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Packard Bell Steps in to Join the Netbook Crowd

Posted 09/24/08 at 10:53:46 AM  by Paul Lilly

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If you were raised on Far Cry, Athlon 64s, and Britney Spears, you probably never heard of Packard Bell. But for the slightly more ripened generation, we can remember PB as a prominent OEM up until it packed its bags and skipped out of the U.S. market nearly a decade ago.

But the company didn't disappear, and instead has maintained a presence in Europe. And like everyone else that manufacturers PCs, Packard Bell is prepping a jump onto the increasingly crowded netbook bandwagon. PB's calling its entry the "dot," which will be an 8.9-inch ultraportable with a full install of XP.

At its core, the dot comes built around an Intel Atom processor. Storage duties will be handled by a 160GB hard drive and 1GB of memory. Optional add-ons include a 6-cell battery, webcam, and a 3G module. After plugging in the exchange rate, the dot looks to sell for $584 USD in Europe this November.

Any guesses as to who will be next to offer up a netbook?

Image Credit: Packard Bell

COMMENTS:5
TAGS: mobile, notebook, laptop, Packard Bell, ultraportable, atom, netbook, dot
COMMENTS
avatarPackard Bell!?

Submitted by winmaster on Thu, 09/25/2008 - 2:24pm

Packard Bell is still a company. I thought they were just some old dusty abandoned warehouse somewhere near Future Magazine. (I'm talking about your ranting, Gordon.) I have fond memories of my PentiumI Packard Bell with 32MB of RAM running Windows 98 Second Edition. Too bad Packard Bell didn't care about the consumer.

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avatarMY guess...

Submitted by Damage on Thu, 09/25/2008 - 11:33am

Commodore!!

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avatarRosewill? the "bargin"

Submitted by yogurt80 on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 4:03pm

Rosewill? the "bargin" netbook? 

 

Ooooh....  Fisher Price?  VTech?! Leap Frog?

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avatarI think I will be next on

Submitted by b_boy_69_00 on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 10:07am

I think I will be next on the market with a netbook.  I'll buy some of the current ones, paint them, put some new stickers on them and distribute them through the local smaller computer shops/stores.  I'll sell them for $100 more than I have in them and make a killing.  And since I can just refer them to the parent company like Asus or whoever else then I never have to do tech support and I can just sit back and rake in the money.

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avatarDon't hold your breath for Apple

Submitted by skhills on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 8:41am

Since the only thing driving sales for Apple's overpriced hardware is the Holy OS that won't run legally on anything else, don't hold out hoping that they'll cannibalize their macbook sales with a netbook. 

Sony may eventually cave and create a netbook, but I'd expect it to use proprietary audio ports, USB ports, hard drive interface, etc...

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