Malata’s PC-98905 netbook is what you would get if you took a Sony Vaio P, stretched it out a bit to give it roomier, more comfortable keyboard, and placed a Lenovo TrackPoint-style nub in the middle of the keyboard.
Now the company is back with yet another knockoff. Basically the new Malata A802 looks exactly like the 98905 which is to say it has the same TrackPoint button, slim design, and 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display. Like its predecessor, this model also has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU rather than the newer Atom N450 chipset. And it runs Windows 7.
But there is one thing that’s new: The Malata A802 has a touchscreen display.
I’m not really sold on touchscreens for clamshell-style netbooks. If you can’t twist the screen and hold the computer in tablet mode, I just don’t see why yo’d want to spend time lifting your hand from the keyoard to poke at the screen. But the touchscreen and Vaio P-like design definitely make the Malata A802 stand out from the crowd.
The notebook costs less than $600 US which is kind of pricey for a netbook, but cheap by Sony Vaio P standards. I doubt we’ll see it outside of China anytime soon, though.
via Cloned in China
The main reason you put a touchscreen on a non-tablet-mode PC is so that you can reclaim the real estate previously taken up by the touch pad, which, as you can clearly see, is what they did.
I like the looks of it. I’ve been clamoring for netbooks with pointing sticks for quite a while, and if this had a swivel hinge and a N450 I’d snap it up in a second, especially if the touchscreen is decent for stylus use.
With a better processor and no touchscreen it wouldn’t be bad…