It’s Baaack: Hands-On with the Everex CloudBook Max

I stopped by the VIA booth at Computex today to see its menagerie of mini-notebooks. I had seen the newest version of the CloudBook Max behind glass at CTIA in April, but I was finally able to play around with the second-generation Everex mini-notebook this morning. So does it remove the bad taste in my mouth left by the original CloudBook? On the whole, yes.

As for hardware, the system feels a lot more sturdy. With a larger 8.9-inch footprint, the system gives you more real estate on the screen and keyboard. However, the trackpad is still extremely small. It is definitely smaller than on the Eee PC 701, but larger than the original’s finger-size pad located above the keyboard. I do not miss that odd thing.

The CloudBook Max on display was running Windows XP, which sure beats the gOS that was originally preloaded on the system. I have no complaints about the sizing of the windows on the 8.9-inch display; looks like they adjusted the OS for the system this time around!

Still powered by the same VIA CM-7 chip, the CloudBook Max was still was pretty warm, but I am happy to report that performance was a whole lot better. Launching applications took no more than a few seconds and thankfully it took nowhere near a minute like previously experienced. Boot time, compared to the original’s almost 3 minutes was blazing fast at around 54 seconds. See the video below.

All in all the CloudBook Max looks like it could redeem Everex, especially if that promise of a built-in WiMAX chip comes to fruition.