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OCZ launches the Neutrino DIY netbook

by on31 March 2009

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Could gain popularity based on price

The saying too little, too late springs to mind when you take a closer look at the OCZ Neutrino netbook specifications, although it does have some advantages compared to other netbooks in the market. The DIY aspects of it will surely appeal to a certain group of users, all depending on the retail price.

What you get is a 10.1-inch display with 1,024x600 resolution, an Atom N270 processor, the 945GSE chipset, a 1.3 Megapixel webcam, 802.11b/g WiFi, an ExpressCard 34 slot, a mutli-format memory card reader, onboard 10/100Mbit Ethernet, a pair of USB 2.0 ports and a D-sub connector. The only thing that really stands out here is the ExpressCard slot which is a boon, especially as the Neutrino only has a pair of USB 2.0 ports.

After that it's up to you to add memory - of which up to 2GB is supported by a single SO-DIMM - and of course a storage drive which of course OCZ is suggesting should be an SSD, although a standard SATA 2.5-inch hard drive works just as well. For some reason it seems like the Neutrino is limited to using drives no larger than 250GB.

We can't say we're sold on the design, as the Neutrino looks quite chunky, although it might just be the unusual sides of this netbook that makes it look fatter than it really is. It measures 263x185x27mm (WxDxH) at its thickest part which is on par with most other netbooks, although at 1.3kg it's slightly heavier than other 10-inch models. OCZ also supplies a 4-cell battery which is slightly better than the norm, but not quite as good as some that comes with a 6-cell battery.

The Neutrino should be available for sale in the US within the next couple of weeks for US$269 (€203/£188) which seems quite reasonable considering that it doesn't come with any OS or software, nor any memory or a hard drive. Despite the lack of attention grabbing features, the Neutrino might still turn out to be a success due to the fairly low retail price.

You can find the product page here
Last modified on 31 March 2009
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