Editor Rating: 7.9

You don’t have to be a geek to have heard at least once about Intel and their products, especially microprocessors and motherboard chipsets. Well, for those of you who know a little more about Intel, here is the Classmate PC, a ultraportable which is destined to compete against Asus Eee PC and HP 2133 Mini-Note PC.

Intel released the Classmate PC in the summer of 2007 and the idea was simple - to create a cheap PC for students is developing countries. Although Intel had develop another mininotebook a while ago called One Laptop Per Child XO, this PC is more useful because it looks like a conventional laptop rather than a toy. I think that this is the main reason that made Intel to rethink their low-cost mininotebook.

Now, the Classmate PC features a 9-inch screen, a 30GB hard-drive and the touch pad and the keyboard are exactly what everybody wants because nobody likes radical changes and another advantage is that Intel kept the same compact footprint for it. Actually, its footprint is the thing that makes the PC perfect as travel computer in an airplane or in coffee shops depending your conveyance.

As I aforementioned, Intel kept the same footprint for the mininotebook and the difference is that now, the designers made better use of the space - the best example is that the right-shift key is available unlike the previous version. A more traditional keyboard layout and the rectangular touch pad were something that annoyed a lot of users of the original Classmate. Also, another good addition is a Webcam that Intel comfortably put above the 9-inch screen.

Another key feature that the new Classmate PC kept, is the preloaded education software, but I have to say that it’s not exactly the same, it comes with some improvements. The preloaded education software is started by the teacher’s host software, then the students runs it and the teacher will monitor his work or send them text messages. Also, the work of one student can appear on the screens of the other students, but this is the teacher’s call, which can decide to turn off the screens of the Classmate PCs in order to get more students’ attention because they are likely to get bored.

We were very disappointed by the fact that the 9-inch display couldn’t support a higher resolution - the 800×480 is not satisfying enough because you need more than just read the text (although I struggled a little to find the correct position for reading) and when you surf on the Internet, the Web pages are crossing over the edge of the screen which means that you have to spend some time to scroll (I find this really annoying).

Intel provided the Classmate PC with enough ports and connections rather than crowding the Classmate with useless slots. Intel’s PC features many USB ports, one SD card slot, Ethernet and the ever present jacks for headphones and microphone. All of these are more than the MacBook Air supports and I think that Apple should be concerned that a mininotebook is better regarding connectivity.

For this version of Classmate PC, Intel gave up to some battery life in order to make room for the 30GB 1.8-inch hard-drive which is better because 4 to 5 hours are more than enough. The Classmate PC is not as rugged as we all want, but it’s more rugged than the Eee PC therefore we can live with it.

The Classmate PC is not very slow, the 900MHz Intel Celeron M353 processor performs well although multitasking will really slowdown it. As for the OS, Intel uses the Windows XP Pro because Vista would be too much for the 512MB RAM. Intel designed the 9-inch Classmate PC to be ultraportable measuring 9.4×10.1×1.5 inches and weighing 3.3 pounds (3.9 pounds with the AC adapter.

In conclusion I have to say that Intel did a good job because they knew what to compromise in order to develop a rugged and well-balanced mininotebook, although I am sure that they can do better which means that they probably saved a few trumps for the next generation of Classmate PCs. I am very happy that they managed to vie Asus and HP because it’s good for the competition and we will get better and better products.