Wal-Mart has been selling the Everex Cloudbook for $299 for a few weeks now. And that’s made the $399 – $449 Sylvania G Netbook look horribly overpriced, because the G is basically just a rebranded version of the Cloudbook 1200V. But now it looks like Sylvania is catching up with the big W, because today you can pick up a Sylvania G Netbook for about $299 from several retailers, including Amazon and J&R.

The Sylvania G Netbook features a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 30GB hard drive, a 7-inch, 800 x 480 pixel display, a webcam, WiFi, and a 4-in-1 card reader. It’s not exactly going to challenge the Eee PC 1000 in terms of performance anytime son. But for $299, it’s not a bad little machine. If you can deal with the gOS Linux operating system.

[via Cloudbook UMPC]

Laptop Magazine’s Joanna Stern got to spend some quality time with the upcoming Sylvania G MESO laptop this afternoon. Her verdict? The keyboard is kind of small, the speakers are loud but tinny, and everything else is more or less decent.

There are a few things that make the Sylvania G MESO’s design stand out from the competition. It’s entirely up to you to decide whether it stands out in a good way or not. For example, the laptop has 3 USB ports, but unlike most other notebooks I’ve seen, all three ports are on the left side of the unit. If you have a chunky USB flash drive, it might cover part of the next port, making it hard to use all three ports at once.

The speakers are also located just under the screen, which makes the lid a bit large and adds some length to the computer. When you’re using a tiny laptop, it’s probably not a bad idea to elevate the screen a bit. But it still looks like wasted space.

You can find out more about the Sylvania G MESO tomorrow when Joanna Stern hosts a live video stream at 1pm. She’ll be taking questions and making room for special guests including my friends jkkmobile, Sascha from Eee PC News.de and jkOnTheRun. If I have time I might pop in as well, but believe it or not, I’m actually kinda sorta on vacation this week so I might be away from the “office.”

Joanna will also be taking a closer look at the ECS G10IL laptop during tomorrow’s web streaming extravaganza. Make sure to check it out.

Yesterday we discovered that there would be a new netbook bearing the Sylvania name this fall, the Sylvania G MESO. The MESO is an 8.9 inch sequel to Sylvania’s 7 inch Sylvania G notebook. But it looks like Sylvania ain’t stopping there, because Laptop Magazine reports there’s also a 10 inch model in the works, to be known as the Sylvania G MAGNI.

The computers aren’t actually being produced by Sylvania, a company best known for its lighting and electronics products. Rather, an OEM named Digital Gadgets is behind the low cost ultraportable computers. Laptop spoke with Paul Goldenberg, the managing partner at Digital Gadgets and came away with the following details:

• Both the MESO and the MAGNI will be out in August or September and will be available with either Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Windows XP.
• Both will use the Intel Atom CPU.
• The 8.9 inch version will start at $399 and will have an 80GB hard drive and come with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM. The Windows XP model will have 1GB of RAM and will likely cost around $499.
• The 10 inch version will have a 120GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM.

Check out Laptop Magazine for more details and photos.

The upcoming Sylvania G MESO won’t be Sylvania’s first foray into the netbook market. But the original Sylvania G is basically just an Everex Cloudbook knockoff (which is to say it’s based on the VIA NanoBook reference design and has a 30GB hard drive, 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU, 7 inch display, and a tiny, tiny trackpad). The G MESO, on the other hand actually looks like it’s designed to compete with the major players in the market like Asus and Acer.

Here’s the rundown:

• Display: 8.9 inch 1024 x 600 pixel screen
• Processor: 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU
• RAM: 1GHz
• Storage: 80GB hard drive
• Operating System: Windows XP Home or Ubuntu Netbook Remix
• Connectivity: Ethernet, 802.11b/g
• Expansion: multi-card reader, 3USB ports, VGA output
• Dimension: 9″ x 7″ x 1.25″
• Weight: 2.2 lbs

There’s no word on pricing or availability yet. But jkOnTheRun reports that Sylvania is hoping to ship these puppies for around $299. The computer should be available in black, white, yellow, and pink.