Sharp is revolutionizing the netbook industry by introducing the first-ever netbook with a touchscreen touchpad. Will developers adapt? We’ll see.

Housed inside the Sharp Mebius PC-NJ70A netbook are Intel’s Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of RAM (2GB maximum), a 160GB hard-drive and 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 display utilizing Intel’s 945GSE Express chipset.  Connectivity options include three USB 2.0 ports, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and memory card reader, plus an ethernet jack, VGA and audio inputs/outputs.

The touchscreen touchpad of the Sharp Mebius PC-NJ70A netbook has an astounding 854 x 480 screen resolution which could probably rival some first generation netbook displays.

The touchscreen can function as a game controller, though I’m not entirely sure if software has to be specifically designed for dual screens, I mean… How often do you see that being used today? Other than the Nintendo DS/DSi, not much. It also has an ambient light sensor and has a stylus included on the lefthand side of the netbook.

Besides functioning as a game controller, it can also serve as an area to play videos (but who would want to watch on a smaller screen?), or for handwriting recognition (now that makes sense!).

This one of a kind netbook (as of now, others might follow suit), will be available in Japan sometime in May 2009 for around ¥80,000 or approximately $815 USD.

Shown below are a number of videos show casing the Sharp Mebius PC-NJ70A:

[via TechTicker]