Remember when we used to call the OLPC XO Laptop the $100 laptop? OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte overpromised and underdelivered when it came to price and the XO now costs closer to $200. That’s still pretty impressive, all things considered, and the XO really did launch the netbook revolution. But the price never dropped to the promised $100 level, and so the idea of a $100 laptop was a bit of a marketing mishap.

But since then we’ve seen several companies push out fairly crappy laptops that really do run closer to $100 than $200. And you can often find refurbished first generation netbooks like the Eee PC 701 going for $150 or less.

Now DMP Electronics in Taiwan is getting in on the $100 laptop action with a machine called the Edubook. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because the computer seems to be based on a similar design and concept as the Nohrtec Gecko Edubook. Both the DMP and Nohrtec versions run on AAA batteries and feature a modular design that lets customers choose the components they need and assemble the laptops themselves to save money.

Nohrtec is selling the Edubook for about $200, but the company has been promising for a while that you’d be able to pick it up for a lower price if you choose barebones units and order in bulk. With that in mind, it’s not entirely clear what you get for your $100 if you order a DMP version. I’m not betting on WiFi being included in the cost.

Update: The DMB version of the laptop will apparently be a barebones machines with a CPU, motherboard, and display but no storage, batteries, power cord, or WiFi. In other words, if you want a completely functional computer, you’re still going to have to pay more than $100. See the comment from Michael Barnes of Nohrtec below for more details.

What you do get is a cheap netbook with an 8.9 inch display and a low power CPU. If the DMP Edubook uses the same processor as the Nohrtec model, it’s an x86-compatible 1GHz Xcore86 CPU that can run Windows or Linux.

via SlashGear

The folks behind the Nohrtec Gecko Edubook are looking to make their AA-battery powered netbook available for $200 soon. The company’s unique netbook features a 1GHz Xcore86 CPU, which is x86-compatible and capable of running Windows XP or Linux. This week, the Nohrtec team posted a video on YouTube showing the Edubook running WattOS, a light weight Linux distribution based on Ubuntu.

Because the Edubook has just 8GB of storage, the goal was to keep the OS and software as light weight as possible. The WattOS version includes AbiWord and Gnumeric for word processing and working with spreadsheets. For presentations, OpenOffice.org Impress was loaded, but not the full version of OpenOffice. The operating system also handles Firefox 3.5, which means you can run web-based office suites such as Google Docs or Zoho Office.

Schools, businesses, or other institutions that are looking to order the Edubook in bulk and/or purchase barebones versions to configure themselves might be able to pick it up for even less than $200.

You can check out the video of the EduBook running WattOS after the break.

via Linux Netbook

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