Averatec Readying Rebranded MSI Wind, All-In-One

We hate to say we told you so, but when we said that Averatec’s mini-notebook looked like the MSI Wind we were completely correct. Yesterday afternoon I spoke with Averatec Marketing Director Darren Lee, who confirmed that Avertec’s 10-inch netbook is the MSI Wind.

“MSI is an ODM of ours and being that we are partners they have granted us the rights to sell the MSI Wind box under our brand name,” Lee said. Lee also told us that the specs will be “nearly the same as the MSI Wind.” However, they are considering including a 160GB The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.
Learn Morehard drive rather than the 80GB one now found in the Wind. They also may strip out the Bluetooth functionality. Avertec’s version of the Wind will be available with a 3-cell battery.

Mass production will ramp up on the netbooks in the next few weeks and Lee hopes they will hit the U.S. market by mid-September. While pricing isn’t nailed down he expects them to be in the ballpark of $399 to $499. We can only hope that Averatec doesn’t suffer from the same delays as MSI and can meet the demands of the market.

Lee also revealed that Averatec is working on what he calls a “nettop” but seems to be more like an entry-level all-in-one. “We plan on bringing a 18.4-inch nettop soon after the netbook that we are hoping to price at around $599,” he said.

Lee describes the system as looking like a Sony OLED TV, with a similar looking base and arm. The all-in-one will be white for the U.S. market, but will likely be available in other colors after the initial release.

Lee interestingly said that they are internally debating what processor to use in the system. “We are deciding right now between the Intel Atom and AMD’s competitor.” He said he believes that the code name for the AMD chip is Phoenix, something we haven’t heard of yet (could it be the long-rumored Bobcat?).

An all-in-one sporting a low-powered chip sounds really interesting, but a low-powered, low-cost chip coming soon from AMD is even more fascinating.