Packard Bell intros Ion-based iMax mini nettop, non-Ion dot netbooks
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 28th 2009 4:15AM
posted May 28th 2009 4:15AM
Packard Bell hit a bit of a rough patch with its netbook business earlier this year, but things now seem to be getting back into full swing, with the company not only finally pushing those "dot s" and "dot m" netbooks out the door, but a new Ion-based nettop as well. As you can see above, however, it didn't exactly have too much work to do on the latter (dubbed the iMax mini), which is apparently nothing more than a rebadged Acer AspireRevo. Those similarities also expectedly extend right down to the specs, which include the Ion-complementing Atom N230 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, six USB ports, and an HDMI port. It will interestingly come bundled with a gamepad, however, along with an unfortunately higher £249 price tag (or about $400 US). The two dot netbooks, on the other hand, remain unchanged since we last saw 'em, and should be in UK shops by July with a matching starting price of £249.
Read - Pocketlint, "Packard Bell iMax mini launches"
Read - Pocketlint, "Packard Bell officially launches dot s and m netbooks"
Read - Pocketlint, "Packard Bell iMax mini launches"
Read - Pocketlint, "Packard Bell officially launches dot s and m netbooks"
Dot S and Dot M... S&M?
I know it's been a long time since I last owned a Packard Bell but wow...
I didnt know Packard Bell even existed anymore. My first computer was a Packard Bell. 166 mhz, 16 mb of ram I think, windows 95. lol.
Same here, I thought they'd gone the way of Time and Tiny.
I had a similar Packard Bell at one point, PoS running Windows 98 badly. Though saying that, in the 15 years I've been working with computers, I've never encountered a PB that worked properly, or met a satisfied PB owner.
Sounds exactly like my first PB, except it had a whopping 64MB of RAM. My parents have been using it as a POS (point of sale, although it works with either meaning) system for nearly a decade now and the only thing that has broken so far is the floppy drive.
I remember when I bought my first PDA a few years after and it also had a 166mhz processor. The good ol' days.
They almost died, Acer bought them.
So yeah, they're Acers now.
Packard Bell is still alive???
That's a cool logo they've got now.
Exactly what I was thinking.
In Europe PB is still quite active. Most computer stores have a whole bunch of PB laptops on display. Mostly they pack pretty decent hardware for a good price. But they look plastic-ish. My sister own one, and she never had a problem with it. Right before the whole netbook hype, they had 12" laptops with intel core 2 duo T3200, 3gigabytes of ram, and ATI graphics for about 600€, which would have been really interesting for all those people out there wanting a netbook with a more powerfull atom processor, and ION graphics...
Cheerz
I always thought Packard Bell was part of the Dixons group, but I could be wrong.
At the moment, they are part of the Acer group.
See: http://www.acer-group.com/public/
Cheerz
Hmmmm..... not being an Apple fanboy or anything but iMax and iMax Mini? Sounds familiar...
iMax?? Seriously?? Who do they think they're fooling? And are Apple's lawyers primed and ready?
I don't think this has 12,000 watts of Dolby sound.
And I'd think a certain purveyor of high end movie venues would object to the use of that branding as well.
IMAX?
If this doesn't choke on Hulu, I may be interested.
Precisely.
I didn't know Packard Bell was still around. Not a bad deal actually.
This sort of thing would be great to connect to the living room HDTV... If it's got the guts to handle HD video, heavy streaming, and all the goodness of Hulu, Amazon On Demand, iTV, Netflix, Windows Media Center, etc.
And when can we expect either this or Acer Aspire Revo to appear in the US or Canada? Europe is enjoying it for a month... I want one but to get I would have to jump the pond.