HTC, which has been making a name for itself as a maker of Android-powered smartphones, said that the company may join the netbook fray, but only if its products can distinguish themselves.
That sounds good in theory, but not if you look at the company's previous effort. The HTC Shift, which debuted in 2007, cost roughly $1,500 and is a relatively obscure product compared to the low-cost netbooks that have since flooded the market.
The Shift (pictured below) ran Windows Vista on Intel's 800 MHz A110 processor, with a 7-inch screen, 1 GB of RAM and a 40 GB or 60 GB hard drive. It wasn't dubbed a netbook, but an ultra-mobile PC, a product category that's become synonymous with extreme portability at a high cost, and with less power than today's netbooks.
Now, HTC chief executive Peter Chou said the company is "carefully looking into that [netbook] category and how it can be part of that," but without offering a "me-too" product, according to CNet Asia.
Coming up with a unique product may prove difficult. Nokia has cornered the premium route with the Booklet 3G, a netbook with aluminum construction, built-in mobile broadband connectivity and support for mobile apps. Otherwise, most netbooks tend to carry the same specs, based on Intel's Atom processor with no more than 1 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive, but those restrictions are imposed by Intel and Microsoft to draw a line between netbooks and higher-priced notebooks.
So it's hard to say how HTC could distinguish itself. If hardware options are constrained, the company could make a bold move with software and build an Android netbook, but even that may look similar to the Linux netbooks already available. And HTC doesn't have an app store of its own, like Nokia does. I don't expect HTC to find an answer any time soon.
