Hannspree's Netbook is surprisingly plain vanilla

Scott Stein | Aug 24, 2009

Look familiar?
(Credit: Hannspree)

A new player to the already-flooded Netbook market is here to say hello: Hannspree, the former world supplier of utterly bizarre basketball, elephant, and plushie-shaped novelty TVs, has released its very own itty-bity Atom minilaptop for the US to buy at last. Extreme similarities to the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 notwithstanding (thanks for the observation, Julie), we have one here at the office, and it looks ok. In fact, it looks like many, many other Netbooks.

The HannsNote here on our desk.
(Credit: Scott Stein/CNET)

For US$379.99, the 10-inch HannsNote (which sounds vaguely German) weighs 1.32kg, has a six-cell battery that to its credit is better integrated than some recent Netbooks we've seen, and comes with all the standard Netbook specs--160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, 1.6GHz Atom N270, you know the drill. There are a few pleasant surprises, which we'll bullet below:

802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi

Bluetooth 2.0

A matte screen

1.3 megapixel Webcam

SD card reader

While the beefed-up connectivity is appreciated, we wish this newcomer to the Netbook scene would have been even more aggressively priced. Consumers aren't exactly comfortable with putting their computing in the hands of Hannspree, and a little newcomer discount would be appreciated. You can get a Dell for less.

Some ideas for next time.
(Credit: Hannspree)

And our one other complaint: why the heck is this thing so boring? The HannsNote only comes in "Pearl Black" and "Pearl White". And talk about somber--they haven't even made a pink model, something even Sony's gotten into.

As for teddy-bear, dolphin, sushi, cucumber, Wolverine, football, tomato, french fry, or clown designs, we'll just have to wait and cross our fingers. In fact, it's not such a crazy idea anymore--someone's already beaten Hannspree to it. Come on, Hannspree, don't lose your wackiness now!

Via CNET Crave

Filed under: Notebooks
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