OCZ Releases Neutrino DIY Netbook

When ASUS first released the Eee PC 700 in the fall of 2007, no one could have predicted what was to come. It took no time at all before the PC took off and sold staggeringly well, and of course, we don’t have to get into all the competition that resulted. While “netbooks” have their share of downsides, they also have an overwhelming number of upsides, including battery-life, size and of course, price.

We heard for a while that OCZ was planning to also release a notebook, which was no surprise given that they have the capacity (thanks to their acquisition of Hypersonic in late 2007), but who expected it to be part of their DIY line-up? I didn’t, but it’s a nice surprise. Whether this is the first DIY netbook available, I’m unsure, but I haven’t heard of one up until now.

The Neutrino is similar to most other netbooks available, in that it comes in a 10″ form-factor, includes Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom N270 and features a 1024×600 resolution. Being that it’s DIY, the RAM, storage and operating system is left up to you. The naked model is going to retail for $269.99, and however you want to configure it is left up to you. With that price, you could add an inexpensive mobile hard drive and 2GB of RAM, and still come way under the $400 price-point of most of the competition. Of course, the Windows XP license will still be up to you. More reason to try out Linux, maybe?

“There are many consumers that desire the blend of essential functionalities and an ultra compact form factor, and our new Neutrino Do-It-Yourself netbooks based on Intel Atom technology allow users to design and configure their very own solution tailored to their unique needs,” commented Alex Mei, CMO of the OCZ Technology Group. “The Neutrino DIY netbook puts the control back in the hands of consumers by allowing them to configure a feature rich netbook with their own memory, storage, and preferred OS into a reasonably priced go anywhere computing solution.”