Now, have you heed on my warning before about buying Asus Eee PC 701? Because it's not only that Asus has already released the all-new and refreshed 900 series from its Eee PC line-up, but now VIA is also set to release its OpenBook as well.
According to the Richard Brown, Vice President of VIA Technologies Corporate Marketing in his official statement at VIA's website; this OpenBook is based on last year NanoBook's reference design. This reference design is called CAD (Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike) v3.0; where it's meant to give customers such as OEMs, system integrators, and broadband service providers greater freedom in tailoring the look and feel of their device to meet the diverse needs of their target markets. Sounds pretty aggressive move against the successful sales of Asus' Eee PC and HP's 2133 MiniNote positive reviews, where VIA is planning to have broader level of customer segments.
Here are the full offical specs of VIA OpenBook:
- Processor: 1.6GHz VIA C7®-M ULV Processor
- FSB: 800MHz
- Chipset: VIA VX800 unified chipset
- Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM up to 2GB
- HDD: 80GB Hard-Disk or above
- LCD Panel: 8.9" WVGA 1024X600 LED screen
Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC3 DX9 3D engine with shared system memory up to 256MB- Video Decoding: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC1 and DiVX video decoding acceleration
- Audio: Realtek HD Audio codec, 2 speakers
- Networking: 10/100/1000 Mb/s Broadcom Giga NIC Ethernet Solution
- Wireless: Broadcom 802.11b/g or GCT 802.16e
-2in1 (WiFI+ Blue Tooth) default module
-3in1 (AGPS+WiFI+ Blue Tooth) upgrade module
-WiMAX secondary wireless module option
-EV-DO /W-CDMA secondary wireless module option
-HSPDA secondary wireless module option 
I/O: 4 in 1 embedded card reader
1 D-Sub Port
3 x USB (Ver. 2.0 Type A Port)
1 Mic-in audio jack
1 Headphone out- Webcam: 2.01 megapixel dual headed rotary CCD camera
- Dimension: 240(W)x175(D)mm
- Thickness: 36.2(H)mm ( at battery)
- Weight: Under 1kg
Operating System Support: Microsoft® Windows® XP, Windows Vista® and all popular Linux distributions- Battery: 4 Cells, 2600ma
- Options: USB interface, DVD Dual RW, Leather Cover
Pretty tempting huh? Although I'm not so fond of VIA's chipsets or processors, but they surely have been favorites for many who seek a balance between performance with price. And as I can see you who think like that, are already drooling all over your keyboard; unfortunately there are no words and certainty yet on the price tag or release date for this sub-notebook device.
But to quench your thirst for this VIA's OpenBook for now, you can visit Gizmodo and Engadget hands-on at each respective websites. And while you're at it, you can also watch the OpenBook video launch below.
The world of smaller mobile notebook, which sometimes called as sub-notebook or UMPC, is going to be more exciting as we're drawing near to Intel's launch of its newest processor for that peculiar market: the Atom. It'll be interesting to watch, who will get more attention from consumers and become the winner: Asus Eee PC with Intel Atom or HP 2133 MiniNote with VIA Isiah or VIA OpenBook with C7? We'll have to wait until all are announced and official, at Computex on next June.
[blogged with my Treo 750v]