Our good friend David Flynn over at APCMag got himself a bit of a scoop chatting with Mark Whittard from Toshiba – apparently they’re seriously planning to launch an Eee PC killer in the near future.
Although there’s very little info about the device at all, Mark did say that it would most likely feature a nine-inch screen, feature a (relatively) large SSD drive, run on an Atom processor and run Windows rather than Linux.
Interestingly, Mark used the apparently used the term ULPC to describe the device, with the “L” standing for “low-cost” rather than “light”. Which should be the perfect way to confuse customers even more than they already are.
He also mentioned that they’re goal in entering the space was to “produce a premium ULPC or mini-note at a slightly higher price by adding “a few hundred dollars” to the sticker”.
As good as it is to have another player enter the low-cost laptop market, openly stating that you’re trying to drive up the cost isn’t going to win you too many friends with consumers looking for a super-cheap lappy. After all, they’ve already got the Eee, the MSI wind and the Acer Aspire Blue… Why pay $800 when you can get away with $500?
[APCMag]