MPC unveils grade-school sized laptop 

Nampa-based PC-maker MPC Computers unveiled its new TXTbook computer today, a light-weight, low-cost notebook geared toward the K-6 education market.

  Picking up where the Intel-powered classmate PC left off, the TXTbook uses Intel’s latest 1.6 GHz Atom Processor – specifically engineered for small, economical machines. The computer features a durable outer package and a kid-sized 8.9-inch display, but also comes with built-in wired and wireless networking, a Webcam, stereo audio and USB peripheral support.

  "Everything about TXTbook is optimized for kids," said Deborah Herrud, product marketing manager for MPC Computers. "At less than three pounds, it's light-weight and easy to carry with a built-in handle. The keyboard is approximately 70 percent the size of a normal notebook computer and the footprint is small enough to fit on a child's desk and makes it easy for a student to see over the top of the display and follow what their teacher is doing."

  MPC spokesman Michael Boss said the computer is meant to fulfill the company’s one-laptop-per-child initiative – an effort to get kids familiar with computing before they hit junior and senior high school.

  “We found that typically, just because of the cost and the size of these things [traditional laptops], they tended to kind of wind up in the higher K-12 area, so the interest here was, ‘What kind of design would we have to come up with that would really accelerate the adoption of one-laptop per-child at a lower grade level?,’” he said.

  Prices for the TXTbook start at $499 – about half what the average MacBook costs and still about a $100 less than most hp and Toshiba laptops, according to figures from PCWorld – and Boss said the company hopes its relatively low price tag induces school districts to change the way they order computers – from buying a set amount of machines and distributing them throughout the district, to offering grants to offset at least some of the cost to parents who purchase them on their own.

  “Now you’re talking about something that’s even more affordable,” he said. “You’re talking about the price of an iPod, or a high-end cell phone.”

Just hitting the market today, Boss couldn’t release any sales numbers but said it may take some time to determine who’s most attracted to the TXTbook.

  “Until we really begin to see the orders we can’t really speculate on where the sweet spot’s going to be,” he said, but added that interest is already building.

  “The only thing we have to go on, aside from the fact that we have kind of a foundation in school districts across the United States, was that when we attended the NECC [National Education Computing Conference] tradeshow we had a classmate on display… and we were getting tremendous interest from all the educators who came through. It probably attracted more interest than any other device we had at the show,” he said. “The word is going to get out really, really quickly.”

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