UK company Ergo Electronics introduced a 10 inch Android netbook called the GoNote last summer for £149. Now the company is shrinking the size (and price) to offer a 7 inch, £99 GoNote Mini.

GoNote Mini

The GoNote Mini looks like a tiny notebook computer, and that’s pretty much what it is. But it has a 1.2 GHz Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 single core processor instead of an x86 chip, and it runs Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich instead of Windows.

The little laptop has a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreen display, 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. There’s a mouse button in the center of hte keyboard which you can use to move an on-screen cursor if you don’t want to reach up and touch the screen.

Around the sides of the laptop you’ll find a mini USB port, mini HDMI port, a USB 2.0 port, and a microSD card slot and 3.5mm audio jack. And the device has a front-facing VGA camera as well as a 2MP rear camera.

The GoNote Mini features a 3000mAh battery, 80211.b/g/n WiFi, and Google certification, which means that it can access the GOogle Play Store and run thousands of Android apps.

It measures 7.9″ x 4.7″ x 0.9″ and weighs 1.5 pounds.

While the GoNote Mini isn’t as powerful as an ultrabook (or even a Chromebook), it’s an interesting option for parents looking for a cheap computer for kids. It should pack enough power for basic web surfing, chat, video, and gaming activities. Since there’s a keyboard, you can pretend your kids will actually use the thing to get work done which might help explain why you’d spend money on this little contraption rather than an inexpensive Android tablet.

So far Google hasn’t really positioned Android as a notebook operating system, instead pushing it as a solution for smartphones and tablets. But we’ve seen a number of hybrid devices like the Asus Transformer Pad series blur the lines in the past. And there’s a (probably unfounded) rumor going around that Google could be preparing to launch its own “Androidbook” one of these days.

Hopefully it’d feature a faster processor and better screen resolution than the GoNote Mini.

via Engadget and Ergo Electronics

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11 replies on “GoNote Mini is a 7 inch touchscreen Android netbook”

  1. This is great for a first computer.

    I wonder why there are still no smartbooks on offer (apart from the ARM Chromebook from Samsung).

  2. this is a good idea but it’d be nice to have a detachable display… which could be done even at this price if they spaced the batteries over the keyboard and the diaplay

  3. It looks like an updated version (more RAM, newer Android, etc.) of a cheapie selling in drugstores here under the “Craig” label for around $80.

  4. I was just thinking about getting a tiny keyboard for my samsung phone, then started looking for 5-7inch netbooks/tablets and even though you can buy a keyboard case on amazon for like $10 it wasn’t what I was looking. I was just about to ask Brad for help when I stumble across this post. This is exactly what I was looking for. A small netbook/tablet. I only wish it was more powerful so I could run “heavier” apps or if it was x86 based so I could install windows or linux on it.

    1. if (x86){
      buy[0] = viliv n5; //they are cheap(relatively) for and use intel atom
      buy[1] = fujitsu uh900; //they are expensive and use intel atom
      }

  5. why bother and waste time mentioning device which uses antediluvian screen and processor? Definitely not worth £99 when Nexus7 is getting cheaper (you can get it around £150-200)

    1. This and extra word score for antediluvian.
      This looks scary bad.

  6. If my venerable Eee 701 goes “pop” tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind a look at one of these, though the RAM and storage are half what my Eee possesses (I upgraded the RAM to 2GB).

    Wonder if it would be possible to load Arch Linux ARM on a GoNote Mini?

  7. It reminds me of the Psion netbook (the last one they made) but with way better parts. I prefer the mouse controller to a touchpad since it is – IMO – easier to use. I think that it has a touch screen gives it the best of a tablet computer and a netbook computer. Being small means it is very portable, it can be used not only by kids but also adults who want to do a quick internet search or send an e-mail (which is – IMO – easier with a keyboard). I think it looks nice.

Comments are closed.