A post on Gizmodo has pointed out a disturbing trend, which has been noted in the laptop.org forums- the rubberized keys on the keyboard of the OLPC laptop are being easily peeled off by the children.
The forum thread has several people asking how to get replacement keys, and one of them even posted a picture:
Having never physically handled one, I had always assumed that the rubberized keyboard was all one piece, ala the ‘rollable’ rubber keyboards that you can purchase on ThinkGeek. The main purpose being, over course, to keep grit and moisture from getting into the keyboard.
But if laptops like the XO are to be designed for educational purposes, the designers are going to have to take into account the sorts of random things little hands will do when they get near a keyboard.
There are no replacement keys or keyboards for the XO. Thankfully, somebody has devised a way to replace the keyboard with a usb one, but in a developing nation, I don’t think that option is always going to be readily available.
This story should make us all eternally grateful for how sturdy the Eee PC is.
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