Gigabyte’s known for making netbooks that are innovative, but not necessarily cheap. The company’s M912 was the first 10 inch laptop with an Intel Atom CPU to sport a convertible touchscreen tablet style design. And the recently announced Touch Note, Booktop, and Thin Note models all have premium features that will tack a few dollars onto the base price.
Now Netbook Choice reports on a rumor that Gigabyte may be introducing some lower priced models in June. The Gigabyte P1080 and P1082 netbooks will reportedly sport 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel displays, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPUs, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, 802.11b/g WiFI, Bluetooth, and optional 3G modems. They’ll come with a 4 cell battery, weigh 2.6 pounds, and measure 10.5″ x 7.3″ x 1.2″. If the specs are less than remarkable, that’s probably because this netbook is meant to compete based on price, not specifications.
Gigabyte would do well to make some less expensive netbooks. Their current models are interesting as they have more than the “me too” features everyone else has but those extra features drive the price up considerably. If they can find a way to make their budget netbooks stand out while keeping the price competitive they could have a winner on their hands.