Is the emergence of the $100 smartphone the start of a new era?

Computers for the masses have finally come to fruition.

Nicholas Negroponte presented his grandiose proposal to deliver computers to children all around the world about 17 years ago, a bid to combat digital illiteracy that also changed business. The final product, the OLPC XO laptop, was expected to cost $100 and is widely seen as a commercial failure, with only a few million units sold since its launch. Nonetheless, its impact has shaped the society we live in, encouraging computer manufacturers to consider more inexpensive, untethered gadgets that are accessible to the general public.

The OLPC delivered us Netbooks (with the Eee PC making an impact in 2007), Chromebooks, tablets, and, eventually, thanks to economies of scale, at least one $100 smartphone – a tribute to the journey since the OLPC originally captured the imagination of many.

A smartphone that is truly useable for $100

The Doogee X96 Pro, which runs Android 11, isn’t your typical low-cost gadget. It’s a long cry from the XO laptop (with a monochrome screen) that made news back in the day, with four cameras at the rear and a 6.5-inch HD+ display. The X96 Pro is equipped with an eight-core ARM-based processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage, setting the bar for entry-level, inexpensive smartphones. The original Netbook, by contrast, had 4GB of internal storage and technology capable of serving as a web hosting server.

The biggest paradigm shift in the last decade has been in connectivity, and 4G LTE is now available even at this price point, along with dual SIM slots and fast Wi-Fi, two essential features.

What can a $100 smartphone teach us about computing’s future?

OLPC’s goals were laudable, but in the end, it was cold-blooded capitalism that provided the solution for a completely new, ultra-affordable, high-performance computing platform that is safe and secure to use and has guaranteed global availability.

8464 (8-core, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage) devices will be the standard for ubiquitous personal computing in 2021 and for the foreseeable future, whether for consumers or corporations. While the X96 Pro is not a business smartphone in the strictest sense, the existence of a fingerprint sensor and Android 11 suggest that it is a safe platform in theory.

The global recovery is progressing slowly. The Post-Covid may hasten the transition to simpler devices like the X96 Pro, which are both versatile and powerful enough to realize Negroponte’s and the OLPC initiative’s goals. Never before in human history has so much knowledge been available to so many people, thanks to the rise of free online courses, copious high-resolution, professionally produced video content, and vast amounts of text.