LG X300 Hands-on: Strikingly Thin, Strange Touchpad Buttons

It's the lightest 11.6-inch netbook we've ever seen, and it's simply gorgeous. We just went hands-on with the LG X300, which weighs only 2.2 pounds yet crams in a 2.0-GHz Intel Atom Z550 processor. The textured lid feels really nice, and the netbook is a mere 0.67 inches thin. This Windows 7 Home Premium system sports a 1366 x 768 display, HDMI output, and a 64GB SSD from SanDisk. All the ports, including two USB are on teh back, which adds to the streamlined look. You only get 1GB of RAM but it's upgradeable to 2GB. During our quick hands-on we liked the chiclet-style, full size keyboard and roomy touchpad (surrounded by cool LEDs). But it's not all good.

We found the touchpad buttons frustrating on the X300. And that's because they're not physical buttons; it's just another touch strip that provides haptic feedback. Some pressed didn't register and we found that we had to reach further to the right than we'd like to right click. Another drawback of this netbook is that the webcam is positioned to the right of the display, which could make video chats awkward.

There's no word on pricing or U.S. availability yet but if LG is reading this I'd say two things: Fix the touchpad buttons and think about adding Nvidia Ion 2.

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Mark Spoonauer
Editor-in-Chief
Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.