I don’t see this as a breakthrough idea but it finally came to the end user: the possibility to customize the look of your notebook. Not just any notebook, a quite good one actually, with powerful hardware specifications powered by VIA.

What can I tell you about VIA?
Several years ago, the mainboard market had a few players. The most powerful were SIS, Intel and VIA. These 3 companies were the major developers of mainboard chipsets and other services and products. During that time VIA was on top. Another information regarding VIA is that along the years they’ve made important acquisitions from Cyrix CPU to S3 graphic cards line.

Being in a very competitive market - pc components, VIA started to embrace the small, light, low-power components. This move was also because it was clear that against nVidia, AMD or Intel they couldn’t win. So in the small form factor area, they’ve developed several products towards the mobile industry. A year ago, in 2007, they announced the availability of VIA Nano Book which was a small notebook with a quite strange design. Well regarding this product, the good reviews were not so good. So learning from their mistakes, and from the trends imposed by the market, a new concept was brought to the table - OPEN.

So what does OPEN in terms of hardware mean?
From VIA’s perspective, OPEN is related to the visual aspect of the notebook - VIA OpenBook. Their main idea is that anyone can customize the look of this mini-laptop. For this to happen, they’ve made available all the CAD filer for the OpenBook design. In this way you can design your own notebook but I don’t know what will happen with the design.

The main idea is that the design is open for new suggestions beside the standard design. The other big plus is that the specifications are quite good, and the hardware will enable the user to use different kind of operating systems - even Vista.

You can check the video on Techcrunch or you can look for more details on their new website http://www.viaopenbook.com/.

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That is my conclusion when I saw the latest models from several brands. And I do not mean Air from Apple. That “thing” is not a notebook is a halfbook. I mean the hardcore pieces in the notebook area with powerful specs under the hood.

ACER, one respectable player in this area, has recently presented the new 6920. Learning from competitors, ACER came with a new design and approach. Glossy surfaces and smooth rounded corners while having powerful presence are the main visual characteristics of this notebook.
For the specs I can say that are almost equal to a desktop pc. Also this notebook has a multimedia controller placed in the left side of the keyboard. Along with a powerful Dolby certified soundcard, the video and audio experience are at the top level.
For the gaming part, NVIDIA will be responsible with its Geforce 9 exponents. And with 16″ 16:9 monitor format, I guarantee that the frames will feel very comfortable.

And this is not the only high-end notebook. All other players are betting on top specs with high-end components. Regarding this trend, I’m giving the desktop PC just 5 years.

Ah, and in the end, the 6920 is not a Ferrari … it is better … a Lamborghini.

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