This could be one of those territory naming issues. (Remember that the SH6 and K600 were the same device from Kohjinsha?) because what I’m seeing being reported by Aving looks like old news. The SA5 is the latest version of the AMD-Geode SA1 that was released in 2006 and has a 1024×600 touchscreen instead of the 800×480 and it’s already available at the Kohjinsha Japan website. Aving, however, are reporting about a ‘new’ E8 that will launch at the end of Feb. The only thing that looks different is the pricing. What this could be is a re-positioning exercise following the Inventec takeover of KJS (Kohjinsha) and a move down into the cheap PC market or, even a clear-out of the old AMD Geode-based devices before the Menlow-based devices turn up. (You can guarantee that Invetec are looking at Menlow and Diamondville platforms for cheap and ultra-mobile solutions and they’ll need to make space for these new models.)
Assuming the E8 is a re-badged SA5 (still with me?), its a solid device and can take huge 2.5″ disks, has a convertible 1024×600 touchscreen with dual mouse pointers, fast CF and SD slots and a big 4-hour (wifi-on) battery life. (8 hours with the extended battery.) Aving are reporting that it will launch in Korea for between 500,000 and 600,000 Korean Won. That’s between $530 and $635. The downside is that the AMD Geode is a fairly low-end CPU which, while fine for browsing, emails, office 2003 apps and Divx playback, has no 3D support and very limited processing power for video formats other than MPEG4
I’m thinking that in this part of the market, price is everything and Kohjinsha won’t be able to make much impact on the Eee PC sales by adding bells and whistles to the equation. It could be enough to push through some easy profits for them though as I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there that would pay for a crisp 1024×600 screen.
Information on the SA5 (including links to gallery, reviews of the SA1 version) available here.
