hivision-pw700b

HiVision made headlines a while back when the company began showing off a netbook it said could be sold for as little as $98. I’m pretty sure there was a misunderstanding, and that HiVision was looking for distributors that would pay the company $98 for the netbook and turn around and sell it to customers for somewhere between $100 and $200. But no matter how you cut it, HiVision has some cheap netbooks in its arsenal.

Now Asus Eee Hacks has posted unboxing photos of a HiVision PW700B evaluation unit.While the actual price may not be clear, here’s a rundown of this tiny laptop’s specifications:

  • CPU: 360MHz Ingenic JZ4740 32-bit processor
  • Display: 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixels
  • Storage: 2GB flash memory
  • RAM: 128MB SDRAM 133MHz
  • I/O: 2 USB 1.1 ports, SD/MMC card slot
  • Connectivity: 10/100MB Ethernet, 802.11b/g WiFi
  • Operating System: Linux distribution based on Linux 2.6.24.3 kernel
  • Battery: 3000mAh, 3 hours
  • Weight: 1.4 pounds / 650 grams
  • Dimensions: 8.5″ x 5.7″ / 21.5 x 14.4cm

The HiVision PW700B also has an 80 key keyboard, which I can’t imagine is horribly comfortable to type on. While this may be one of the cheapest and smallest netbooks around, it’s far from the most capable. And at a time when you can often find more powerful mini-laptops like the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Asus Eee PC 900A on sale for $200 or less, it’s kind of hard to justify spending money on a machine with 128MB of RAM and a 360MHz CPU.

Still, the PW700B might be attractive for businesses that want to order in bulk and customize these netbooks for their own corporate purposes.

You can find more unboxing photos at Asus Eee Hacks.

HiVision also showed off a number of other netbooks, many with larger screens and more powerful processors at CES in January.

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10 replies on “HiVision PW700B $100 netbook unboxed”

  1. Lets make this real….

    Would you rather have this HiVision PW700B $100 netbook or this: https://www.amazon.com/Barbie-BG68-08-B-Smart-Laptop/dp/B001AOCJKO/ref=pd_sbs_t_1

    This is a tiny 7″ netbook but it kicks the stuffing out of most toys. And I mean a toy for kids or even for adults…something you can play around with test out some Linux. The name word might be hobby-book. Sure for $50 or $80 more you can get something twice as good, but what if you don’t need something twice as good?

    There’s a niche for this machine, and I sure wish Mattel would sell something like this to parents to give their first computer to a kid.

  2. At $100 it is worth buying just to play with. You can take it in harm’s way without the worry you might have with your primary netbook. Oh great, now we will all need ANOTHER computer.

    1. I work for the largest distributor of Sub-$100 netbooks in the US we also sell retail and I sell tons of these to replace broken laptops or because the laptop is too heavey and big to carry around all the time. People are willing to put up with the small keyboard but an external wireless mouse and keyboard can be had for $20 and works well. I use an external 500GB drive to store stuff on (media etc…) since 2GB does not store a lot of movies and pictures and mp3’s I love mine and love selling these.

  3. I like it.

    Seems like the netbooks have been trending up to more $$ units bridging the gap between traditional notbooks. I really don’t like this direction.

    I don’t care that X manufacture is coming out with an 11″, I want them to do 8″ and 9″ better than before and we are not seeing that.

    Yeah the specs leave a LOT to be offered, I’d buy one though to support the cause. Hell I spend more going out to dinner.

  4. *sigh*…MAYBE at $100. But that’s pushing it. Really. Less than 400MHZ? Say hello to your new portable word processor…can flash even run on a mips chip(I assume that’s what this is)?

    At least it came with an SNES emulator installed. Nice. Nintendo will have them killed for it by ninjas dressed up by Pokemon. But still, nice.

    Then again, in this economy, for the cheapest students and others among us…nah.

Comments are closed.