The inexpensive XO laptop was created for children in underprivileged environments, but for the past few weeks I've been using it as a travel PC, leaving the 17-inch MacBook at home. The XO beats the MacBook hands down in portability. But could I get my work done on a laptop meant to be an educational platform for 7 to 10-year-olds?

The short answer is yes, though not without some minor glitches.

Like many of you, when I'm on the road I need to be able to do three things: write, check my mail, and surf the web. In fact, that's all many us use a PC for. While it's fun to have the big laptop with me to play games and watch movies on, those functions aren't as crucial as the basics. A 17-inch machine is heavy, and it's really too big to use effectively in those tiny airplane seats.

The XO is light and works well in an airplane seat. And since my iPhone covers most of my entertainment needs, the XO seemed like a good alternative.

Writing on the XO: The XO's small, rubberized keyboard isn't a problem for me; I've got small hands for an adult and never learned to touch type. The built-in word processor, Write, is minimalist but provides formatting and tables.

While the XO does do some real-time spell checking and highlights misspelled words, nothing supplies a list of potential correct spellings, and there's no way to access the dictionary that has flagged the misspelled words. That's a curious omission for an educational product shipping to potentially multi-lingual users, especially when the open-source package it's based on - AbiWord - has that capability. I would hope this would be a high priority for the OLPC Write developers.

Write imports MS Word files, so it's possible to copy a document from another computer onto a thumb drive, load it onto the XO, open it, and work on it. Write doesn't output Word Docs, though. It outputs rtf, html, and txt formats. I had mixed results with moving rtf docs back to the Mac version of Word, but moving txt files to a txt processor worked fine. While it would be nice for the OLPC community to improve this process and build better export into Write, the main market for the XO -children for whom the XO is their only computer - doesn't need this.

Web access on the XO:  Wireless networking with the XO is robust and, for the most part, simple. The XO was designed to be a WiFi-friendly device and finds open and closed networks with ease. It connects simply to open networks and provides a request box for password entry for some forms of network security. Others require a command entered in the terminal, but the security and password upgrades for the neglected types are high priority and should be menu driven soon.

The XO displays available networks in a graphic map-like display. Protected networks have a "lock" icon and open ones do not. Clicking on the colored circle that represents a network gets you access to it.

Web browsing is done in a stripped-down version of Firefox called Browse. Currently there is limited Flash functionality in the shipping machine, but plug-in software can be downloaded from the OLPC site to fill this gap. The Opera browser has also been adapted to work on the XO and can be downloaded.

While saving bookmarks in Browse is simple, getting back to them is less so. They must be accessed from the Journal portion of the XO operating system instead of the browser itself. The upside is that the system can archive web pages for reuse when there is no connectivity available.

Mail: There is no native mail application on the system, but with web mail widely available these days, this is hardly an issue. I was able to access my RIT web mail client without a glitch, and there's a downloadable GMail reader from the XO website as well.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a tiny laptop to use on the road and want it to replicate your home PC, the XO probably isn't for you. If you bought the XO primarily for other reasons (to support the group's work, to develop software, to give to your kids, etc.) you'll find it a viable tool on the road.

At the moment, the "Give 1, Get 1" program I used to purchase my XO's is closed, so it'll be tough to get an XO if you haven't already ordered. They are available on eBay; based on a quick glance, the auctioned XO's are going for $250 to $300, or you can buy one outright for $450 and up, shipping included.

If you don't want to let the Ebay sellers profit off of the resale of an item produced by a not-for-profit manufacturer, check http://laptop.org once a week or so. OLPC neither confirms nor denies a return of the program, but at its peak it was generating $2 million a day, so it might well see a comeback.

For more background, see my previous piece on the XO.