Packard Bell are back! Get excited

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Remember Packard Bell? Back when computers had 8 gig hard-drives, the internet was but a pipe dream, and WordArt was about the best thing you could do on your PC? You do! I’m glad, me too.

Well, the Dutch based company is back as a part of Acer, and with a snazzy new logo and some interesting products to boot.

Most interesting of all is it’s iMax-Mini nettop, which is actually just a revamped Acer Revo. But what it means is you get an Atom processor on nVidia’s ION platform, giving the iMax-Mini significantly more punch than most other nettops.

And because it comes with a motion sensor game control Packard Bell are seeing it as, “a rival to the Wii”, however outlandish that might sound. It’ll be available in the UK with a 19 inch monitor on broadband deals.

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Packard also unveiled their high-end EasyNote TR85, a snazzy-ass notebook, featuring an edge-to-edge display, multi-touch trackpad and slot loading optical drive. And at just £599 with a feature-set and styling to make your eyes water, the EasyNote might hit right note with buyers.

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And finally, the obligatory netbook: The 10.1 inch dot s and 11.6in dot m wield multi-gesture touchpads, Dolby headphone, optional 3G and six-cell batteries and though they’re hitting a market already saturated market, the fact that they come with Photoshop Elements 4 pre-installed might shift a few units.

GALLERY: Packard Bell lightens up with EasyNote Butterflies and dot netbooks

For the budget end of the Acer family, Packard Bell has announced some rather swish looking options in the notebook/netbook department today. The cost seems to be that they’re perhaps not quite as cheap as you’d expect from PB but then that might have more to do with the exchange rate than anything else.

Each comes with some kind of Dolby sound technology and 16:9 wide, LED backlit screens to save as much battery life as possible. All look like reasonable options but it’s the EasyNote TR85 I’ve got my eye on the most.

Click the pretty looking image below for a closer look at all four.