Introduction
Right around the time of Computex last year, VIA sought to redefine the ultra-portable notebook market with a laptop that sacrificed over-the-top power at the altar of form-factor and price.
VIA was one of the few companies that could make it happen, too, due to its heritage in the low-power processor and chipset markets, both for the desktop and mobile devices.
The design brief was to build a fully-functioning laptop that weighed less than 1kg but was still powerful enough to run the usual gamut of apps used by most folk - so word-processing, e-mailing, Internet browsing, and so forth - under Microsoft Windows.
The final design was reflected by the NanoBook we saw at Computex. VIA's representatives confirmed that retail partners would harness the reference design, modify it to their taste, and launch models you could buy from the likes of PC World.
Now, nine months on, after the successful worldwide launch of ASUS' Eee PC, Packard Bell is one of the first to launch a branded NanoBook, priced at £349.99. Value or not, we tell you.
