If you own a tablet or netbook and find yourself infuriated by their utter uselessness out of doors or even in brightly lit rooms, Pixel Qi's line of low-power monitors that can be set to display well, even in direct sunlight, have to be somewhat attractive. Already available on low quality devices like the Lenovo S10-2 and the Notion Ink tablet, San Diego-based Sol Computers is now offering their own netbook and tablet with Pixel Qi screens. The only problem? To put it mildly, they aren't competitively priced.
The Sol Netbook comes in at an astonishing $749.00. If the device were actually manufactured by Sol Computers, that price might be somewhat understandable. Similarly, if, and only if, the price was due to a small production run, and thus sure to drop once people start buying them, we might be okay with it. But no, it's just a refurbished Samsung netbook with a Pixel Qi monitor grafted on. Sol Computers' sole achievement is to have made something that is both cheap and overpriced.
The Sol Tablet PC is even worse. As TechCrunch noted, it's a refurbished Chinese tablet that doesn't even appear to support multitouch interface. And it costs a staggering $1,099.00.
Forget not being competitively priced, Sol Computers isn't even acknowledging there's a competition. Previous Pixel Qi devices are at least cheap enough that low quality computing and weak screen output doesn't quite feel like a rip off. Expecting customers to pay more for this garbage than they would for a Macbook is just insulting. If you absolutely must be seen browsing the Internet in a public place, better to spend your money on an iPad and stay in the shade.
