We decided to participate in the Give 1, Get 1 promotion over at XOGIVING.ORG.  This promotion allows you to buy a laptop for a deserving child in a developing nation, and also receive one for your child.  This wasn’t a hard decision for us for a few reasons: 

-We like to try to do a few charitable things each year

-We really want to instill how important it is to think of others (for our daughter to learn)

-The laptop is an outstanding learning device for any child

-It’s really cool

 So, we wandered on over to http://www.xogiving.org and made the purchase.  One laptop is on it’s way to a child in a developing nation and the other should be on it’s way to our house before Christmas.  This promotion cost us $399 plus a bit of shipping.  For two laptops that will help two children build many different skills, it’s money well spent.  There are only 11 days left in their promotion if you’d like to participate!  $200 of the purchase price is also tax deductible if you are looking for an additional tax deduction

And, because I’m a techy geek, here are the details of the laptops:

  • Wifi 802.11 b/g
  • 433mhz processor
  • 256mb ram
  • 1024mb storage
  • SD card slot
  • integrated video camera
  • 7.5″ dual mode LCD screen
  • Integrated speaker and sound card
  • USB (three ports)
  • Mic input
  • Headphone output
  • Linux operating system

For those of you that know a thing or two about computers, you may be looking at those specs thinking, “Wow, that’s so 1995″.  Well, it is and it isn’t.  Because the laptop uses Linux, the hardware requirements are much lower.  They’ve done a good job of writing open source software to use the system in a very efficient way.  Power management is a TOP priority for them.  The battery they are using is user replaceable and also can be drained and charged up to 2000 times.  The laptop also uses far less power to function so the battery life dwarfs most standard laptops.

The other thing to note is that this was developed for harsh conditions.  It is somewhat ruggedized and can withstand many drops to the ground etc because there are no moving parts.

Software is a completely different topic.  There are a ton of applications on there and they are all targeted at children.  Many of them are built to encourage exploration and discovery and will help with developmental skills as well.  For a complete list, see: http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/software-and-interface.php 

Anyway, please consider jumping on this bandwagon.  The promotion is only good for 11 more days!