Packard Bell enters netbook market

Packard Bell last night pulled the curtains back on its entry into the netbook market at an event in Central London.

The dot is an 8.9-inch netbook which Packard Bell says is the first that's apparently specially designed for mainstream consumers. That's a pretty bold claim to make, but Packard Bell is late to the netbook party currently controlled by Asus with its hugely successful Eee PC line.

Packard Bell said last night that it has been watching the netbook market with interest, but believes that nearly all of the models on the market have been designed with business users--and not consumers--in mind.

It packs everything you'd expect an Atom based notebook to have - a 1.6GHz N270 Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 1,024 x 600 8.9-inch display are all present. What's more there's a 160GB hard drive, three USB 2.0 ports, a five-in-one card reader, 802.11b/g wireless, an integrated webcam and an optional 3G module.

The manufacturer has decided to offer Windows XP as the only operating system choice on the dot - there's no Linux OS for the community to dig their teeth into this time around.



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Packard Bell says that the machine will start at £299--what's not clear are the optional upgrades since there is no OS choice--and it'll be available from PC World in January 2009.

What do you think to Packard Bell's entry into this market? Let us know in the forums.

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