Thanks to One Laptop Per Child, we are now witnessing a dramatic change in the computing marketplace - 4P Computing: the emergence of appropriate power, performance, portability, and price as drivers of technology innovation.

With all the new entrants flooding the market this summer, two questions are quickly emerging for educators who are contemplating 1:1 computing to child programs:

1. Which 4PC is best value for my educational budget?
2. How do I measure what "value" means to my stakeholders?

While we don't pretend to have a clear answer for either question, a few of the more intrepid OLPC Learning Club DC members are going to geek out on the concept this weekend.

Saturday morning, we're going to have a Great 4PC Laptop Bake Off where we compare as many of the 4PC entrants that we can find. Our comparisons will be far from scientific or even objective - I know I'll be pulling for the XO - but they will be fun.

A few folks will be doing hardware and software testing, boot times to software performance. Children will be present to give youth acceptance testing. I plan on testing out the support network of each computer, both official and unofficial. Someone might even get crazy and do an underwater typing test!

So far our laptop testing list includes the usual suspects:

• Several XO Laptops
• Classmate 2Go PC
• Asus Eee 900 PC
• Fujitsu T-4220 Tablet PC
• Several "Normal" Laptops

I wanted to bring a HP Mini-Note and a MSI Wind, but neither are shipping at the moment. If you'd like to join us, feel free to bring children, computers, creativity, and a breakfast treat to share. A pizza lunch should happen too.

The Great 4PC Laptop Bake Off
Saturday, June 21st, 9am-Noon
Friends Community School
5901 Westchester Park Drive
College Park, MD 20705 (map)

As an added bonus for the eco-geeks, the Friends School also happens to be world's biggest straw bale construction green school.