SlashGear

Gigabyte’s Booktop M1022 is the first netbook to offer something you’d more usually find on a full-sized notebook: a docking station for desk use.  Packing an Intel N270 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard-drive, the M1022 might not be your first port of call for “desktop replacement” duties, but Gigabyte obviously think there’s a target market who get sufficiently tired of plugging and unplugging monitor, keyboard, mouse and network cables to spend the extra on the Booktop.  Over at EEE-PC.de they’ve first unboxed the M1022, and then made it pose in a photoshoot.

Unboxing video after the cut

Personally, I’m still not convinced by the upright dock concept of the M1022.  While it’s always nice to be able to use a full-sized keyboard and larger display than that on a netbook, it’s also handy to have the ultraportable’s own display visible for some split-screen computing.  Yes, an Atom processor might not be the best CPU choice for that, but if all you’re asking of it is a few webpages open at the same time, to me that offers more productivity enhancement than saving desk space by keeping the netbook upright.

Still, it looks a well-made and nicely designed solution, and there are bound to be people out there wanting larger peripherals but no more processing power than the Gigabyte has on offer.  It’s a shame the cradle itself looks to use a proprietary dock connector.