Another Affordable Laptop for Kids on the Way

The brilliant minds at One Laptop per Child are not the only ones bringing affordable laptops to children. Asustek Computer has put the first Eee PC on sale in Taiwan this week, but there are plans for wider distribution of the lightweight PCs with 7-inch LCD screens that range in price from about U.S $245 to $340.

There are four versions of the Eee PC, and they all run on the Linux operating system and support several applications, including a Mozilla browser, Skype, word processing, and games for kids. InfoWorld reports that a fifth Eee PC will run on Windows XP—yep XP. Vista would take up too much hardware. But it won't be available until the end of the year.

The PCs will ship with support for two languages, English and Chinese, but they will be sold in Taiwan first and rolled out later to English-speaking countries and web sites.

We'll get you more information on these PCs as they hit the U.S. market. With kids needing computers for school work at younger and younger ages, one family desktop isn't cutting it in many houses anymore. It would nice to have an affordable option to add a laptop or two to the homework mix.

Meanwhile, One Laptop per Child's Give 1 Get 1 offer is approaching. Between Nov.12 and Nov. 26, you can order two XO laptops for $400, and One Laptop per Child will donate one to a child in a developing nation, while you can keep the other or donate it locally. 

The goal is to produce and distribute so many of these laptops that the price drops to about $100 each.

LINK: Asustek's low-cost Eee PC will sports Windows XP [InfoWorld via Yahoo! News] 

Related: Donate One Laptop per Child, Get One