Orange County Register

Santa Ana’s Averatec is coming out with an 18-inch netbook, which sounds contradictory to the whole netbook idea of being thin and light (some netbooks are tiny laptops with a mere 7-inch screen for $299).

The computer, dubbed All in One Design, is really an 18.2-inch 18.4-inch widescreen monitor with the netbook hardware as its base.

I stopped by its office this week to get the scoop from Darren Lee, Averatec’s director of marketing.

Netbooks tend to be smaller, cheaper and less powerful laptop computers. They’re being pitched to consumers as machines meant for Internet usage, and then some. It seems that everyone has a netbook these days, including the big companies Dell, HP and Acer. Averatec plans to release a standard netbook by Christmas.

But this all-in-one netbook (keyboard isn’t attached) is definitely unique. I do remember a similar design from prototypes that I saw a few years back, but I have never seen such designs in stores.  The arm attaching the monitor to the base flexes until it’s flat against the back of the monitor and top of the base. Thus, it’s easy to mount to the wall.

Watch my video of Averatec’s Darren Lee demonstrating this feature:

Averatec’s computer has a lot of useful features: webcam, 160 GB hard drive, Wi-Fi and card reader. But missing is Bluetooth. If you’re going to mount this to the wall, it’ll need a wireless keyboard. That means you’ll have to use one of its 5 USB ports to add a bulky wireless dongle. But with Bluetooth, you won’t have that excess clutter.

The 9-pound contraption also claims to be the thinnest all-in-one design, with the LCD at 0.59-inch thick and the base at 1.3-inches. While white and black units are being made, only the black version will be available in the U.S. Estimated price: $549.99!

More specs:

Built-In Webcam & MIC
Piano Black Design
Weight approx 4 lbs.
Microsoft Windows XP ULCPC
Intel ATOM CPU: N270 (1.6GHz / 533MHz FSB / 512K)
18.4″ Widescreen LCD (1680 x 945)
1GB DDR2 System Memory
160GB SATA HDD
Super Multi Dual Layer DVD Burner
802.11 b/g wireless LAN integrated
Integrated webcam (1.3M) and 5 USB 2.0 ports
4-in-1 Memory Card Reader
15 pin D-Sub Video out port

Lee is hoping to get this into electronics stores. At minimum, it will start selling it on its own site probably by the end of the year.  A few pics I snapped on my visit:

Averatec All in One in white from behind

Averatec's netbook twists in white and black.

More on netbooks:

• Dell jumps into netbooks with $399 PC
• Acer cuts price of its 2-month old ‘netbook’ PC
• Will crazy colors spur interest in new netbooks?
• Another PC company to launch cheap ‘netbook’
• Mini PCs you may have missed
• Netbooks everywhere! Do consumers really want them?

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