We see netbooks everywhere now, and frankly, it's starting to get a bit stale. The powerhouses just keep churning out one 'me too' after another. So it's a wonderful break from the monotony to find a netbook like the litl.
Pronunciation aside, the litl netbook won't match up to the latest netbook in the market in terms of price or specifications, but what it does have is elegance and oodles of style. Netbooks were first devised as thin-client devices, and it's great to see the makers of litl go back to basics and refine the idea, and make owning a netbook accessible to the mass of non-techies out there.
The litl resembles a digital photo display more than the standard netbook. It comes with the Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, 1GB RAM and a 12" display. But instead of the usual hard-disks or solid-state-disks, it only has 2GB of flash storage, and the screen on this baby can twist all the round and almost fold back onto itself. And it comes with a very unique keyboard design too, and even a HDMI port for hooking up to large screens, a feature rarely seen in netbooks.
In Easel mode, it takes up very little footprint, it has a control wheel on the bezel for controlling the content when keyboard is hidden away. The same control wheel is featured on the remote so that the control experience is the same.
The litl uses it's own proprietary OS, and focuses everything on the web. Practically nothing is stored locally. There are no folders, menus, icons, it's just one giant web browser and a web search bar. As the makers put it, "litl users get an interface to the web, not the computer".
At a retail price of US$699, it make the litl a pretty expensive machine, but for people who aren’t really that tech savvy and shy away from owning a "normal" netbook, the extra you pay for the simplicity and convenience may just seem reasonable. The litl will sit nicely next to the giant LCD TV in your living room, and most importantly won't freak your grandma out!
Check out how the litl works in this great exclusive video from CrunchGear.
Visit the litl site.
