The lengthy article presents a good argument for the claims being false, with the main comment to pay attention to being this: “Rubin contacted Coby Electronics himself, and was told by the company’s PR representatives that “this story, or any announcement regarding a netbook, was not (emphasis theirs) initiated, condoned, or approved by Coby Electronics.” The story itself was dismissed as erroneous.

Well, that isn’t promising for the plausibility of the whole story. And while the article doesn’t confirm that Cody won’t be releasing these discount netbooks, it presents a good argument that seems to render the idea unlikely. Hopefully we can get some confirmation one way or another soon.

Starting in early 2009, Coby will be rolling out $99.95 netbooks to Rite Aid Pharmacies and Kroger grocery stores. They are calling their “PoqetMate-7″ 7-inch and “PoqetMate-9″ 9-inch models “midget PCs”, but they seem to fit the definition of a netbook pretty well — maybe even better than some of the larger ones available on the market. We don’t know exactly how powerful these netbooks will be, but at that price, lets not expect anything too great. What seems to be definite though is that a Chinese-sourced Longsoon CPU with Linux will fuel them.