OLPC XO-1 Laptops Now Going for Peanuts on Ebay

It my have taken them a few more years than they expected, but OLPC can finally offer you  sub-$100 laptop.

A reader sent me  link this morning. She was browsing laptops when she noticed that there were a number of XO-1 laptops listed. There have always been a few OXs on Ebay at any one time. but now there re some dozens listed. What’s even better is that the starting bid for a number some of the auctions is under $50. Damn, that’s cheap.

I have a bid in on a couple, but I’m not sure what they will end up going for. The close price on completed auctions is showing as anywhere from $90 to $150. That’s a lot more than the initial bid, but it’s still not bad.

I don’t need an XO-1, and it’s really not that capable of a laptop. But I’ve been wanting to get  closer look at a Pixel Qi screen for some time now, and this looks like my best bet. I haven’t had a chance to spend any quality time with the XO-1,  so I don’t know all of what it can do as an ereader. But I do know that FBReader has been ported to the laptop. It also has  browser, so I plan to see how well Kindle Cloud, Ibis, and other web apps work.

I haven’t checked XO auctions in a while, but when I last looked these devices were going for more than $200, with some auctions closing t over $300. I wonder why the price has dropped?

Some might jump to the conclusion that Apple’s news last week has caused  run on the prices, but I think it’s  little too early for that. If anything, these lower prices might have been caused by the hype surrounding the XO-3 tablet. This sibling to the XO-1 was unveiled at CES 2012  few weeks back. It’s not going to ship for quite  few months, but that might be enough to cause some to sell rather than shelve a device they’re not using.

Ebay