This post was published 2 months 17 days ago. This info might have changed or might have become outdated.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get more confusing in that muddy, sticky market space between smartphones and notebooks….VIA Technologies has announced yet another new mobile computing device category which they are calling NetNote.

NetNote, according to VIA, is “a new market segment VIA positioned between netbooks and traditional notebooks”…sort of like Qualcomm’s Smartbooks, but those use Qualcomm’s platform while NetNotes use VIA’s Surfboard platform. See the difference?

Actually the main difference is where Qualcomm envisioned Smartbooks as small, 7 inch or so, VIA is going for the 10-12 inch space but with the added graphics and media power of their Nano and Chrome9 processors.

Combining the VIA VX855 media system processor with a choice of VIA C7-M ULV or VIA Nano processors, two new VIA Surfboard NetNote Edition platforms are available, enabling system designers the opportunity to create high-quality, energy-efficient and feature-rich solutions for manufacturing NetNote devices.

While I think the last thing mobile computing needs is yet ANOTHER product type, I do applaud the arrival of more competitors to break the Intel Atom stranglehold on small devices. The more devices that use VIA or AMD or Nvidia or ARM platforms, the better…I just wish they could all agree on a damn name.

(Source: Digitimes)