>>>> My wife and I recently visited Vanuatu (island of Santo) and fell in >>>> love with it. We got to know some locals pretty well and everybody is >>>> pining for laptops. Internet service is becoming widely available due >>>> to Digicel and TVL cell phone signals but I didn't meet anyone with a >>>> real smartphone. I promised to return with laptops and I'd like to >>>> make good on that. Which ultra low-cost but functional laptops or >>>> netbooks would you choose for this? I'm looking into OLPC but I'm not >>>> sure how that works. >>>> >>>> - Grant [snip] > And I think there's your opening: netbooks. > > They are cheap and once you get past that they are much slower than what > you are used to, they do work very well. And they work offline too. With > one more advantage from your point of view: Windows runs very suckily > one them, but a decent Linux runs rather unsuckily :-)
This brings up another important question: Windows or Linux. These folks have ultra-basic computer skills if that. They won't be able to hit the forums when something goes wrong. I've only ever really used Gentoo so I'm not sure how easy Ubuntu or whatever is but I'm leaning toward Windows for this. It's a much more "universal language" in the computer world so the chances of them finding help for a problem are much higher. Plus they can install Windows programs that way. Of course Windows comes with its own set of problems but I think those might be preferable in this case. If I can get systems with some kind of a restore partition, they could follow a pretty simple procedure to restore the OS back to factory when it gets too far out. In fact the owner of the place where I was staying brought me his Toshiba laptop while I was there and (typically) the thing was riddled with viruses and had become unusable. Luckily there was a restore partition and it was too easy to snap it back to factory. He then promptly checked his email for the first time in however long and opened a message from his daughter in Australia which contained a photo of his granddaughter. It was the first time he had ever seen her. He bought the kava every night after that. > *Someone* has all those netbooks that Westeners ditched in favour of > iCraps, I recommend you look into who is now selling them 2nd hand. I should look to eBay, right? - Grant
