Nanobooks
September 4th, 2007
Packard Bell just announced its new EasyNote XS (left), a 7-inch laptop based on Via's Nanobook Ultra Mobile Device reference device. The EasyNote XS is essentially a regular Windows laptop in a very small (and kind of odd-looking) form factor. The machine offers:
…built-in Wi-Fi, a VGA webcam, 4-in-1 memory card reader, two USB ports and stereo speakers. There's up to 1024MB of RAM and 30GB hard drive. It runs the same full version of Windows XP Home Edition as a desktop PC does. The ultra-low power consumption of VIA Ultra Mobile Platform claims to give the XS extra-long battery life–more than 3 hours with Wi-Fi on.
While a lot of folks have said that the Nanobook design will "kill off" the Foleo once and for all, I don't really see how this is any different than any other UMPC out there, except this one has a keyboard. (And the price may be better, too.) But otherwise the EasyNote seems like it'll be plagued by the same things everyone hates about a regular laptop–bloat, boot time and bad battery life, to name a few.
The EasyNote XS will certainly do more stuff than a Foleo, but with it's low-power CPU and tiny display, it doesn't seem like it will do any of those extra things very well. Photo editing? Games? No thanks.
I suspect most people will use these Nanobooks for e-mail, Internet and working on office documents. Sounds like another machine I know about.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:06 am
What’s the thing to the right of the display in the second pic?
September 4th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
TommyT, I’ve found that more and more devices, these days, are offering lcd’s which give information about remaining battery life and other notable details, without having to boot-up. I’m guessing this is something similar. I’m just surprised that it’s not externally viewable.
As far as the overall device is concerned, I’m glad to see more options out there, but I think a 7-inch screen is seriously pushing it AND I’m not impressed by 3-hour battery life on such a small device. My 17-inch Toshiba Qosmio laptop can just about match that. Considering the size difference, the battery life on the two shouldn’t be comparable, at all.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
They should have made the display go all the way across. Looks weird that way.
September 7th, 2007 at 11:53 am
I doubt you can fit everything into one device. Capacity, speed, battery-life, price, weight and etc. have their own role in collecting machine. So Nanobook and Foleo have completely different user base.
While I really like EEE, Foleo and Nanobook most probably my choice will be Nanobook. Not sure what bloat you are talking about but I will use linux not Windows. That will not help reaching instant boot but I don’t need that really much. Battery life is way too short but I don’t care about that as well.
What I really like is enough big real disk while I really would love Foleo with sshfs - that would solve big disk problem