The Averatec company, which has recently become just a brand for the Koreans from TriGem, has a very long history of releasing low-cost, entry-level products, targeting mostly users with relatively limited budgets and, in the same time, limited expectations from their products. And even if the company's lineup has all sorts of affordable products, Averatec has decided to launch back in October 2008 an All-In-One PC with an extremely peculiar characteristic: it features an internal configuration identical to that of most netbooks existing on the market.

First of all, it's important to mention that it has been equipped with a 18.4-inch TFT LCD display, which provides an 1280x720 pixels resolution. As mentioned earlier, the hardware configuration is very similar to the one found in most netbooks, namely an Intel Atom processor (533MHz Front Side Bus) running at 1.6Ghz and accompanied by an Intel 945GMS + ICH7 chipset, plus 1 GB of DDR2 memory (533/667 MHz). The storage department has been improved, compared to most of the other similar products existing on the market, since the Buddy incorporates an 160GB SATA HDD (5400 rpm).

The connectivity and networking features are also very familiar. Thus, the device features a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN module for connecting to a network, plus a host of interfaces, including 5 USB 2.0 ports, microphone and headphone inputs and outputs, a VGA port and a 4-in-1 memory card reader (MS/MS Pro/MMC/SD).

Unlike most netbooks, this All-in-One PC is also accompanied by a couple of built-in speakers, plus USB mouse and keyboard. Additionally, the device also incorporates an optical drive, namely an DVD Super Multi unit.

Although the All-In-One PC concept has had its share of success over the years (just look at Apple's products), the idea of creating a low-power, low-cost device of this type is still to prove its value. However, there might be something to Averatec's product, especially if the price point is a decent one, but only time and sales figures will tell that.