OLPC laptop price rises again to $188

The XO Laptop from the One Laptop per Child project, often referred to as the “$100 laptop,” has received another price bump with the cost now up to $188. The XO started out at $130, then climbed to $148, followed $176, before this weekend’s announcement.

The laptop, to be bought by governments and then distributed to children in developing countries, was planned to go into full-scale production in October but could face some delays while developers address some software bugs on the XO. The OLPC Project now faces competition from Intel's Classmate PC and a new laptop developed by Asus called the Eee PC that is scheduled for release this month.

The OLPC project reportedly has commitments from nations around the world for at least 3 million XO laptops, but has declined to disclose any orders until a final computer is ready. Although the project has fallen short of initial expectations of achieving a $100 laptop, it is still confident that it can reach $100 per unit over the next year or two.