Make Room for the Mini-Notebooks: Sylvania? Lenovo? More Eees?

July 31st, 2008 by Joanna Stern

Looks like I am going to be quite busy reviewing mini-notebooks in the next few months. Not only do we expect the Gigabyte M912 and the ECS G10IL in our offices in the next few days (I sit here tracking the shipping), but it looks like from the rumblings on the Net that Sylvania and Lenovo are striking back with netbooks of their own.

JKOnTheRun got the official specs of the Sylvania G Netbook MESO (not the G or the Cloudbook lookalike, but its new G). The 8.9-inch G Netbook, which I swear is the Amtek Elego that I saw at Computex and that hit the FCC, will run a 1.6-GHz Intel Atom processor and be priced at around $299. (I’ll believe that when I see it.) It will be available with Windows XP Home and Ubuntu’s Netbook remix and in four colors (Onyx, Snow, Solar, Blossom).

You can see the complete specs below and some pictures in the gallery, but it does look promising with an 80GB hard drive.

Sylvania G Netbook Specs:

Processor: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom
Memory: 512 MB/1 GB
Storage: 80 GB Hard Disk
Battery Life Up to 4 hours
LCD: 8.9” backlit LED, 1024 x 600 resolution
LAN: 10/100 Ethernet Port
WLAN: WiFi 802.11b/g
Graphics Intel 945 Express Graphics chipset
Ports: 3 USB, VGA, headphone, microphone, multi-card reader
Dimensions 9 x 7 x 1.25-inches
Weight: 2.2-pounds

And the others? Rumors are swirling about Lenovo joining the race, which I think would be awesome. I’m looking forward to hearing something from the company. (Again, that’s when I’ll really believe it.)

Others are also talking about an Intel Classmate 3. I can confirm that a Classmate 3 is on the way: I saw some early prototype pictures at Intel a few months back.

Then don’t forget about the additional Eee PCs, or fashion Eee PCs. According to Digitimes and a leaked slide, ASUS isn’t done vomiting netbooks. ASUS CEO Jerry Shen confirmed in the article that ASUS will add two new categories of Eee PCs: Ultimate and Pro Fashion. Planned for 2008, these models will feature dual-core Atom processors and larger storage (either 120GB HDD or 32GB SSD). As for price, of course, they will be above the $699 price that ASUS has already hit with the Eee PC 1000.

Bring on the mini-notebooks!