The charitable One Laptop Per Child organisation is attempting to create a Christmas rush with the European release of its XO Laptop. John Stokdyk reports.

A dedicated sales site [1] opened on Amazon.co.uk this week, offering two of the 2kg machines for £275. One laptop will go to a child in the developing world and the other can go to the child in your world, runs the OLPC publicity.

Founded by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte and fellow Media Lab visionaries, the OLPC movement is credited with conceiving the idea of a $100 laptop. According to the Amazon site, some of the extra costs relate to the support services and travel needed to make sure the machines are deployed successfully to the beneficiaries.

For the theoretical cost of £137.50, the XO buyer will get a Linux-based machine with a 7.5inch screen, a 433MhZ AMD processor, 256M of RAM, plus a 1GB flash memory drive. The unit is designed to use small amounts of power and is described as "WiFi capable".

The BBC website posted a comprehensive review [2] of the machine when it was first launched in the US last year.

Unfortunately, the laptops won't actually start shipping until 16 December, according to Amazon, and come with a £50 pound delivery charge. If the charitable spirit moves you, there is only a two-day shipping window for the laptop to reach you by Christmas.

An early reviewer of the XO on Amazon.co.uk compared it unfavourably to other low-cost, ultra-mobile laptops such as the Asus Eee. The keyboard is fiddly and Linux operating system and screen (which broke after three months) took some getting used to, wrote T Larkin. "I really wanted the concept of the OLPC to work but I fear that is has been overtaken by cheaper, and better, Windows-based laptops."