While tech-blogs across America are chock-full of reports on the ultra-mobile, ultra-value Eee PC, there’s another ultra-mobile ultra-value PC launching in Europe. Its hardly causing waves though despite it being the same size and weight. Its the Packard Bell Easybook XS-20 [specifications] which is based on the VIA Nanobook reference design launched earlier this year.
When I say ‘launching in Europe’ I guess I should say ‘might be available in some countries for a price that seems to be varying country to country.’ There really is no buzz and very little marketing going on around the Easynote XS and I was lucky to stumble across a possible purchase after being alerted to its availability in Holland by a member here on UMPCPortal. After a swift cross-border cash handover, I got it home yesterday night. Let me be honest and give you my personal opinion about how I felt when I opened it. It’s about as exciting as getting a pair of new school shoes from your Mum. You MUST remember that feeling don’t you? Of course, that opinion is fairly subjective. It IS impressively small, but I knew that already! [read-on]
And yet, here I am, [I started writing this after breakfast yesterday] in my dressing gown, sitting in an armchair with the Easynote on my lap, writing this report without any problem at all. The Easynote XP-20 works very well indeed. Inside that uninspiring design (that’s me being polite!) is a good set of components. The 1.2Ghz VIA C7-M, 1GB of RAM and Windows XP make a good combination for a fairly speedy system. The LED-backlit screen is clear and bright, the 13GB of free disk space is useful and over 2.5 hours of WiFi-on browsing (nearly 4 hours max) battery life is better than other sub-notebook devices. (SH6, S37 I’m talking about you!) and if you compare it to the similar but less-powerful touch-screen Kohjinsha SA1 F00KS, this is an absolute bargain. In fact, what you’ve got is an Amtek T770 minus the touchscreen, in a sub-notebook casing for a lot less money. Even the T770 was good value so the Easynote is even better.
More images in the gallery. Specification info in the product page.
I’ve had about 5 hours of intensive testing with the Easynote now and from the technical angle I’m convinced that it represents very good value for an ultra mobile notebook PC. Video performance is good (perfect YouTube playback, Divx and WMV at reasonable quality rates) and the keyboard is very good quality (same as SH6 and V37, V5 and likely, the Eee PC.) I really like the LED-backlit screen (brighter than Q1/b/p) and there’s not much fan noise or heat. WiFi and Bluetooth work (WiFi reception is a little weak and there’s no A2DP support on the Hitachi BT stack) along with the SD card slot (not lightning fast.) Standby works well (6 second resume) and even the little web camera isn’t bad. Technically its solid. The screen hinge feels tough and I’m even starting to get used to the tiny tiny mouse pad. I dare say I could keep this and get as much productivity out of it as the 1000-euro Kohjinsha SH6 that I bought. It might even be faster!
The story really should end there on a high note but unfortunately for Packard Bell and other manufacturers of sub-notebook PCs, we have to take the Eee PC into consideration now. Even though its not currently available in Europe, we know it’s coming soon.
If I was a skilful marketing person I’m sure I would be able to find a reason why you ‘should’ buy the Easynote over the Eee PC but lets be pragmatic; for almost every target customer I can think of, the Eee PC appears to be able to satisfy the requirements for half the price. We’re not looking at professional/business customers here and therefore the ability to install Office 2007, Photoshop Elements or to even have a firewall and anti-virus software just doesn’t come into the equation and if you really wanted to, you could upgrade the Eee PC to XP for under 100 Euros. There’s no processing power advantage in the VIA C-7 at 1.2Ghz and in-fact the graphics capability on the Eee PC has more potential. There’s no significant battery life advantage (the Eee PC seems to be running for over 3 hours according to most reports) and the 13Gb of free disk space is useless for anyone wanting real storage capacity. The extra 512MB RAM is one specification that you could argue about but in my opinion it won’t make a noticeable difference and finally, no-one is going to complain about plugging in a Bluetooth dongle when they’ve just saved 300 Euros. Most customers won’t even know what Bluetooth is. The same goes for DVI-output!
More information, specifications and external news/review links
in the product page.
Packard Bell have about a 3-4 months in which to market the Easynote because as it stands today, the Eee PC hasn’t launched and it will probably be a while before the word gets round. The Easynote XS IS a good little PC and it could sell well but If I were Packard Bell I’d think carefully about how to do it. I wouldn’t assume that the high-street buyer won’t have heard of that ‘Linux notebook for half the price.’ and I wouldn’t rely on the sales people being able to sham their way to a sale. I’d give it a real USP by upgrading the HDD to 60GB and I would think carefully about a 100 Euro after-Christmas discount because 499 Euro is the price it needs to be at to compete then.
Ill put some images up and a more tech-oriented, objective review in the next few weeks and, as I have an Eee PC on order, will do some close comparisons with the ASUS competitor.
New Packard Bell XS gallery here.
Thanks to DavidW for helping me buy the Easynote XS from Holland.
where can i buy this thing?