BenQ, the unpronounceable (benk, ben-queue?) champion of cheap monitors, has popped out a netbook of its own.
The aptly named JoyBook should bring a smile to the face of netbook hackers everywhere, although BenQ seems to have got the important things (keyboard, screen, trackpad) very wrong.
Laptop Mag’s post-girl (she always gets to open new deliveries) Joanna Stern took a look and concluded that the keyboard, while claimed as 90% of full-size, is in fact almost the same as the junky MSI Wind keyboard, complete with the withered, misplaced right shift key. The screen, too, is small. It’s a ten-incher, but is missing a few pixels on the vertical — 1024 x 576 vs. 1024 x 600. Those four missing rows mean a true 16:9 aspect ratio. They also mean you lose four rows for everything else. That’s 4096 pixels, people!
Inside, things get interesting. There’s a SIM slot hidden below the battery, and a pair of panels which reveal both RAM and "SSD". The latter carries a warranty-void warning, but underneath there is indeed space for a 1.8" disc. The RAM panel also reveals a mini PCI-e slot, useable for a 3G modem or another SSD.
Finally, the outside is a mess. While sleeker than the Wind, BenQ seems to have had a font explosion in the JoyBook factory, spraying wingdings all over the place. Look closely and you’ll see that the symbols actually read "JoyBook" in various directions.
Specs? C’mon. It’s a netbook. Atom 1.6GHz, 160GB HD…
A Bundle of Joy Arrives: BenQ JoyBook Lite U101 First Impressions [Laptop Mag]
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