As Joanna mentions in her article at Laptop Magazine, it takes a lot to stand out in the netbook market right now. Yesterday I went through my own thoughts on the top netbook devices and had to leave out the Dell E, Gigabyte M912X and ECS G10L. In the last 24-hours we’ve had the final specs and EU pricing for the M912X and see that its differentiating itself with the addition of a hi-res touchscreen, ExpressCard slot and large HDD. Today, we have the information that the ECS G10L will try and differentiate itself by having two screen sizes and 3G options. On first glance, it looks like a copy of the Dell and Acer strategy. Even MSI will have a second screen-size soon but there’s something else that’s significant here.
ECS are a contract manufacturer and can offer mobile data carriers their own branded editions. With Linpus Lite as the OS (their second OS win along with the Acer Aspire) carriers can put their brand on the OS and even get some control of the application build. The big differentiator with the G10L is probably not in the specifications but in the final-product package. Expect it to be subsidised heavily to get people into their second 2-year carrier contract and expect it to be marketed heavily too.
Laptop magazine have interviewed ECS and provide some new information about pricing, availability and territorial builds. Its an interesting read.
Laptop Magazine. Interview with ECS vice president of sales, Henry Kwan.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
You went through your list of various netbooks and found that they really overlap each other (size and features). I agreed with your current leader picks.
However, do you have any news regarding one that jkkmobile was excited about (and ready to fly to Asia to get one) with a dual power AMD processor? see:
http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/06/follow-up-on-new-amd-umpc-at-computex.html
and this follow up to that:
http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-amd-umpc-confirmed-to-be-raon.html
Any news from the manufacturer about this little laptop (I personally don’t like touch pads all that much and having just the touch screen and not having touch pad at all, with maybe a larger keyboard on still a smaller more pocket sized device is something that many might want, as it is a step better than the slider keyboard, but maybe just maybe small enough to be in the same class of pocket sized device that the N810, Gigabyte, and others might be in as well)?
If it came with really long battery life and direct sunlight viewable dual mode LCD (like the OLPC) it would beat all the others for what many of us a really looking for! The size, the touch screen, it might be perfect?
July 9th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
This one below might be perfect. Have you any news about it?
http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-amd-umpc-confirmed-to-be-raon.html
If it had the same screen as OLPC to save power, and had very long battery life, then it might be what many are looking for?
Since it was not mentioned in your reviews and wrap ups over the past few days, I was wondering if you have contacts that might be able to get you some development news on this?
July 9th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I have news coming down the line for this. Hold tight!