Fourth generation, the XO-1

Though generally well received at early stages, the One Laptop Per Child project and its XO-1 unit have been criticized on several fronts.

Design

On November 10, 2005, Lee Felsenstein criticized the centralized, top-down, “imperialistic” design and distribution of the OLPC. Felsenstein, currently of the Fonley Institute, draws upon his previous experience with distributed collaboration and open source hardware in the Homebrew Computer Club.

Environmental concerns

The project has received criticism due to concerns over environmental and health impacts of hazardous materials found in other computers. Many nations and organizations are working towards the development of “Green Electronics” (e.g. European Union with Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive).

While any project on this scale will have environmental impact, OLPC has asserted that it is aiming to use as many environmentally friendly materials as it can; that the laptop and all OLPC-supplied accessories will be fully compliant with the EU's Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS); and that the laptop will use an order of magnitude less power than the typical consumer notebooks available as of 2007, minimizing the environmental burden of power generation.

• The original design provided a hand crank for charging the battery. The production design has a nominal 12 volt power socket (usable range of 10-15 volts) that functions with any power generation system that can charge a 12 volt car battery.

• The XO's lithium-iron-phosphorus (LiFeP) battery contains no toxic heavy metals.

• The screen backlight uses LEDs rather than fluorescents, and so contains no mercury.

• The XO can be dismantled with a #1 Phillips screwdriver for recycling.

• The plastic parts can be completely separated by color for recycling rather than downcycling.

• The XO is one of eight computers to receive EPEAT's Gold rating for environmental performance.

Effective use of money

At the UN conference in Tunisia, several African officials, most notably Marthe Dansokho of Cameroon and Mohammed Diop of Mali, voiced suspicions towards the motives of the OLPC project and claimed that the project was using an overly American mindset that presented solutions not applicable to specifically African problems. Dansokho said the project demonstrated misplaced priorities, stating that clean water and schools were more important for African women, who, he stated, would not have time to use the computers to research new crops to grow. Diop specifically attacked the project as an attempt to exploit the governments of poor nations by making them pay for hundreds of millions of machines. Additionally, the price of $188/unit does not include the cost of setup, maintenance, training of teachers, or Internet access. Countries adopting the XO-1 must budget for these costs as well.

One criticism has been that the money for purchasing laptops could be more favorably spent on libraries and schools. John Wood, founder of Room to Read, emphasizes affordability and scalability over high-tech solutions. While in favor of the One Laptop per Child initiative for providing education to children in the developing world at a cheaper rate, he has pointed out that a $2,000 library can serve 400 children, costing just $5 a child to bring access to a wide range of books in the local languages (such as Khmer or Nepali) and English; also, a $10,000 school can serve 400–500 children ($20–$25 a child). According to Wood, these are more appropriate solutions for education in the dense forests of Vietnam or rural Cambodia.

Give One Get One program order fulfillment problems

The Give One Get One program, which was conducted by OLPC from 12 November 2007 through 31 December 2007, allowed North Americans to make a combined donation of USD$400 plus shipping to OLPC, for which they would receive an XO laptop of their own and have another sent on their behalf to a child in a developing country. Some 83,500 donors participated in the program. However, a significant minority (at least 10%) of these had not received their "Get One" laptop a couple months after their donation because of order fulfillment and shipment issues within both OLPC and the outside contractors it had hired to manage those aspects of the program. This led many donors to question whether OLPC's management and staff were capable of successfully managing the much larger task of distribution of laptops to the developing world.

Price

India rejected the initiative, saying “it would be impossible to justify an expenditure of this scale on a debatable scheme when public funds continue to be in inadequate supply for well-established needs listed in different policy documents”. The Ministry of Human Resource Development of India has stated plans to make laptops at $10 for schoolchildren. Two designs submitted to the ministry from a final year engineering student of Vellore Institute of Technology and a researcher from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore reportedly describe a laptop that could be produced for "$47 per laptop" for even small volumes. No technical specifications or development timelines have been released.

Originally, the Argentinian government was promised the OLPC laptops for less than 100 USD with no strings attached. However, the final prototypes ended up costing almost twice as much and requires the government to commit to the OLPC program for 10 years. The funding from this project is expected to come from the Inter-American Development Bank (I.A.D.B.), leading to more controversy.

Nigerian (Lancor) lawsuit

Lagos Analysis Corp., also called Lancor, a Lagos, Nigeria-based company, sued OLPC in the end of 2007 for $20 million, claiming that the computer's keyboard design was stolen from a Lancor patented device. The amount of damages is based upon an order by the Nigerian government for one million of the laptops. Lancor decided that, since their keyboards retail for $19.95, the $20 million is the price for one million keyboards. Lancor obtained a temporary injunction against the Nigerian sale in December of 2007, and the country's government announced that it is now reviewing its order.

OLPC responded by claiming that they had not sold any multi-lingual keyboards in the design claimed by Lancor, and that Lancor had misrepresented and concealed material facts before the court.

Pornography issue

In 2007, XO laptops in Nigeria were reported to contain pornographic material belonging to children partaking in the OLPC Program. In response, OLPC made plans for adding content filters. The OLPC foundation maintained the position that such issues were societal, not laptop related. Similar responses have led some to suggest the OLPC takes an indifferent stance concerning this issue. According to Wayan Vota of OLPC News, "The use of computers to look at porn is social problem, not a hardware one, Children have to be taught what's good and what's bad, based on the cultural context."