Litl Webbook Combines Tablet, Digital Photo Frame, Netbook [Convertible Netbook Features Widgets, Custom OS, Unqiue Style]

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In a market that’s flooded with cheap, indistinguishable 10-inch netbooks, this new product from boutique startup Litl stands out. Their product, called the Webbook, can be used like a traditional computer, but the screen can be folded back to an innovative ‘easel mode’ where it stands up straight.

Litl is running their own OS on the Webbook, or, as they say on their website, “Hardware and software designed by separate companies stunts innovation,” which may be a dig at Microsoft. At any rate, they don’t exactly go into great detail about their custom OS, I’d assume it is Linux based.

The Litl OS is entirely web-based. Everything included on the OS seems to be widget-based, as they’ve gotten ride of menus and file management and everything seems to feature just big icons. When you’re in ‘laptop mode’ the widgets will be more like webpages (for example, they say the Weather Channel one will redirect to the Weather Channel web page), but when you look at them in ‘easel mode’, the Webbook shows them much differently.

For navigation in ‘easel mode’, Litl has included a wheel that was inspired by old TV sets and radios. It features a 12-inch touchscreen display with an Intel Atom processor (clocked at 1.6Ghz). It has 1GB of RAM, and a 2GB SSD for storage. For connectivity, it has WiFi. A webcam is included. It’s capable of HD 720p video out, and has an HDMI port for getting it onto a bigger screen. Since 2GB is small for HD video, they’re probably assuming you’d stream the content from Hulu or some other provider. Maybe future widgets or channels are planned for the device that would provide HD video directly.

Overall, it looks like a decent web browsing platform with a fun design, obviously aimed at non-techies. The ‘easel mode’ reminds me of a digital photo frame and the device is even further blurring the line between computer and appliance. The litl Webbook is now shipping, although the website says it’s on backorder. They’re asking $700 for one.