Want to get your hands on a smartbook with an ARM-based chipset but don’t feel like waiting for Toshiba or HP to bring their models to the US? Genesi USA has you covered.

The company has launched a mini-laptop with a 10.1 inch display and an 800MHz Freescale i.MX515 ARM Cortex-A8 CPU. The smartbook is called the Efika MX Smartbook, and while it may not have the fastest ARM-based chip around, it’s powerful enough to handle 720p HD video playback.

The device has a 1024 x 600 pixel display, 16GB of storage space, WiFi, Bluetooth, and an optional 3G modem, as well as a 1.3MP camera, SD card reader, and mic and headphone inputs.

The Genesi Efika MX Smartbook weighs about 2 pounds and measures about 0.8 inches thick. The computer runs Linux and uses less than 12 watts of power. It runs just $349, which sounds pretty good… until you realize that you can get  Windows 7 netbook for about $50 less. On the other hand, I have yet to find a Windows netbook at this price that weighs just 2 pounds.

via Blogeee and Netbook News

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5 replies on “Genesi launches the Efika MX ARM-based netbook for $349”

  1. 12 watts? Not really that impressive considering current netbooks use much less than that with proper power management.
    Then again, current netbooks can barely run 720p videos.

    1. This Smart netbook cosume at maximum 12 watt,
      not at minimum like the netbook with that unified boring Atom…
      In fact this Smartbook with 3 Cell battery run 8/10 hours , and the Atom netbook need 6 Cell battery to run 7/8 hours… and not with 720p….
      Over that is very nice becouce is fully Open Source the OS, Ubuntu and others distro. So I don’t need to spend time installing my OS and check for the compatibility. It’s already compatible with gnu/linux, nice!!!
      And what’s more I don’t need to pay for an OS (Windows) that I don’t want, very heavy and resource hungry than gnu/linux, this is another reason why netbook are less power efficient than this smart netbook.
      Have Fun! 😀

  2. I spent a considerable amount of time developing with the original EFIKA board from Genesi and will be receiving this smartbook.

    Just to clarify, the EFIKA MX is Genesi’s current line of hardware products. There are two different flavors: EFIKA MX Smartbook (like a netbook) and EFIKA MX Smarttop (like a nettop). They share similar internals. If you go looking information about this smartbook and just search for “EFIKA MX”, you’ll like only find stuff about the Smarttop version (which has been available for a while now). Hopefully, that pre-empts any confusion.

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