit school budget blow out and this includes the back end server environment.

        Schools the get sucked into buying piece meal will quickly see the discounts evaporative in the next cycle, 6 months or one year down track and be paying thousands

  • Zero mention of OLPC (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The review doesn't mention OLPC once, and we're supposed to take it even remotely seriously? Why would that possibly happen if not for a requirement from Intel that the review not mention the OLPC.

    That's like reviewing a portable music player and not comparing it against an iPod. Once a product has that kind of mindshare, it's just irresponsible not to compare.

    (verification word: reinvent. yeah, that's about right)

  • Intel vs. OLPC (Score:5, Informative)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @07:07PM (#24713415) Homepage

    There's no official word on pricing yet, but no doubt the OLPC guys will try to rain on Intel's parade.

    Huh?

    Let's do a quick review.

    0) OLPC starts working on a laptop. It has a non-Intel chip and is designed for ultra power efficiency.
    1) Intel starts working on their own laptop. Intel's of course has an Intel CPU; and it is designed to run Windows.
    2) Official Intel sales people start trying to sell the Classmate to countries that are considering the OLPC laptop. In at least one case, an Intel sales person went to a country that had already agreed to buy OLPC laptops, and said in effect "That thing won't even run Windows... you sure you really want it?" At the time, Intel was officially a member of OLPC. (Rogue sales people? Evil corporate double-dealing? You decide.)

    Now, what's up with "no doubt the OLPC guys will try to rain on Intel's parade"? The OLPC guys are the overbearing bullies and Intel is the underdog here?

    I'm sure there are markets for something like the Classmate PC. I don't think it's the best choice for places with no electric infrastructure. And it has a cooling fan, so I don't think it's the best choice for places that are really hot, humid, and/or dusty. And I'm sure it costs about twice as much as the OLPC, so I don't think it's the best choice for the truly poor markets. And it almost certainly is much harder to repair than the OLPC design.[1] Hmmm. Am I raining on Intel's parade?

    All that said, the world is a large place full of lots of kids. No way can OLPC crank out enough computers to help everyone. If Intel can sell their computer into the more affluent areas, they can make money. If their sales people can leave the OLPC markets alone, maybe Intel and OLPC can just get along.

    P.S. I suspect that neither OLPC nor Intel will have the last word on educational computers for the masses. I'm starting to think that the best design would be a simple tablet that actually does cost $100 or less, and probably runs an ARM chip or something for crazy long battery life.

    steveha

    [1] From the photos, it's a pretty conventional clamshell, which means lots of connections running through the hinge so the motherboard can be in the base and the display in the lid; the OLPC design has motherboard and display in the lid, so that all that needs to run through the hinge is basically a USB cable. Teen-aged kids, armed with simple screwdrivers, can take apart two broken OLPC laptops, swap parts, and produce a working OLPC laptop. I really doubt this will be possible with the Classmate.

    • 0) OLPC starts working on a laptop. It has a non-Intel chip and is designed for ultra power efficiency.
      1) Intel starts working on their own laptop. Intel's of course has an Intel CPU; and it is designed to run Windows.

      What's annoying is your timeline (and the fact you counted from zero). You have no idea when Intel began working on the classmate or if the idea was already in the works. Yes, they were part of OLPC- but if they had already invested serious money into their own program, can you blame them for backing out?

      They are a business, and the only reason their practice can be seen as wrong is because OLPCs were supposed to save the poor...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by steveha ( 103154 )

        You have no idea when Intel began working on the classmate or if the idea was already in the works.

        Actually, I do, because I have been reading the news coverage. I challenge you to present even one link to even one news story that shows the Classmate even being discussed before the OLPC project came along.

        There are so many links I could give you... here's one. Be sure to read page 5.

        http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4472654.ece [timesonline.co.uk]

        From page 5:

        Intel will tie itself in knots rather

  • When will people learn? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Friday August 22, 2008 @07:10PM (#24713441) Homepage Journal

    From the article:

    I can understand why a Windows environment would be considered desirable in an educational tool, since the children will be learning to use the OS and applications that theyâ(TM)ll be encountering in their adult life.

    That's quite the prediction there, predicting what OS is going to be in predominant use when today's 7-year-olds enter the knowledge workforce in 15+ years. And even if the author turns out to be correct, and Windows is still in predominant use beyond 2020, it's highly doubtful that whatever version is in use then is going to come close to resembling Windows XP.

    Really, at the age group these systems are targeted towards, the operating system shouldn't matter. The ideal of these systems isn't to teach operating system usage, but to use interactive applications for sharing information and teaching non-computer skills. You could do that with OS/2, and it's not going to impair anyone's ability to learn how to use an OS in the future. Heck, I started back at that age on a Commodore PET, and it certainly hasn't affected my ability to use a modern day OS.

    Yaz.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      I don't know, Vista resembles win 95. The user differences are really not that different.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by $pace6host ( 865145 )

        I don't know, Vista resembles win 95. The user differences are really not that different.

        You're right, at the heart, they're really not all that different. Would you say that Gnome or KDE is more or less different from Vista than Win 95 is different from Vista? With the tendency of all of the user interfaces to copy from one another, I think KDE and Gnome are probably closer to Vista than 95 was.

        Personally, I'd say that since most of the current user interfaces use the same basic window, icon, mouse/touchscreen/touchpad, pointer and keyboard paradigm, they'd leave any current student in about t

    • From the article:

      I can understand why a Windows environment would be considered desirable in an educational tool, since the children will be learning to use the OS and applications that theyâ(TM)ll be encountering in their adult life.

      Heck, I started back at that age on a Commodore PET, and it certainly hasn't affected my ability to use a modern day OS.

      Yaz.

      Actually, starting on a PET probably helped you learn other things. For the same reason, starting with linux is a good idea.

      • Actually, starting on a PET probably helped you learn other things. For the same reason, starting with linux is a good idea.

        True, but then again I had the aptitude for the skill. Not every child will, and I don't think it's advantageous to make every little kid into a computer scientist.

        The PET had the added advantage in that it was much more limited as to what you could do with it, and you had to learn how to interact with the system at a relatively low level if you were to do something as simple as lo

  • Looks decent and maybe useful for more than kids. Now - why to think kids are stupid or something. I'm not talking about XP, I can see it running in such machine. Of course Linux gives much more with much less money but a computer is just a computer? My kids have used (my) computers since they were three, never broke anything, boys built their own at age of 8, have no problems whatever OS they have to use, even the one who doesn't care about computers but cars (you know how many separate computers can be in

  • What's with the keyboard layouts on subnotebooks lately? Are they trying to slowly make the right shift key unusable enough that it can be removed completely? I, for one really, really don't want the arrow up to be on the left side of right shift.

    And why have three keys on the right side of P and two keys on the right side of L and have the enter be the wrong shape.

    To be fair, I also hate the HP laptop layout I'm using at the moment where home, pgup, pgdn and end are on the right side of bs, enter and right

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