Netbooks are Evolving Rapidly with MSI touch screen

Just two years ago we saw the introduction of netbooks and it quickly became a buzzword and sales were growing rapidly to the surprise of vendors from Dell, HP, even Microsoft who quickly changed their policy on Windows XP.

The netbooks were initially loaded with Linux, then it became powerful and Windows based netbooks were sprouting everywhere. Netbooks started with 4 GB SSD, then jumped up to 8 GB SSD, 16 GB SSD, until conventional hard drives reaching from 80 GB until 160 GB hard drives were installed on these small machines. The memory started with 256 MB, 512 MB, and now  2 GB memory chips are the norm.

Next in line is the monitor, vendors are pushing out touch screen netbooks and the release of Windows 7 is pushing this growth furthermore.

Here comes MSI, who has already confirmed they are working on a touch screen convertible netbook which is based on Intel Pine trail platform. The touch screen netbook is called Wind U 150, and would be the first computers using the Pine Trail platform. The platform would be introduced at CES in January 2010. Although the Wind U150 is believed to be out in the market by the end of 2009.

The chip codenamed “PineView” would have the CPU, GPU and memory controller on the same platform. There is also a second chip codenamed “Tiger Point”. We still don’t know much details about these two chip solution but it definitely sounds promising.

I would be excited to see what Lenovo, HP, Asus are cooking up on the netbooks platform. By 2010, we should be seeing an explosion of powerful, productive and business ready netbooks in the market. I wouldn’t be surprised when companies decided to purchase netbooks instead of expensive laptops. The release of Windows 7 which has an extensive set of features for touch screen technology would seamlessly work hand in hand with these new breed of netbooks.

Would you dig these new set of netbooks?

Image from MSI.