Asus N10 netbook — upscale netbook?
Asus has announced the addition of yet another netbook to their ever expanding fleet, only this one isn’t an Eee. Instead, it’s the Asus N10 netbook, but since my French is rusty (read: non-existent), I haven’t the slightest clue what the reason behind the name is.
However, Engadget suggests that it’s because Asus has devalued the Eee name by bringing out so many Eee models (which are basically slight variants upon already slight variants) that they decided to keep the Eee off of it in an effort to build a more premium name, thus the Asus N10 label.
I think I kind of agree. When there’s 40+ (isn’t that the last count? or is it only 20+?) different Eee PCs, another one is just going to get lost in the shuffle, even if it is different. By going to a different name and also by changing the materials, they can push this is a higher classed item. Whether they attract the extra attention — or sales — that they want is another story entirely.
Anyhow, the Asus N10 looks like it sports the usual stuff you see on a netbook these days, though I don’t see any specific information regarding the CPU or RAM (or else can’t read French). The one out-of-the-place addition is an HDMI port.
If this is still a netbook and is using the Atom, haven’t we been down this road already? Aside from HDMI slowly gaining acceptance as a monitor input, is anyone really going to hook this up to a tv? It surely wouldn’t be to watch videos that stutter. Then again, if this isn’t sporting an Atom, that HDMI port might be useful for tvs. I’m curious which it is.
Further speculation is that it’s going to have a 320gb HDD, or at least the option for one, and Vista. I’m not sure why you’d need such a large drive on a netbook (I’m a fan of small (and fast) SSDs), but I’m sure that’ll be a nice touch for users who carry around a whole hell of a lot of data. And then there’s Vista: Vista is fine, but it’s really meant for the desktop. If this thing is sporting an Atom, then I worry for future Asus N10 owners.
Regardless, here’s the relevant links for the Asus N10 netbook details and pictures: Engadget Blogeee Digitimes
