What's Become Of The $100 Laptop

What's Become Of The $100 Laptop

Back in 2006, at the height of interest in the One Laptop Per Child-fueled $100 computer, I embarked on a quest to find such a device on the market -- with a catch. Since there were no such computers readily available in retail channels, the search was conducted via eBay for used, but still-capable PCs that cost less than $100. (It was a lot easier to find one that ran Windows than Mac OS.)

The past seven years have seen a lot of changes in the broader personal computing market. The Hisense Sero 7 LT, which arrived at Walmart earlier this year, exemplifies the kind of product that can now be considered the "$100 laptop" for the American mass market. Since then, others have followed. What it delivers, though, varies widely from what we thought such a device might look like.