NEC Launches Hybrid Storage Netbook

Hybrid storage in netbooks never really caught on. We saw one from MSI back in January, but aside from that, there was nothing else worth noting when it came to dual harddrives in an ultra portable, low cost machine.

This week at Computex, NEC is debuting its first hybrid storage netbook, packing both a 160 HDD and a 16GB SSD. The LaVie light has a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 LED Display and runs on an N280 Atom Processor with 1GB RAM and an Intel 945GSE Express chipset. It also boasts 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ships with Windows XP Home. Portable Monkey reports that the small computer also has a high capacity battery that sticks out the back and is good for up to 7.4 hours. The standard battery is should last more than 4.

With specs like that, it’s a more than decent netbook and the dual hard drives is a really selling point. That said, there’s always a catch and here, it’s the price. While there’s no word of a US release just yet, this thing will hit the Japanese market this month with a price tag of roughly $700. A little too much for a netbook, we think.

MSI released the first netbook with hybrid storage at the end of 2008. The U115 Hybrid is your bog standard netbook with various combination of 8GB or 16GB for the SSD, and 120 GB or 160 GB for the HDD. The Hybrid uses the SSD for running windows and the HDD for storage, which is akin to users running the operating system on the hard drive with the most RPMs in the box, but going to SSD has the added advantage of power savings. MSI’s Hybrid also boasts an "eco mode" which will temporarily disconnect the HDD to save power, instead to run only with the more efficient SSD.