This Saturday, the OLPC Learning Club will revisit last year's OLPC News 4PC contest with the: Great 4P Computig Laptop Bake Off of 2009.

Through 2008, the netbook market continued to grow dramatically, seeking the optimal four Ps of power, performance, portability, and price. Industry analysts estimated this "netbook effect" drove sales of close to 12 million netbooks worldwide in 2008 and possibly 35 million in 2009. Nicholas Negroponte, who has laid claim to starting this market with the OLPC XO-1, believes that in a few years 1/2 of all laptops sold will be netbooks.

Faculty and parents from Friends Community School in College Park as well as members of the Learning Club will have a variety of netbooks and other computers on hand for review including:

• Acer Aspire One
• ASUS EeePC 701
• ASUS EeePC 901
• Belco Alpha 400 ($149!)
• Classmate 2 (2goPC)
• Classmate 3 convertible touchscreen (2goPC)
• HP Mini Note
• OLPC XO-1
• Tablet PCs
• Wega UMPC
• ... and more

Having so many laptops, netbooks and other PCs in one room will afford an excellent opportunity to test the USB flash drive version of the Sugar Learning Platform, which lets you boot into the OLPC XO ’s operating system on most any PC without affecting the internal hard drive. We'll have a bunch of USB drives preloaded with the latest "Strawberry" release of Sugar. Several of the Sugar USB drives will be raffled off later in the meeting, so be sure to get to the school early enough to get a raffle ticket.

The Great 4PC Laptop Bake Off
Saturday, July 18th, 10am-1pm
Friends Community School
5901 Westchester Park Drive
College Park, MD 20705 (map)

We'll also feature a special guest - our very own baby drool tester: Hanalei Vota.