Now that the universe has the Sony Vaio P in it (more on that in a mo), higher-end netbooks become less interesting as a result. The best ones were already lurching past $500, especially when including 3G, so paying a third more for something smaller and better isn’t a big deal. It’s the genuinely cheap ‘n’ basic ones, like the $230 9″ Eee PC at Best Buy, where the spirit of the netbook resides.
That said, the very concept of a Commodore netbook makes me weak at the knees. I know, without a second thought, without the vaguest hint of doubt, that I must have this for use solely as a portable Amiga gaming console.
They’re really just basic netbooks, like all the others, stamped a rented logo. The F-series will have a “sporty look,” according to Tom’s Hardware, while the J-series will be the business traveler’s slab of dull. There will be options with both Intel Atom (battery life) and Via Nano (performance) processors. There’ll be up to 2GB of RAM, WiFI, Bluetooth, 160GB hard drives, three USB drives and Windows XP.
Most interesting is the M-series, which will be have an Eee Surf-like 7″ display, and run Windows XP on 512MB of RAM and an Xscale CPU. Intended for the developing world, let’s see if it manages to pack in a decent keyboard and epic battery life. Remember, the cutting edge of netbooks is at the bottom.
If only they came in beige. Packaged with Psygnosis games themselves adorned with Roger Dean artwork.
Commodore Makes Appearance with New Goods [Tom's Hardware]
Is this just a rebranding you say? Who is really make them?
I would like to use this opportunity to request ending the use of the term ‘netbook’. Not as a result of any legal pressure, but because I have stumbled on a better term: liliputer.
Google tells me it is a term that is in fairly wide use, but it was a new term to me and one that I believe is lyrically and stylistically quite well suited to BBG.
load “CommodoreLove” ,8,1
@2 liputing is too much of a mouthful
I prefer the portmanteau of internet tubes and laptop into… “tubetop”.
run Windows XP on 512MB of RAM and an Xscale CPU
XP on an ARM cpu? Really? That was unlikely enough that I checked the original article – there are two M models; one that runs linux on the Xscale, and one that runs XP on an “RDC 800MHz” cpu.
@PELRUN You beat me to it; I’ve got the same question. I swear I heard years ago that a version of Windows (2K, perhaps?) had been compiled for PPC, but was only used as a demo and never sold or distributed. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented, just wholly unlikely, given the complete lack of market penetration Commodore’s little ‘books are going to have. That would be a lot of engineering resources to dump into such an oddball project for an OS that MS is already trying to shove under the rug.
I hope it’s got a 68040.