This past week Intel released some additional information about its Classmate PC reference design [DigiTmes]. The tiny notebook is intended for emerging markets, much like the "$150" OLPC.
According to DigiTimes, the Classmate PC's specs include:
* Intel Celeron M processor, 915GMS chipset
* 7 inch WXGA (800x480) LCD display
* 256MB DDR2 SO-DIMM (Previous articles have suggested the memory is not upgradable)
* 1GB flash memory rather than a hard drive
* 6 cell Lithium Ion battery
* Windows XP Embedded
Interestingly, the reference design does not include a digitizer. I guess if it did, then the next question would be wether the device should run the Tablet PC OS. And then if it did, what about the rather limited memory?
Another way to look at this is maybe the core Tablet bits (stroke collection, rendering, and handwriting recognition) should be available in the embedded version of Windows. With limited memory and processing speed, we're probably also talking about a refocus on C++ as the language of choice over the .NET platform--although from tests I've run on somewhat comparable UMPCs C++ would not be mandatory.
Then, of course, there's the whole issue of Vista. Should a small platform, such as this, target the full OS? After all, it has some impressive P2P sharing technology. Once again, maybe this suggests that for performance and cost sake these APIs should be migrated down to XP embedded.
The challenge is clearly about costs. How far can the price be driven down, yet not sacrifice capabilities that make sense in the classroom?


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