The Classmate PC is the device that Intel have been using to battle against OLPC. Or rather, every time anyone talks about the OLPC XO, the Classmate appears in the same sentence. I’m not sure whether the device has actually gone into production or whether Intel gave up the production capacity to ASUS for the Eee PC which is built on the same motherboard apparently. My theory is that the Classmate is just a reference model used by Intel to show how their latest low cost platform works.
This 9" version that has appeared through some news at TechCorner a single-post blog, today is probably something that has been floating around for a while, courting manufacturers and encouraging more low-price ultra mobile PC wars so I’m not too surprised these images have surfaced, especially when the device is said to contain the same main components as the previous model. If anything is going to stand a chance against the low-cost steamroller that ASUS have with he Eee at the moment it better be a lot more stylish than this. Something like the HP 2133 UMPC.
Via Gizmodo