Toshiba Shows Off Mini-Book Prototype, Not Really an Eee PC Rival

Toshiba may have sent some feelers that it is also keen on coming out with its own netbook/mini-pc that would rival the Eee PC and the others the past of couple of days. But if the market trends for netbook is to be its basis for manufacturing their own netbook, Toshiba would rather explore on a different avenue rather than join the already saturated netbook market since, prices of netbooks and UMPC would seem not to be a profitable niche anymore.
PCAuthority is running a story on Toshiba’s prototype mini-book. A 5.6-inch mini-book which runs on Vista and powered by Intel’s Atom processor. It’s motherboard was said to be half the size of the Portege R500 notebook’s motherboard. It is also packed with a 64GB SSD and a GPS.
However, although the mini-book prototype may seemed cool, Toshiba doesn’t think that it is a viable product due to its small screen. Hence, Toshiba is looking into coming out with a ULPC instead of a netbook since it doesn’t want to compete with the Eee PC and the netbook brands anymore due to the decreasing prices of netbooks.
Actually, the prototype could very well speak of what Toshiba is planning to manufacture. We’re thinking that with a larger screen, it would now be a more viable product for the UMPC market.
Let’s see what Toshiba can come up with in the coming days.
Via [Electronista]

July 26, 2008 






