ViewSonic launches VNB100 and VNB101 netbooks

Goes for light-weight, long-lasting Li-Polymer batteries

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23 July 2009 16:03 GMT / By Lars-Göran Nilsson

ViewSonic is most well known for its display products, but the company has dabbled with various types of mobile computers in the past and was one of the first companies out with a tablet PC. A new announcement of two new netbooks sees ViewSonic entering an already crowded market space.

The two models are the VNB100 and VNB101 and although the model names aren’t that different, the two models have distinctly different designs. The VNB100 is the budget model of the two, yet it offers more features than the more expensive VNB101.

The VNB100 comes in four different colours at launch, black, white, yellow and hot pink. The VNB100 on the other hand will be available in
black, red and champagne, with all three colour options featuring a special coating that is meant to help protect against spills and wear
and tear. Design wise the VNB100 looks fairly generic, while the VNB101 seems to have borrowed a few design queues from the Asus Eee PC S101, which isn’t a bad thing.

The VNB100 will ship with an Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. It also has a 10.2-inch display with netbook
standard 1024 x 600 resolution, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, Wi-Fi, a memory card reader, an ExpressCard 34 slot (for various third party add-on cards) and three USB 2.0 ports. It measures 253 x 189 x 36mm and weighs in at 1.4kg.

The VNB101 comes with an Atom N280 processor, but retains the 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive. It shares the same 10.2-inch 1024 x 600 display, but due to its slimmer design, it only has a 0.3 -megapixel webcam. Furthermore it has a rear mounted memory card reader, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR as well as a USB 2.0 port on each side. The VNB101 measures 266 x 182 x 27mm and weighs in at a fairly light 1.1kg thanks to its light-weight Li-Polymer battery.

The VNB100 is priced at a very affordable £256, with the VNB101 coming in at £293 which is still quite reasonable. Both models should see availability in the Asia-Pacific region from the end of this month and we were told that both models are likely to launch in Europe later this year.