Welcome the Prime Note: an astoundingly normal Netbook
A blog post about Japan's Prime Note Cartina UM netbook could be written by a machine.
It fits the standard form of the late 2008 netbook with unerring accuracy: a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU is wedded to a gig of RAM and a 9" display with 1024x600 pixels. It comes with a 120GB hard drive or a much smaller SSD, and runs Linux or Windows XP. With a webcam, WiFi and a $400-ish price tag, it's about 10 inches long by 7 deep, and just over an inch thick. The Prime Note weighs 2.4 pounds.
There's one big difference here, though: it's available only in Japan, in limited quantities. Hardly a problem, for once!
The differences between these devices are increasingly found in areas that the manufacturers themselves seem blind to: keyboard layout, the availability of compatible long-life batteries, and the quality of flash used in solid-state drives. A chipset's compatibility with OSX is another important consideration, if not one that could be marketed.
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I realize they're all the same spec-wise, but something about the sheer quantity of these things is making me hold off.
Yeah -- it's the stuff that's always just around the corner, like integrated 3G (already standard as the EeePC "Go" in europe)
How about a stinking dvd drive. I want a netbook to do netbook things like surfing the web from the living room. I also want to be able to watch a dvd on an airplane. Why not make a netbook that's a sixteenth of an inch thicker and has a slot loading optical drive?
And I'm tired of this question always being met with "why don't you buy a laptop?" I want a really small device that will also play a movie. Am I alone in my thinking here?
Netbook-sized laptops with optical drives exist, but are about $1000.
Kohjinsha and Fujitsu make them.
This one looks good though. Squared off edges and in Black.