Attack Of The Feline: Hello Kitty Netbook

There are some things in this world that are inexplicably attractive to a huge number of people and Hello Kitty seems to be one of them. Seemingly innocuous, this little feline is out to capture hearts again – and people’s money to boot.

Hello Kitty merchandise has been around forever and I suppose it is not a surprise that she is now entering the world of high tech gadgets. The newest trinket to have Hello Kitty’s mark on it is actually not the first to be released in the market. The lovers of this feline would know about NEC’s co-branded LaVie G Laptops which had not one but two versions! These were released some time last year.

This year, she is making a comeback and is out to gain the spotlight once again with the Hello Kitty C1, courtesy of Japanese company Onkyo. With less “bling” than the NEC laptops, the C1 is actually quite subdued – all white with the little kitty’s face on the corner.

Visual appearance aside, the specifications of the C1 are not that bad:

• Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor
• 1GB RAM
• Intel 945GSE Express chipset
• 120GB hard drive

I just don’t understand why anyone would want to pay £600 for the imprint of an imaginary cat on a netbook! Alright, you also get your own Hello Kitty screen saver and desktop themes but that’s about it. For half the price, you can get a better looking netbook with better specs.

Find Liveguy and grab yourself a Dell netbook

LiveGuy will be travelling the length and breadth of the country taking in 11 cities in 11 days from Edinburgh to London. Each day LiveGuy will be giving away three Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbooks with Vodafone built-in mobile broadband to anyone who can find him and say the magic words “You’re LiveGuy and I’m a Vodafone winner”. Online users can also win a netbook by pinpointing LiveGuy on a Google Map.

The laptop’s pretty small and dinky – it has an 8.9″ screen and weighs less than 1kg with a built in broadband connections (up to 7.2Mb/s)

LiveGuy will be on the move using his netbook to post clues and pictures as to his whereabouts through his blog which you can find at www.findliveguy.com, on his Facebook
profile, his YouTube Channel, Picassa and Twitter

The mobile broadband netbook can be purchased at http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-broadband-devices/netbook?compatible=false. It is currently free on a 24 month contract, for £25 you get 1gig bandwidth per month and the £30 plan gives you 3gig.

Netbooks Return To Base

A survey has revealed that the upsurge in mini computer Netbooks from manufacturers isn’t being as welcome received by consumers as expected.

So far around 60,000 netbooks have been shipped; mostly with a broadband bundle. Of the 60,000, around 20% have been returned to the stores.

The price is great, often less than £300 for a fully functional machine. The problem is consumers are usually used to Microsoft Windows – and the cheaper end of the Netbook market are powered by Linux.

“They don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.” said MSI’s Director of Sales Andy Tung.

Dixons is adamant it is getting around any problem by informing customers. “We are making big efforts to educate consumers as to the usages and limitations of netbooks versus laptops. Netbooks are perfect for people who want to keep in touch, surf the net or read documents while on the move,” said Dixons Head of Consumer PR Anina Castle when we asked her about the rumour of major netbook returns at the end of August.

“They are far more convenient and provide a full range of viewing functions required while out of the office or home, while the PC or laptop remains the prime storage hub for files and data. We are advising our staff and customers that the best way to think of them is – “Netbooks are for viewing, Notebooks are for doing!”

Netbooks Picture courtesy of CNet.