A non-geek test to OLPC and Classmate PC

I was invited to make a comparison of battery life between the XO-B2 from OLPC and the Classmate PC created by Intel. So I did it. However, for me this is not a fair test because the XO I have with me is not a finished product but a test prototype. Anyway, the purpose of this test is to act as a non-geek independent tester. I take the role of a school teacher or a government officer from the Ministry of Education that was given the chance to use both machines and perform some basic tasks. So I will write my evaluation not with the technical geeky jargon (which I don’t manage that well anyway), but as a common user. So this is mostly a WYSIWYG kind of test, which basically means, I get the machine switched on and I use it as such (out of the box), except for some minor adjustments explained below.

So here’s what I did

1. Fully charged both laptops’ batteries

2. Booted them at the same time (21:24 pm)

3. Disabled the power-saving features found in the Windows XP version installed in Classmate PC, including screen saver. I’m not aware if such power-management options are available in the XO machine, so I did not change any settings for the B2 prototype.

4. Executed the same applications at the same time, for about 10 minutes. The test consisted in 3 web browsing activities (see below)

5. Let them to run out of battery

Previous considerations

a) Classmate PC is a fully operational machine commercially available in some countries, including Chile. However, I tested a unit with a label saying “˜PVT Sample’, which I believe is totally operative. In other words, this is not a prototype.

b) The XO machine on the other hand is a B2 prototype of the OLPC educational laptop. This is important because it means that this is not a finished project and therefore it has some technical unresolved issues fully described in the official release notes . Therefore, any result at this time should not be considered as the final one. This machine is running with the stable Build 406, along with the latest firmware release, Q2C11.

c) The test took place in-doors with a room temperature of about 60°F or 15C°

d) This test is not about the educational software or any in-classroom use of both machines. Of course, this is by no means an “˜official’ test.

The Test

a) Booting time was almost exactly the same in both cases: 1:40 mins. The video above demonstrates the process (is in Spanish, but it speaks for itself). People familiar with Windows and Linux know exactly the details.

b) Users familiar with Win XP are not to be surprised by the Classmate PC: is Windows as usual.

c) XO, on the other hand deploys a totally innovative interface that evocates a kid with tasks (activities in the OLPC jargon) to explore. I took a lesson on sugar a few weeks ago. An adult with normal computer skills (browsing, emailing, chatting, etc) should be able to manage the whole system in about ten minutes

d) First task was launching the web browsers. It took no time to launch the Internet Explorer available (version 6) in Classmate and a bit more to get running the Web activity in XO.

The most disappointing issue I found first in Classmate was the screen size (click both photos to enlarge). Compared with the XO you only get a tiny fraction of the actual screen. I’m not sure if you can actually change that setting in Classmate, but again, I’m acting as a non-geek user (your 50 year old uncle that works as a third grade school teacher).

I used the website of the UCPN.cl campaign for testing purposes. From then I entered our Flickr gallery, which was displayed without problem by Classmate, but was not properly displayed in XO. Apparently, this is only my guess, the web browser in XO does not “˜read’ the program used in Flickr, which I believe is something like Flash (see picture below), but who knows.

Then I tried with our youtube gallery . Again, it works immediately in the Intel machine and it did not work at all in XO(see photo).

Then I loaded Wikipedia in Spanish, I was browsing for a while (about ten minutes). After that, I just let the machines run out of battery

One unexpected thing in Classmate (which actually was new for me) was the fact that it has a cooling fan. It was awkward because the room was a bit cold and the fan went on and off at least 5 times during the test. It was quite annoying because it is slightly louder than a normal laptop

The unexpected finale

At 23.13 the XO B2 simply died. No particular reason, really. And it was weird because I checked the battery indicator a few minutes ago and it was almost at the same level than the Classmate PC: showing about 50%. I tried to switch it on again, but it did not work: it run out of battery almost after two hours working.

Classmate PC run out of battery at 01: 10…that is almost 4 hours later! (and yes, I was bored, tired, asleep and praying for that battery to die soon).

Conclusions

The XO is expected to achieve huge battery life. Some people anticipate ten or more hours when the final product is ready by the last term of 2007.

Yet, in the B2 prototype I was testing battery lasted about two hours, which is fairly decent if you consider that there are still two or three prototypes before the actual final unit reaches the hands of the kids. It is also important to consider that the OLPC technical team has warned us about not trying to reach conclusions using these prototypes, which for example, only carry a “˜sample battery’.

This simple test should also help the OLPC advocates to realise that it is necessary to be extremely cautious about showing any prototype to educational authorities or technical government staff. I would not recommend giving a B1 or B2 unit for official testing purposes to any government authority at the moment. Those attempting to do such a thing can actually endanger the goals of this educational project.

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Just for the Record (or, Who the hell is Luis Ramirez anyway!)

I’m Professor at the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Chile, my recent areas of interest are e-Inclusion and e-Development policies. Currently I’m the Director of Futuro Digital (Digital Future), a recently created research group on the impact of new technologies in social development and the head of a web community focused on digital divide called Conectandoachile.org

I’m a member of the committee in charge of the citizen-led campaign One Computer Per Child (Chile) and as such one of the few people to have both a OLPC XO and a Classmate PC. I do not get funding or financial support of any kind neither by Intel nor by OLPC.

Tags: Classmate, UCPN y OLPC, youtube