Bear with me for one more educational product for today. This time is a very interesting OLPC XO 3 tablet, which we’ve talked about two years ago. OLPC stands for One Laptop Per Child, and is an old project that was meant to bring a $100 or less computer to each child on this planet, so clearly it’s a product with specifics that take into account problems in the underdeveloped countries.

    You might think this is junk, but just read the entire article and especially watch the hands on video at the end of the post. There are some things other manufacturers could learn from OLPC XO 3. First there’s the flexibility in charging, which can be done via a power plug, solar panel or hand crank.

    Yeap, you can turn the head crank and give juice to the whole thing in case you find yourself in a remote place (6 minutes of cranking gives you 60 minutes of use). Or use the 4Watt solar panel with integrated battery to power or charge the 2Watt tablet. 4Watts should be enough to power most of the current tablets in market (if you’re not gaming on them), so this kind of alternate power source makes sense even in our developed world.

    The solar panel and its battery are incorporated into the screen cover (which can be mounted at the back of the tablet too) and makes contact with four screws that double as contact power pins. Everything about the OLPC XO 3.0 is ingenious, told you.

    Specs are not impressing, but that’s not the point of the XO 3.0: 1GHz Marvell PXA618 CPU, 512 MB RAM, 8 inch LCD (1024 x 768 px, so it’s got better pixel density than the Apple iPad 2) and two panel options, LCD or Pixel Qi sunlight readable display (significantly more expensive). The design is dominated by green plastic, which looks a little bit childish, which means it’s exactly how it is supposed to be.

    Ports are not as scarce as believed: mini USB, full size USB, dual 3.5 mm audio jacks, so you can connect external devices like thermometers. The UI is called SUGAR and uses a spiral design to access shortcuts. It was build on top of Linux, of course, and even features an oscilloscope for measuring background noise. This is one good cheap tablet.

    Here’s a very interesting hands on preview with OLPC XO 3 at CES:

    [source]