Universal Micro Electronics prototype

Asus, MSI, and HP have been making a big splash with netbook announcements over the past few days. But I took a trip off the beaten path (really I was just trying avoid the crowds – they really know how to beat a path!) and happened across this little guy hanging out at the Universal Microelectronics booth.

The company is a ODM based in Taiwan, so if and when this netbook ever comes to market, it won’t bear the Universal Microelectronics name. And at first glance, it’s a chunky little beast with a 7 inch display and a VIA C7-M CPU. But when you look a little closer it hsa a few neat features. 

First, it has a touchcscreen display and a swivel that lets you fold the screen down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. And second, while there’s no built in 3G modem, there are three expansion ports on top of the device. The booth representative told me that two of the slots were for ExpressCards and the third was for SD cards, but that middle one doesn’t look like any ExpressCard slot I’ve ever seen before. 

You can find a picture of those expansion slots and another photo of the netbook prototype after the break.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,544 other subscribers

6 replies on “Netbook prototype can connect to any network with the proper card”

  1. Fisher-Price just called they want their 1992 fake laptop toy back. Damn that thing is fuggly!

  2. Looks like they settled on where to put the right hand side shift key –
    tossed it into the spare parts bin. 😉

  3. A cute little sucker, isn’t it? It looks like the first $50 computer prototype.
    Perhaps the mystery slot is a CF card slot. Would seem to make sense.

Comments are closed.