Well I finally got to see the Intel Classmate PC. I had lunch with Ted Malos, Director of Technology for the Ventura Unified School District, and he actually had one for evaluation.
I won’t go through the specs in detail (the Intel site has everything you need) but there’s a couple of things to note. First, the physical design is very appealing – the built-in handles and padding are well thought out and functional. The machine’s weight is comfortable to carry and the overall size is good.
The Classmate can run Windows XP Professional or Linux – the unit I saw had Windows installed and booting up took a long time – in fact I’d suggest that it was unacceptably long. This is a result of the processor (Intel® Mobile Processor ULV 900 MHz, Zero L2 cache, 400 MHz FSB) and the slow NAND Flash storage system the Classmate uses. Interestingly he Classmate comes with 2GB of storage when running Windows but only 1GB when running Linux … need I say anything more?
The Classmate’s performance isn’t bad for word processing, simple spreadsheets, browsing, and other basic personal productivity tasks but running Windows XP Pro there isn’t a lot of spare horsepower available for more demanding applications.
At 7″ and 800 x 480 pixels, is a little on the small size although from the size of the bezel that surrounds it you can figure out that Intel probably plans to upgrade to a larger display. Finally, Wireless connectivity seemed very good.
So, overall a nice machine but even its most basic configuration will be priced at $225 — far too much for its target market. Moreover, it is rumored that even at that price Intel will be taking a loss on each machine sold.
But why is the Classmate so expensive? I just looked on Tiger Direct and found a Refurbished Thinkpad T23 for $359.99 … how can a full blown laptop cost only double the price of the Classmate? Can anyone explain how this pricing works?
