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All posts tagged "smartbook"


Friday, May 21, 2010

Behold the Compaq Airlife 100

Posted by Hooch Tan in "Digital Home News" @ 10:00 AM

http://carrypad.com/2010/05/21/comp...ife-100-review/

"If you use the Airlife 100 as a traditional laptop, as one might expect from something that looks like a traditional laptop, you will run into issues. Not only is there a learning curve and a new set of usage methods but you’ll trip yourself up looking for features that you take for granted on a standard netbook. The USB ports are missing for example. This is a slave device designed to be connected, in much the same way as an iPad, to a PC. This isn’t a device that you can simply plug a printer, webcam or smartphone into. User confusion, frustration and disappointment is going to feature heavily in early feedback."

A lot of the review reads like what one would with a smartphone, just in a different form factor. It has the same strengths such as a really long battery life, and weaknesses like speed. One thing I find troubling, however, is the fragmentation of app stores. It seems as if every Android based tablet/smartbook coming out does not hook into the existing Android Market, but provides their own. Sad. Sad, sad, sad! Without that benefit, I do not really see a huge benefit to smartbooks as they are, when compared to netbooks. Sure, the smartbook may be always connected and always on, but is that really needed? It does not take that long for a netbook to come out of sleep mode and update itself.


Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The ARM/Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Smartbook: Lenovo Skylight

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 02:00 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/05/...-smartbook-com/

"It's the industry's first ARM-based, Qualcomm smartbook, and it's powered by a 1GHz processor. Other specs include a 10.1-inch display (1,280 x 720), a customized version of Linux, 20GB (total) of flash storage, 2GB of cloud storage, an 8GB miniSD card, twin USB ports, 1.3 megapixel camera, WiFi and a battery capable of humming along for ten hours on a full charge."

That's the Lenovo Skylight, a "smartbook" with an interesting design, has been announced today - but it's not going to ship until April of this year. As far as Linux-based netbooks go, this thing looks really interesting - the UI looks excellent, and the 10 hour battery life is a boon. But with a price tag of $499 USD, will it fly? Consumers have voted overwhelmingly that they want Windows on their netbooks - does the Skylight have a chance? Video after the break. Read more...


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon Based Smartbook

Posted by Hooch Tan in "Digital Home News" @ 08:30 AM

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/12339..._cpu/index.html

"We asked one of the product managers from Qualcomm to give us a demo of the system. It is based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform which consists of a 1GHz CPU. Because of the platforms “extremely low power consumption”, no cooling is required which allows for ultra thin netbooks. It is capable of playing back 720p video with the current gen chips, and in the future 1080p will be supported with the faster clock processors."

Goodbye netbook, hello smartbook! At least, if Qualcomm is successful at all, smartbooks are the next step beyond netbooks. Running on an ARM based Snapdragon CPU at 1.3Ghz with lots of features normally found in high end smartphones, the biggest benefit that a smartbook provides is battery life that could last for days and always on access. Reports say that it will have a $300-$500 price tag, which I think is too much. That puts it in the same price range as many netbooks, many of which offer many more features. I believe the biggest problem will be consumer perception. Following the netbook and notebook physical layout means most people will want to do computer type activities with it. Is an all day battery and always on abilities enough to sway your purchasing choice? Or do you expect more of a PC like experience if you've got a laptop like device in front of you? If they can position the device with the same expectations as a phone, it might have a better chance of sticking. Otherwise, you'll find people returning these in favour of Windows based netbooks. Hey, it has happened before.


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