Japanese makers have been pretty late in jumping on the NetBooks wagon. Almost a year after ASUS, and due to declining sales in Japan, Toshiba, NEC, and now Epson are launching their Netbooks… The only problem, is they still run XP, there are no Linux versions, and they’re MORE expensive than their counterparts in Europe and the US.

As for Sony? Well… they argue that Netbooks are a race to the bottom.

Back to Epson, here’s what we know about this up-coming Netbook, the MiniNote :

XP Home SP3
ATOM N270 (1.60GHz)
10.2” WSVGA screen (1024 x 600)
945GSE Express Video Chipset
1GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
160GB of SATA HDD at 5400rpm
Lan and Wifi b/g

Available in Japan at the middle/end of November.