By Paul Kunert
16 September 2008
Toshiba and Samsung will launch netbooks into the European client market in October to try and cash in on a sector that has been tipped for explosive growth.
It was a busy summer as Hewlett-Packard, Acer, MSI, Lenovo and Dell all came to market or announced plans to enter the market for mobile Internet devices pioneered by ASUS last year.
A spokesman at Toshiba confirmed to Microscope that its netbook will be released within weeks but was unable to provide further details in advance.
However the device due to launch here, the Satelite NB105 was unveiled in Mexico weeks ago and features an 8.9” screen, Intel’s Atom processor, 1GB memory, 120GB hard drive and ships with Windows XP.
The model to be unveiled by Korean vendor Samsung includes a 10.2” screen, the Atom CPU, 1GB memory, a choice of 80GB or 120GB hard drive and will be sold with XP in October. Samsung was unavailable to comment.
Out of the top ten worldwide PC vendors, only Sony and Apple have yet to lift the covers off any plans they may have for the netbook market, which Gartner has predicted will reach 50 million units by 2012.
