[OLPC-Asia] OLPC XO-4 Will Provide Significant Performance Boost, Add New Wireless and Storage Options

[lite li]

OLPC XO-4 Will Provide Significant Performance Boost, Add New Wireless and
Storage Options

<http://wiki.laptop.org/go/File:XO4_A2_mobo_annotated_bot.png>
*Annotated photo of bottom side of XO-4 A2 version motherboard*

In mid-August OLPC formally introduced its upcoming XO-4
Touch<http://www.olpcnews.com/laptops/xo-4/olpc_xo-4_touch_expected_to_be_released_in_q1_2013.html>
which
it expects to become available in Q1/2013. Since then we've had a chance to
learn a more about the XO-4 models and the hardware which will power them.

The first interesting piece of information came from an
e-mail<http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2012-August/015475.html>
on
the IAEP mailing list in which Martin Langhoff (OLPC Association's Senior
Software Architect and Technical Director) wrote:

Two variants will be available -- XO-4 Laptop and XO-4 Touch (a laptop with
multitouch screen).

Secondly I had a chance to speak to John Watlington (OLPC Association's
Vice President of Hardware Engineering) and ask him some questions about
the hardware changes between the XO-1.75 and the XO-4 models.

Asked about what features and performance changes we can expect from the
move from Marvell'sArmada 610
SoC<http://www.marvell.com/application-processors/armada-600/armada-610.jsp>
(MMP2)
to the PXA2128 SoC<http://www.marvell.com/application-processors/armada/pxa2128>
(MMP3)
he wrote:

Roughly twice the memory bandwidth (two 32b DDR3 memory channels instead of
the single 32b channel in the MMP2), *over twice the compute power* (two
cores at 1GHz instead of a single core at 800 MHz, plus improved
performance of the core itself), and better graphics performance. (emphasis
added)

Color me impressed! In most scenarios the current XO-1.75 is quite a snappy
machine but having that performance potentially doubled is quite exciting I
dare say.

Another very interesting change is related to the mass storage on the XO-4
models:

The internal microSD card slot is now available in parallel with the
internal eMMC (editor's note: an embedded storage solution with a MMC
interface). In XO-1.75, you could replace the internal eMMC using the
internal microSD card slot, but couldn't use them in parallel.

The original intent in XO-1.75 was to provide a way to repair a motherboard
whose eMMC has gone bad. With XO-4, it becomes possible to not just replace
but also expand the eMMC as a board ages. eMMC provides a guaranteed
reliability which is hard to match with microSD cards, and is available in
sizes up to 32 GB (although qualifying a new size takes us around 12 weeks
--- we have 4GB and 8GB qualified for XO-1.75 and XO-4). On XO-4, the
internal SD socket will not be present (it could be if requested) but one
of a couple of common sockets can be added in the field with a simple
soldering iron and a #1 screwdriver.

I can already see older children in Uruguay opening their own hardware
tuning shops offering this storage upgrade. (And me getting in-line during
my next visit to have my own XO tuned.)

As Engadget had previously already
reported<http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/one-laptop-per-childs-xo-4-touch-expected-to-be-released-in/>
there
is also a new option when it comes to wireless connectivity:

Starting with XO-4, there will be an option for 802.11abgn as well as the
802.11bgn which has shipped with earlier laptops. As this increases the
price somewhat, we expect it only to be used in deployments which require
802.11a support.

Last but not least he also confirmed that the XO-4 "*will replace one of
the USB ports with an HDMI port*".

Previously I had been confused about why OLPC decided to make the naming
jump from XO-*1.75* to XO-*4* as the new model seemed to offer little
beyond the new touchscreen option. However now with all this new
information I'm starting to see how the new model really deserves that
number jump. Because overall these changes really make for a significantly
more powerful and more versatile XO machine.
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