Commodore International announced at CES that they are releasing a variety of new mobile products, including netbooks and mini-netbooks.  For those of you who remember the Commodore 64, this is indeed the very same company.  For those that are completely confused, please see this Wikipedia link.  The C64 was the very first computer I ever used.  I learned how to program in Logo and Basic during 3rd and 4th grade.  At home, we had the even cooler C128, which could switch back and forth to C64 mode with the simple command ‘Go 64′.  Plus, I had some great games:  Oregon Trail, Indiana Jones, Baseball, Football, etc.  I didn’t even think the company was still around, so I was surprised to see their press release.  They are marketing mobile products to interact with what they call ‘CommodoreWorld’, which is a media extravaganza of movies, music, mobile games, and ringtones.  The new products are netbook series J and F.  Both netbooks have 10″ screens, with the F having unique high quality covers, and the J series focusing on business users with an extra superfast E-Sata USB port.  The rest of the specs fit in with normal netbooks. Commodore will also be producing a M series mini-netbook for the One PC for Every Child initiative.  Finally to wrap everything up, they plan on releasing a few MIDs and a GPS.  WOW!!!  From someone that we haven’t heard from in awhile, that is quite a line up of products.

I know for me, if the Commodore netbooks are in-line pricewise with HP, Lenovo, Wind, and Dell, that they will jump to the top of my want list.  I can’t help the warm sentimental feeling I get when I think about my first computer, and all of fun and frustration I had with it.  I’m sure nostaga is something Commodore is hoping for, and I know it has hooked me.  Check out the full press release after the jump…

Las Vegas, Nevada January 8, 2009 - Commodore® today announced the launch of an exciting new series of computer products at the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 in Las Vegas, and to allow visitors the chance to experience the new Commodore line of products.

The new series of netbook products were introduced at the Berlin IFA show in September 2008 to an overwhelming market response in Europe.  Commodore will unveil its new line of 2009 products in the multimedia internet devices category at the CES 2009 show.

Commodore will introduce the F and J Series netbooks that both have 10.1-inch screens. The F-serie is unique designed with high quality covers and a keyboard that is about 85% of the size of a full keyboard, whilst the J-serie is more designed for mobile business users, have an additional superfast E-Sata USB port for friendlier data back-up transfer and includes and a near full size keyboard. Both machines are powered by Via C7 / C8 or  Intel Atom processors.  The netbook computers are about an inch thick, weighs about three pounds and shipped with Windows XP. It comes with 1 and 2 Gb internal memory, 160 GB hard disk, built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and three USB ports for connecting to other multimedia devices for connecting to photos, video, music and HDD back-up. Optional is an external slim line optical drive and a HDD back-up device, special designed for the netbook product line. All series have direct connection to the CommodoreWorld portal (www.commodoreworld.com) providing various content, such as digital entertainment, TV shows and actual news channels, accessed by a special hotkey on the netbook.

As a special product Commodore also developed the M-serie, a Mini-Netbook, designed for the worldwide One PC per Child Initiative. It comes in 2 models, the M-450R and M-400. Both models has a 7 inch LCD screen. The M-450R is built to run on Win XP or  Win CE on RDC 800Mhz CPU with 512MB DDR, equipped with 4GB SSD (Solid State Drive) storage, WiFi, Web Cam, standard 80 keys keyboard and touchpad. The M-400 runs on Linux uses the Intel Xscale 366 Mhz CPU, 128MB memory with IGB SSD,and comes equipped with WiFi, standard 80 Key-Keyboard and touchpad.  The M-series is available in different colors.

Furthermore Commodore will show its upcoming line of Mobile Internet Devices including HSDPA, WiFi, and GRPS functionalities going with 4,3 and 5-inch screens. Also its new line of GPS devices will be presented including full USA maps for road navigation as well as optional marine maps for easy to use boat navigation.

Mr. Ben van Wijhe, President and CEO of Commodore states “We’re ecstatic launch our new line of Commodore netbooks and other products in USA.  We are very eager to introduce to the market the new products and services exclusively developed for Commodore. The initial response from the market is very positive and retailers are willing to buy the new line of Commodore netbooks which continue the tradition of the famous Commodore C64.”

Additional information on Commodore can be found at its website at www.commodorecorp.com

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