Good news, netbook lovers. According to Electronista manufacturer VIA has just announced the launch of its new NetNote Turnkey Systems. These are a series of 10.2" to 12.1" netbooks that are capable of playing 1080p HD video.

These NetNote devices come with either VIA C7-M ULV processors (ranging in power from 1.0-1.6 GHz) or VIA Nano processors (64-bit superscalar 800 HMz processor). They come with either 160 GB or 320 GB hard drives, a .3 megapixel webcam, 3 or 6 cell batteries, and up to 2 GB of DDR2 RAM.

Okay, so the NetNote's aren't the most powerful devices on the planet. I think a very cheap, HD capable netbook/CULV will do very well. A lot of people are going to be attracted to a sub-$500 multimedia machine. Of course, price and availability haven't been announced yet. These are reference systems, which means we have to wait for them to rebranded and marketed by another manufacturer. I don't expect it will take too long before we see these in stores under a different name.