The Disney Laptop

Well, for those who don't think your kids are growing up fast enough, Disney has come up with the Disney Netpal, a ~9-inch Windows laptop geared for kids. It comes in "Magic Blue" for boys and "Princess Pink" for girls.

From the image, I'm sure you can tell just how much fun those kids are having. While other companies may try to fool parents into buying laptops for their kids as "homework helps" or some such nonsense, Disney has matured beyond those false advertising claims and explains that "It's fun, web-safe and easy...[with] fun games and applications like Disney Mix and Radio Disney."

The tech specs aren't great, but for a young kid, it would work well enough. It's running on the new Intel Atom processor which I haven't been keeping up on so I'm not sure how well it actually performs. The RAM and Hard Drive capacity are fairly limited considering current specs, but it should be fine for hitting the web or listening to music (the first two "fun games and applications" that Disney mentions.

It amazingly comes pre-loaded with Disney Mix Central, Radio Disney Streaming Widget (wow...handy), Disney Online Games (not sure how much loading is required for online games, but hey, who am I to judge), Windows XP Home (which is good to see in the flood of Vista), MS Works (so there 'is' the potential for homework), an MS Office Trial, Minesweeper, Pinball, Sound Recorder, Word Pad, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Remote Assistance, Windows Media Player, Windows Movie Maker. I'm glad they took the time to delineate those last few installed items since I'm sure it took their team a lot of effort to accept the default Windows Install configuration and get those installed. Maybe they put shortcuts on the desktop as part of the preloading process.

I may sound like I'm mocking but...ok, yeah, I am mocking.

I like Disney and all...in spirit. The Disney mega-corporation is sadly not what I love. They've become a money-grubbing monster just trying to get their paws on as much cold hard cash as they can all under the happy-go-lucky guise of family friendliness and improving the lives of children.

I still enjoy (many) of their animation & movie efforts and I love their theme parks (though I'm dismayed at some of the money grubbing that goes on there too).

I'm just kind of sick of Disney trying to weasel in so hard to so many nooks and crannies of the retail world. They're the Microsoft of the retail world.

I'd like to dedicate one of their own songs to them. Enjoy.