Justin
Posts: 914 +1
<p>When you think of someone rising up to compete against the likes of HP, Dell, Acer, Asus and MSI in the netbook market, generally only big-name hardware vendors come to mind; maybe Intel or AMD. Even Samsung made sense when they entered the market. Hercules, however, is not one that would pop into my head -- and yet they are the latest in a long list of companies that are selling the mini-laptops, with the introduction of their <a href="https://www.slashgear.com/hercules-unveils-ecafe-ec-1000w-netbook-1657000/" target="_blank">eCafe EC-1000W netbook</a>.</p>
<p>It's an average-sized unit, sporting a 10.1" 1024x600 LCD, ample storage capacity with a 250GB unit and probably decent on performance with the Atom N270 CPU. It'll also come with a 6-cell battery, indicating it likely has a decent battery life. The mentioned price tag of $399 puts it more or less in the "average" range for netbooks, since most vendors seemed to have abandoned the idea of ultra-cheap.</p>
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<p><br>
On the software side, Hercules isn't just playing it safe. It seems they have both Windows and Linux offerings, and go <a href="https://www.ecafe.hercules.com/us/bdd/home/1" target="_blank">to considerable lengths</a> to explain what feature-sets they offer with both operating systems. Stock software includes things like Firefox, OpenOffice and more. Windows 7 will be the standard Redmond offering for when it becomes available.</p>
<p>Is there room for yet another netbook vendor in the world? Hercules is certainly welcome to try -- it's crowded, but there's definitely room for improvement. Unfortunately, it looks like Hercules isn't tackling one of the most troubling areas of the netbook market: pricing.</p><p><a rel='canonical' href='https://www.techspot.com/news/36244-hercules-enters-notebook-market-with-ecafe-101-unit.html' target='_blank'>Permalink to story.</a></p><p class='permalink'><a rel='canonical' href='https://www.techspot.com/news/36244-hercules-enters-notebook-market-with-ecafe-101-unit.html'>https://www.techspot.com/news/36244-hercules-enters-notebook-market-with-ecafe-101-unit.html</a></p>
