Packard Bell Reveal New EasyNote Laptop Design Themes

It's obviously the day for new notebooks, and after a month or so of nothing but budget ultraportables it's great to see a few full-sized keyboards.  Next to the party is Packard Bell, whose Italian arm have been showing off the new super-portable EasyNote RS65, mid-range ML and SL series, top range MT and ST series, and the TN, aimed at younger users.  Of the six, the 13.3-inch RS65 is probably the most interesting.

The RS65 uses an Intel Centrino 2 processor, and includes a dedicated video card that can be turned off if necessary to save battery. It has both DVI and HDMI outputs and a slot-load optical drive. Curiously, the circular touchpad has a light-up ring around it, and Packard Bell have thrown plenty of chrome and color accents over the chassis.

The SL81, meanwhile, uses AMD's recently announced Puma platform, including a Radeon graphics card with PowerXpress Hybrid CrossfireX that, like in the RS65, can be switched off to save power. A 17-inch screen and digital TV tuner share space with eSATA, Firewire and DVI ports, together with dual hard-drives and a subwoofer. The specs are pretty much shared by the 15.4-inch ML series.

On the MT and ST (15.4 and 17-inches respectively), Packard Bell are back to Intel with the new Centrino 2 Montevina platform. Switchable graphics are again in-vogue, and the company claim a 20-percent performance increase when flipping to the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 with dedicated 512MB memory from the integrated Intel GMA X4500 chipset GM45. Both have HDMI outputs and rather embellished casings.

Finally, the EasyNote TN65 is aimed at younger or first-time users. It has a 15.6-inch widescreen display and uses the Intel Centrino 2 platform. Like all the new notebooks, Packard Bell have fitted the TN65 with a dedicated switch that disables the touchpad for when you're typing and/or using an external mouse.

It's unclear which notebooks will make it out of Europe and what the pricing will be.

[via Notebook Italia]