Packard Bell preps UMPC for the U.K.

Packard Bell hasn't been making many headlines lately--unless, of course, you count the recent news that the company has been acquired by Gateway, who, in turn, will be acquired by Acer--but it looks like the vendor might be looking to change that, at least in the United Kingdom. What we have here is the company's forthcoming EasyNote XS, though despite the moniker, excess doesn't seem to be the name of the game. This little guy will sport Windows XP, a VGA webcam, WiFi, a 4-in-1 card reader, 30GB hard drive and a respectable 1GB of RAM when it ships later this year in the U.K. Even better, it looks like it will weigh in at 2 pounds, while measuring a scant 1.2 inches thick. Packard Bell claims that the unit "has all the functionalities of a notebook" and can survive for 3 hours on its standard battery with the WiFi turned on. No word yet on pricing, though hopefully we'll know soon enough.

For more on the EasyNote XS:
- see this article from Pocket-lint