The XO Laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project has received another price bump with the cost now up to $188. That's $88 over the project's original goal, which was to build a $100 laptop, but still a pretty good price for a laptop.
Of course, the XO still isn't shipping in quantity and it's possible that the price could go up again before the XO is handed out on a large scale. The XO started out at $130, then climbed to $148, followed $176, before this weekend's announcement of $188. Spokesman George Snell blamed the latest price increase on factors like the falling value of the dollar and rising costs of components like nickel and silicon.
Snell assured critics that the project will keep the price from rising above $190, but many have already attacked the latest increase, suggesting that the seemingly endless incremental increases are threatening the success of the project.
In addition to the price increase, shipment of the XO has been delayed while developers address some bugs in the software that accompanies the laptop. The latest OLPC community newsletter, says “there were Sugar, network, and security reviews this week resulting in the reporting of some new bugs and future features. One outcome was the identification of some last-minute features, so we will not be ready for code freeze on Monday.”
The OLPC project reportedly has commitments from nations around the world for at least 3 million XO laptops.
[via Ars Technica]
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