The Jolibook netbook is now up for order in the UK, where you can pick one up for £279.99. That’s about $447 US, but computers tend to run a bit more in the UK than the US. At £279.99, the Jolibook is about the same price as the Samsung NB30, Asus Eee PC 1015P, Dell Inspiron Mini 10, and many other recent netbooks. It’s not the cheapest 10 inch mini-laptop on the market by a long shot, but neither is it particularly expensive.
The Jolibook, if you haven’t been following it, is a 10 inch netbook designed to run the Jolicloud operating system. Jolicloud is based on Ubuntu Linux, but it’s designed with a custom user interface designed to blur the lines between desktop and web apps. The idea is that you can buy a Jolibook and get online within a few minutes. Just register for an account and start installing web apps or desktop apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Google Docs, OpenOffice.org, VLC, and so on.
Your settings are saved online, allowing you to login to your Jolicloud account and manage your desktop from any internet-connected computer. You can also add friends so that other Jolicloud users can see the apps you’ve installed and vice versa, turning the OS into a sort of social app-recommendation engine.
Jolicloud OS is available as a free download and it’s designed to run on most netbooks with Intel Atom processors. But the Jolibook comes with the OS preloaded, no installation necessary.
Apparently the computer was actually built by VYE computers, since it’s being described as the VYE Jolibook, or the Jolibook by VYE on retail sites.
The netbook comes with a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 dual core CPU, integrated graphics, 1GB of DDR3 RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display. It has 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, Ethernet, and 3 USB 2.0 ports. It also has an 8-in-1 card reader, VGA port, mic and headphone jacks, and a VGA webcam. It measures 10.5″ x 7.3″ x 1″ and weighs just under 3 pounds with a 6 cell, 7 hour battery.
via Netbook News
“Jolibook”?
This is a blatant rip-off of Apple’s MacBook name, using the “book” suffix INNOVATED by Apple, much in the same way the some slates use the “pad” suffix that Apple also innovated. (Kidding.)