OCZ Jumps into Netbook Market with Neutrino
Over the last 18 months, the netbook market has become a jungle in terms of brands, sizes, and hardware specs. For OCZ, however, the netbook is still underpowered and lacks significant storage options.
Enter the OCZ Neutrino. From the outside, it appears to be a netbook comparable to the likes of Asus, Acer and MSI. For the most part, this is a fair observation. From the 1.6 GHz Atom processor to the 2 GB of RAM to the 10-inch 1024x600 screen, the Neutrino might impress, but it won't revolutionize the market.
However, there are two options that do raise an eyebrow. For starters, the Neutrino can pack a 250 GB OCZ SSD (2.5-inch), a rarity in the netbook sector. Most similar offerings from other companies top out at 64 GB. Go any higher with an Eee PC or Aspire One and it's a spinning magnetic hard drive for you.
The other interesting feature is that the Neutrino is part of OCZ's "DIY" (Do-It-Yourself) product line. OCZ's DIY products allow for the user to upgrade RAM and storage on their own without voiding the warranty. Sure, most of you reading this article upgrade components on your own anyways, right? Well, in this case, if the motherboard or webcam dies after you've cracked the case open, you won't be held responsible.
Expect the Neutrino to hit the U.S. sometime in the next two or three months, in both Ubuntu and Windows XP flavors. Also, if you're interested in other OCZ products at CeBIT, check out their new Z Drive, which connects one terabyte of SSD goodness to your desktop through a PCI Express connection.
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price?Reply
Price would be nice, though I doubt it's going to be close to $400 with an SSD like that.
I'd probably prefer a smaller SSD (eg: 32GB), with NO ram.
With all these mininotebooks, I have more then plenty of RAM laying around to plug into it.
So it'd be nice to save some on that too, and sell the mininotebook for like $200-250 or so. -
Hatecrime69 Well at least somebody is trying to bring something different to the market with these netbooks. Officially supporting user hard drive upgrades? Certainly a big plus over my eee pc 4gReply -
dconnors OCZ has yet to release any price information. My guess is that you'll be able to bag a Neutrino for under $400. Of course I doubt that price includes the 250GB SSD.Reply
-Devin -
joebob2000 How many people are out there with a netbook saying "gee this 64 gigabytes just isn't enough for me, what I need is 250 gigabytes of media and apps for this computer to choke on. That would be great!"Reply
Seriously, what would you use that extra ~200 gigs for? Holding MP3s? It sure won't be for photoshop projects, hi-def movies or anything of the sort unless you are using the computer as a glorified flash drive to get the files to somewhere they can actually be put to use.
Or, am I missing the boat on netbooks and their gigabyte crunching apps? -
Master Exon ReplyOCZ's DIY products allow for the user to upgrade RAM and storage on their own without voiding the warranty.
Didn't a high court rule that illegal anyways?