Local IT experts divided over suitability of netbooks for OLPF project

Local Information Techno-logy (IT) experts are divided over whether netbooks are the ideal instruments to be distributed to 90,000 poor families under the One Laptop per Family (OLFP) initiative.

The first instruments distributed under the project were netbooks, which were gifts from the Chinese firm Huawei. President Bharrat Jagdeo has since disclosed that the government will be procuring netbooks for the project.

Netbooks are smaller than laptops; with smaller keyboards and screens. They are lightweight and do not have optical drives, hence they do not play CDs or DVDs. Although netbooks provide all the basic functionality