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$100 Laptops Fetch $600 on eBay

US consumers go nuts over discount charity laptop

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Dec 25, 2007 11:11 AM CST
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(Newser) – The $100 laptop is turning into the $600 laptop on eBay, reports the San Jose Mercury News, sealing the novelty value of the computer aimed at children in developing countries. Nonprofit One Laptop Per Child is also hawking the laptops through year's end, but many shoppers shelled out extra in private auctions to ensure Christmas delivery.

Buying from OLPC is better for your wallet and conscience. The $425 buys two laptops—one for you, and one for a needy child. Many eBay scalpers promise to donate to OLPC, but few do. But other desperate eBayers may just want a second, since the machines network with each other.

Renzo, 8, reads on his laptop in Arahuay, an Andean hilltop village in Peru, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2007. Doubts about the One Laptop Per Child project evaporate about as quickly as the morning dew in this Andean hilltop village where 50 primary school students have spent six months with the...
Renzo, 8, reads on his laptop in Arahuay, an Andean hilltop village in Peru, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2007. Doubts about the One Laptop Per Child project evaporate about as quickly as the morning dew in this...   (Associated Press)
A laptop XO from the One Laptop Per Child Project is seen in this Sept. 10, 2007 file photo in Dresden, Germany. A promotion in which a customer buying a $188 computer in the U.S. and Canada automatically donates a second one to a child in a developing country...
A laptop XO from the One Laptop Per Child Project is seen in this Sept. 10, 2007 file photo in Dresden, Germany. A promotion in which a customer buying a $188 computer in the U.S. and Canada automatically...   (Associated Press)
U.S. children play with the XO laptop for the first time at OLPC Headquarters in Cambridge, MA (Courtesy of William Hicks)
U.S. children play with the XO laptop for the first time at OLPC Headquarters in Cambridge, MA (Courtesy of William Hicks)   (Associated Press)
A boy writes on his laptop in Arahuay, an Andean hilltop village in Peru, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2007. Doubts about the One Laptop Per Child project evaporate about as quickly as the morning dew in this Andean hilltop village where 50 primary school students have spent six months with the...
A boy writes on his laptop in Arahuay, an Andean hilltop village in Peru, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2007. Doubts about the One Laptop Per Child project evaporate about as quickly as the morning dew in this Andean...   (Associated Press)
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