Hercules eCafe EC-1000W Netbook

Anyone would definitely be interested in taking a second look at a sleek netbook sporting a soothing blue lid with a dark flora pattern on its side. The inside is a combination of white, black and silver. A neat chiclet keyboard and a sufficiently spacious trackpad look appealing too. Once you relish the aesthetics, you’d want to know more about the specs. A run down the specifications might make this device seem like just another netbook. But hold it. There’s something more to it than meets the eye, in this 10.1″, 1024 * 600 pixel-display device, the Hercules eCafe EC-1000W Netbook.

Managing contacts and emails has been given special attention in this netbook with the eCafe Email Center utility. People with more than one email addresses can have quick access to all mailboxes. Whenever a new email is received, there will be a pop-up to notify you. Each of the mailboxes can be configured with a unique colour for easy identification as well. Plus, all emails are stored in the eCafe. So you can access them even without internet connectivity.

Hop on to the internet either using wired Ethernet connection or WiFi. The eCafe also saves the various WiFi networks you use. So you can directly link to the web, when you’re at a particular WiFi hotspot.

The web camera that’s built into the Hersules netbook offers some nifty features for video calls and video conferences. 3x digital zoom and face tracking are supported. You can even click pictures and shoot videos and easily attach them to your mails, to send to friends. Easy uploading to social networks, blogs etc is allowed too. Photographs can be captured with a single shot or using a timer or in bursts. Making an effective presentation will thus be a breeze. The OpenOffice.org Version 3 also comes pre-loaded in this workstation.

New software can be downloaded using the eCafe Update Manager, whenever you want.

At the heart of this device you’ll find the Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor. There’s a 1GB RAM and a 250GB hard drive packed within. 50GB of online storage is offered too. The Windows 7 Starter edition comes pre-installed in this netbook.

The Hercules eCafe ec-1000W 10″ Netbook is blessed with a decent set of connectors too. 3 USB ports, a VGA connector, a headphone jack, a microphone jack and a 4-in-1 card reader (SD, MMC, SDHC and MS). A6-cell battery powers this workstation up. Price-wise, it does surpass the other netbooks by a considerable amount – £329.