DosPara’s Buff Netbook

Japanese DosPara has come out with a 12″ netbook that pairs an Atom 330 nettop processor with NVidia’s Ion chipset. It’s a little chunky, but it doesn’t cost much more than other premium netbooks. Of course, it pushes the limits of what a “netbook” really is.

Beyond having a non-netbook processor and a graphics chipset with some swagger, we hear the DosPara Prime Note Cresion NA comes with such unexpected features as an HDMI port and an optical drive, not to mention 2GB RAM, a 320 GB HDD, a card reader, 3USB ports, and Bluetooth.

Ok, we know what it can do, and that’s more than a netbook. But how big is it, you ask?

The display is 12.1″ and musters a resolution of 1,366×768. It weighs just under 2kg (1.92kg or 4.2lbs)) and has dimensions of 305x225x37.5mm (that’s roughly 12.x8.8×1.4 inches).

But how much does it cost, you wonder?

Just about $600 for the whole package. That’s as much as you’d pay for a premium 10″ netbook, and the guts inside the Prime Note Cresion are certainly that. But this is sure to spark some debate in the nefarious corners of the blogosphere – is this really still a netbook?

Me personally, I don’t care. It’s a thin, lightweight computer with enough power and a large enough display to do what I want. Tiny laptops for travel and hulking laptops for movies or games are one thing, but 12-13″ is my sweet spot for general use and I like that they are finally making laptops in that size that are truly generally useful.

What do you think? Does it matter if this is a netbook? And where is your sweet spot for laptops?