BenQ launches 'dream netbook'

Taiwan-based BenQ has made its first foray into the netbook market, with the launch of its Joybook Lite U101. The netbook targets students, road-going sales people and general internet users and retails for $490.

“The ultra-portable, affordable netbook, could well be the driver of the PC industry and will be a popular segment in coming months. We only see things going up from here,” said Manish Bakshi, BenQ’s general manager for the Middle East and Africa.

The Joybook Lite is available in a variety of colours and weighs 1.1kg. The company says that BenQ’s netbook holds the advantage of being the first netbook in the world to offer a 10.1-inch LCD screen with an aspect ratio of 16:9. The 16:9 aspect ratio allows movies to run without borders when compared to ratios like 16:10 and 4:3.

BenQ staff also believe that screen sizes above 10 inches will soon be the norm for netbooks and expect 7 inch and 8.9 inch screens to be phased out as early as February of next year.

The netbooks other specifications include a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 512MB of memory, a 160GB hard drive and a 1.3-megapixel webcam. Windows XP is offered as the standard operating system.

Bakshi is very confident about the netbook market saying: “The future of the netbook market looks increasingly bright. We are expecting a lot of casual users to move to netbooks rather than feature packed cell phones. This is due to netbook’s enhanced features that make it a perfect mobile internet device along with reasonable pricing and portability.”

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