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Averatec Angling For Role In CE

New York — After spending the past two years creating a niche for itself in the notebook computer space, Averatec is embarking on a program to add CE maker to its resume.

The company will use its new 6200 Series notebook for its initial foray into this area. The 6200 is a full-fledged notebook and a stand alone portable DVD player. Averatec also moved into the Tablet PC market with the introduction of the C3500, which it hopes will attract students.

Saeed Shahbazi, Averatec’s president, called the 6200 a two in one type product because the DVD player function can be operated independently of the notebook’s CPU. The computer does not have to boot up for the DVD player to run, saving both time and battery power, he said, which gives the device about 4.5 hours of movie viewing time.

The 6200 uses an AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ processor, has a 15.4W-inch display, 512MB of memory, 60GB hard drive, internal 802.11g, DVD/CD-RW combo drive and has an $1,199 suggested retail price and it started shipping in late July.

“We see this [model] as our first step into the CE world,” Shahbazi said, “we don’t even consider ourselves a PC company, but a mobility company.”

To further this characterization Averatec is in the early stages of putting together a portable device that would combine the functionality of a cell phone, with digital camera, USB drive and hard drive-based MP3 player, Shahbazi said. Also included would be some type of wireless Internet capability.

“We want to combine all these into one product based on a 1-inch hard drive. It would have a separate digital camera that would communicate to the unit using Bluetooth,” he said.

Shahbazi could not say when the device would be ready.

Last week Averatec shipped the C3500 notebook-based Tablet PC. The C3500 turns into a Tablet PC when its 12.1-inch display is swiveled from the conventional viewing position and laid flat so it can be written upon. It has basically the same feature set as the 6200, but with a slightly less powerful AMD processor and a $1,299 suggested retail price.

Shahbazi believes this model should interest students as it is much easier to handle in a classroom than a notebook and enables them to take notes by writing and not typing.

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