Gigabyte G-MAX NB-1401: Beauty in the Simplest Terms

The motherboard industry, for the most part, has stepped out of the intense price war, and our first CEO Forum revealed that the majority of CEO’s believe that their future hinges on diversification. Even though the price war has calmed down, motherboard manufacturers are still trying to find that one “original” idea that will become their ultimate life-saver, such as Shuttle has done with the Small Form Factor. While we are likely to see a plethora of XPC imitators, several motherboard manufacturers are entering cautiously other market segments, which they have never touched previously. Gigabyte is doing so with their G-MAX NB-1401, which marks their first dive into the mobility market. At the moment, Gigabyte is fairly confident that they can make it with this new product line, but they are still watching the market closely.

The introduction of this product was way back in early May 2003, and since that time they have had the chance to gain some acclaim from overseas media. However, up and till now, Gigabyte did not have any plans to enter the North American market. As they are just considering entering this market, Gigabyte understands that the configurations for the North American market are going to be different because consumers here tend to use more memory-heavy applications and tend to work in multi-task environments. In a brief string of words, the G-MAX NB-1401 for the North American market is going to be loaded a bit more for the performance side as opposed to the configurations back in its native land.

Seeing as it is Gigabyte’s first attempt at the notebook market segment, it doesn’t really come as a surprise that they chose a Centrino platform. After all, Centrino based mobile systems have enjoyed a high rate of success in terms of sales. And Gigabyte has picked up on this quickly, which will help them minimize their market risk. Desktop replacement notebooks, like those in the Hypersonic league, are still a niche market, and the risks associated with taking this path would be too high. So it would be logical and prudent for Gigabyte to target the typical notebook user, which would ultimately ensure that they hit it off in the mobile system market where they are still new. With this being said, you are probably wondering what kind of notebook Gigabyte is showcasing. Well, the G-MAX NB-1401 is actually considered a thin and light notebook that is reminiscent of an Apple PowerBook. It is actually eerily familiar in design to a notebook we saw in the past, which we will explain later in the review. Now clearing that up, read the first review of the first notebook from Gigabyte outside the boarders of Taiwan, dubbed G-MAX NB-1401.