14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that Samsung plans to showcase the 12-inch NC20 laptop at the next year Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, starting on January 8. Said laptop is expected to provide users with the computing power of a Via Nano processor. However, given the system's physical features, the NC20 isn't meant as a competitor to all those Atom-powered netbooks on the market, but rather as a low-power and low-cost laptop.
According to a recent news article on Digitimes, the alleged Samsung NC20 is expected to make a debut at CES 2009. The notebook is designed and manufactured by Samsung and the price tag is expected to settle in the range of $600, in line of some of the lower-priced notebooks on the market nowadays.
According to the currently available specifications, the NC20 will come as a low-power notebook boasting an ultraportable design. Combining a Via Nano U225 processor with 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard disk drive, the NC20 is expected to provide its users with a Windows XP operating system. Thanks to its 12-inch display, the NC20 can be marketed as a different product, compared to all those 9-inch and 10-inch netbooks, most of which are powered by an Intel Atom processor, one of the competitors of VIA's Nano.
Additional details include a weight of around 1.5kg, a bit over that of 1kg netbooks. With an estimated price of approximately US$600, the NC20 will come out as an alternative solution to users who are looking for the specifications of a low-power notebook in a form factor slightly bigger than that of a netbook.
If the NC20 is going to become a successful product, VIA might be on its way towards quite a profitable 2009, as other system makers are likely to adopt the Nano for some of their upcoming products.