While Netbooks continue to offer great prices, portability and battery life over the traditional notebooks you can’t say it’s been without some sacrifices. No optical drive, tiny SSD drives, cramped keyboards and peewee processors have been the necessary evils of the lovable ultra-portable netbooks. Seems Century has decided to lessen these evils with its USB 3-in-1 docking station. Roughly the same size as a netbook, this USB dock would make a perfect traveling companion for any road warrior. It appears to come with an DVD/CD burner stock and an internal SATA connector for you to add your own 2.5″ SATA HDD or SSD. You also get 2 extra USB ports for adding any other devices your heart desires. If your greedy heart is desiring any really power hungry devices you better make sure you attach the included AC adapter otherwise things might get a bit dicey. They’ve also included a 4 cm fan to help cool the laptop/netbook while it’s running.
There’s only 2 things that you may end up missing. Lacks the ability to turn off the internal devices individually. Having both these devices connected running on bus power (No AC adapter) can decrease battery life. A PCMCIA or ExpressCard reader might also have been a nice touch. While Bluetooth data connections are do-able you can’t really touch the speed of a hardwired connection via USB. You may be able to mod this into one of these if you are so inclined. At only $100 it could be a great addition to your gear bag and has plenty of potential for custom work.
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