Mio announces Litepad netbooks and notebooks

8 June 2009 10:14 GMT / By Lars-Göran Nilsson

Mio, best known for its GPS devices, has launched a range of new notebooks and netbooks at Computex which all come with a built-in 3.5G modem, but luckily, this isn't the only interesting feature on offer.

Mio has taken a leaf out of Apple's book and gone for a MagSafe-type power connector, although it's a slightly different implementation to Apple's MagSafe.

The notebooks either come with AMD's Yukon platform which includes a single core Athlon Neo processor, or Intel's CULV platform and will come with a selection Celeron, Core 2 Solo and Core 2 Duo processors. The netbook does of course feature Intel's Atom N270.

All models can be folded flat at 180 degrees which is an odd feature, but Mio is suggesting that this is useful for document viewing by more than one person.

The notebooks which go under the Litepad brand also come with HDMI output, a 12.1-inch display with 1,366 x 768 resolution and of course Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Both models are 24.9mm thick and weigh in at a magical 1299 grams.

The netbook is known as the Litepad and comes in a range of colour options including white, black, blue and brown. It's 25mm thick and weighs a mere 880g.

Sadly the Litepad features an 8.9-inch screen, despite there being enough space for a larger 10.2-inch display in the chassis. However, the cool feature on the Litepad is the fact that it comes with a built-in GPS receiver and MioMaps installed which allows you to use it as a
navigation device. We're not sure how practical this is, but it's an interesting feature.

The Litepad also has a motion sensor built in, so if you put it on its side, the screen will flip over and Mio is suggesting that it can be used as an e-book reader in this mode, but again, it's a bit cumbersome to use this way.

Finally it has a very fast 32GB SSD drive and Mio has also installed an instant boot simple Linux OS on the Litepad which gives you access to the web within a few seconds after powering on the system.