It’s been a few months since I’ve heard anything about the OLPC Xo laptop 1.5 refresh. but it looks like the new model is close enough to reality to have a working prototype floating around. The folks at the OLPC Learning Club in DC got a little hands-on time with an XO 1.5 prototype last night.

The new model replaces the 433MHz AMD Geode CPU in the original XO Laptop with a 1GHz variable speed VIA C7-M processor. The video below shows a comparison between the new model and an overclocked XO 1 with the AMD processor running at 500MHz.

Both models are pretty zippy considering the slow speeds of their processors. But the VIA C7-M upgrade definitely gives the new model an edge. As you can see in the photo above, there aren’t any major cosmetic differences between the original XO and the new version. We’ll have to wait for the XO 2.0 to get a major visual refresh.