We’ve got in trouble with Microsoft on a number of occasions, as for some odd reason it’s quite protective about their logos. Something to do with brand identity, I believe, so when we may have taken a liberty or two with the Windows logo in the past it’s always been keen to have a word with us shortly after.

But it probably hasn’t seen this beautiful piece of, well, creativity from CnM - makers of the minibook or, as it’s sometimes called, the CnMbook.

Now this is a fascinating piece of kit that’s being sold for £115 exc VAT by Scan, and for a little more by Maplin. Indeed, if you search around you’ll find it on sale at various online stores.

In essence, it’s a 7in netbook based on a cut-down version of Debian Linux. One of the reasons it’s so cheap is the core components. No Intel Atom here, but a 400MHz Ingenic XBurst processor coupled with a whopping 128MB of RAM and a 2GB SSD drive.

But I digress, because what our friends at Microsoft will be far more interested in is CnM’s interesting choice of iconography. By default, this is what the web browser looks like - our friendly neighbourhood Firefox. (As yet another aside, CnM mysteriously uses Bon Echo, the beta release of Firefox 2, but that’s not important right now.)

What is important, at least to Microsoft’s legions of lawyers, is the way the icon switches to Internet Explorer - embedded within the Mozilla logo - when you hover over it with your mouse. As shown here.

Now I actually quite like the sheer derring-doo of this move, and it fits perfectly with the slight madness of the device itself. While it’s easy to get snobbish about a cheap device like this, with its faintly rubbish keyboard and mouse buttons that click at the volume of passing planes, the fact is it works.

It reminds me of those Franklin personal organisers you could buy (and probably still can) with 2K of RAM and a proprietary, very basic operating system. They worked, albeit with limited abilities to sync with a PC, and provided you didn’t push them beyond their limits you’d probably grow quite fond of them.

I’ve only been playing with the CnMbook for a day, and I’m already fond of it. It connects with ease to our wireless network and, once it’s taken a few lumbering seconds to load Firefox, browsing is a perfectly pleasant experience. Sure, it’s an 800 x 480 screen, but it’s bright, decent quality and surprisingly sharp.

Naturally, it isn’t going to knock the Samsung NC10 off its current A List netbook perch, but if all you really want is a netbook to browse the net then it’s got lots going for it. Just don’t tell Microsoft.

Tags: firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, netbook

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.