At the end of July I attended the annual Blogher conference, this year being held in Chicago. My intentions for attending was to further develop my blogging. I really was not expecting to see any new gadgets while there but, to my surprise, gadgets were definitely there!
The gadget that most caught my eye while weaving my way around the expo floor was the new Disney Netbook — The Disney Netpal.
The Netpal is the result of a collaboration between Disney Consumer Products and ASUS, maker of the Eee PC netbook. Of course, coming from Disney, the Netpal was developed with kids in mind. The durable netbook is small (8.9″ screen and weighing approximately 2.5 pounds), comes in two stylish designs — Disney Princess Pink and Disney Magic Blue — and is packed with a ton of fun features for kids:
* Disney Desktop featuring a 2D “gadget tray” that displays bold visual application icons
* 15 easily-accessible widgets
* More than 10 customizable desktop themes from Disney Princesses and Toy Story to
Hannah Montana and JONAS The Series.
* Disney Mix – music and media management
* Disney Pix – photo customization and organization
* And tons of games!
The Disney Netpal was also developed with parents in mind! The durable design includes a spill-proof keyboard and ShockShield data protection. They say the battery life is 5 hours but that will all depend on what applications your child is running. You can also create a web-safe environment on the Netpal with 40 parental control options, allowing you the option to limit what sites your child as access to, pre-select email correspondence options, and even pull data to see how your child is spending their time online.
The Tech Specs:
* Operating System: Genuine Windows XP Home
* Display: 8.9″ LED-backlit WSVGA screen
* CPU: Intel ATOM N270
* WLAN: 802.11 b/g/n
* Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM 1GB
* Storage: 160GB HDD (SSD on some models)
* Interface: (1) VGA port, (3) USB 2.0 ports, (1) LAN RJ-45, (2) audio jacks
* Camera: 0.3 M Pixel
* Audio: Hi-definition audio CODEC, built-in audio stereo speakers, analog mic
* Dimensions: 248mm (W) x 173mm (D) x 28.7mm (H)
* Weight: 1.2kg with battery (1kg with battery on some models)
All in all, I think this is a pretty cute and functional portable computer for kids. They are marketing the Netpal to kids ages 6-12, although I think my 3 year old would navigate it just fine. They are currently priced at $349.99 and are available at Toys”R”Us and Amazon.com. The price seems a little high to me but you are paying for the creativity and uniqueness that Disney had injected into the netbook.
I think the Disney Netpal is going to be on the must-have list for most kids this Christmas!
February 13th, 2010 on 4:29 pm
Super Blog, Bro! I am essentially an disney princess nut and am always on the watch for new and interesting sites and postings about interesting princess related stuff that I can add to my daughter’s collection… which is what led me here. Any who how i just wanted to check in as I certainly plan on visiting again! See Ya
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