VIA makes OpenBook Mini-Note ultraportable available to all

Taiwanese PC component manufacturer VIA has made the reference design for its OpenBook Mini-Note ultraportable laptop available as a free open source download.

According to the press release, VIA is hoping that making its designed freely available will fuel the growing low-cost ultraportable market, which is no bad thing given the huge amount of interest in laptops like the Asus Eee PC and MSI Wind.More information and lots more images after the cut. 

The OpenBook reference design specifications descibe a Linux or Windows-powered ultra-portable with 8.9in screen that weights around 1kg. It’s based around the VIA C7-M ULV processor and new VX800 digital media IGP chipset, which supports VIA Chrome9 DirectX 9 3D graphics and accelerated HD video playback.

These specifications are pretty close to the VIA C7-M-powered HP Mini-Note 2133, though this ultraportable uses the VIA CN896 chipset and can't even play full-screen YouTube videos smoothly...

VIA is distributing the CAD files for the OpenBook under the Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0 licence, which means they can be freely shared, copied, altered and distributed, with appropriate attribution.

The OpenBook idea isn't quite on the same level as Google Android in the open source stakes (who has access to a laptop manufacturing facility..?), but VIA has a little history with reference designs. Its NanoBook ultraportable concept was picked up by a couple of manufacturers, so it's reasonable to assume that the OpenBook will attract at least as much interest. No announcements about interested parties have been made yet, though.

Here's a video of VIA VP of International Marketing, Richard Brown introducing the OpenBook Mini:

[ VIA OpenBook]