FIC pushes netbook boundaries with a 10.4 inch mini-note

Update: As Jean-François Thamie of Netbook 3G points out, the FIC user manual actually says this netbook has a 10.1 inch display. In other words, there’s nothing particularly unusual or noteworthy about this netbook. Or at least nothing I can see. Maybe that will change when the laptop comes to market.

I’ve often contended that notebooks with 12 inch displays, while very cool, don’t quite fit in the netbook category. By their very nature they’re just not as portable as a machine with a 10.2 inch or smaller display and they’re typically not as light weight either. But what about a 10.4 inch screen? I think I’ll go ahead and shoehorn that in the loosely defined netbook category because come on, really… it’s .2 inches.

Anyway, First International Computer is apparently building something that looks a lot like a netbook with a 10.4 inch display. The company has filed documents with the FCC indicating that the upcoming machine will feature a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, a 2.5″ SATA II HDD, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, up to 2GB of RAM, an ExspressCard slot, and a VGA output. It will also sport a 10.4 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display.

First International Computer is a contrat PC maker, which means we probably won’t see these netbooks under the FIC name. Instead, a computer make you may or may not have heard of could place an order with FIC and slap their own name on the product.

via Engadget