April 20th, 2009

A refresh of the XO-1 laptop is in progress today since the manufacturer, OLPC, has continued efforts to maintain a low price point and refresh the hardware to take advantage of the latest component technologies.

OLPC  said this refresh, which is called Generation 1.5, is separate from the Generation 2.0 project, and will continue using the same industrial design and batteries as Generation 1. It said the design goal is to provide an overall update of the system within the same ID and external appearance.

XO Laptop Generation 1.5 is BornBesides,  to maximize compatibility with existing software, this refresh will continue using an x86 processor and a chipset from VIA. The memory will be increased to 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM, and the built-in storage will be 4 GB of NAND Flash with an option for 8 GB (installed at manufacture).

According to the manufacturer, the processor will be a VIA C7-M, with plans on using one whose clock ranges from 400 MHz (1.5 W) to 1GHz (5 W). The clock may be throttled back automatically if necessary to meet thermal constraints.

The management said Generation 1.5 will continue with the existing display, although OLPC is working with PixelQi to try to improve the brightness and efficiency of the screen. The DCON is retained (even though the VX855 includes much of its functionality) as it provides the low power interface and the timing controller functions for the existing display.

In short, the target of launching of Generation 1.5 is to match the Generation 1 XO-1 in power consumption while making aggressive suspend easier, and in price (while changing to components which are more likely to decrease in price). It is likely that both goals can be met.

Early versions of the hardware (bare board) should be available for driver development at the end of May, the management said, and a a larger number of prototype laptops (several hundred) for software development and testing will become available around the end of August.

As stated by the management, the OLPC contributors program will be the preferred way of requesting a Generation 1.5 machine for testing your software for compatibility or development. The management hopes to use the contributors program to ensure Generation 1.5 support for the wide variety of application and OS solutions created for Generation 1.0.

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