Smartbook

Wistron Pursebook, 1GHz Snapdragon ARM CPU (April 2009).

A smartbook is a concept of a mobile device that falls between smartphones and netbooks, delivering features typically found in smartphones (always on, all-day battery life, 3G connectivity, GPS)^[1] in a slightly larger device with a full keyboard. Smartbooks will tend to be designed to work with online applications.^[2] Smartbooks are likely to be sold initially through mobile network operators, like mobile phones are today, along with a wireless data plan.^[3]

A German company Smartbook AG is selling laptops with the same name. The company holds a trademark for the word Smartbook in a number of countries besides some big markets like United States, China, Japan or India.

Designs

Always Innovating Touch Book

Always Innovating is shipping beta units of the Touch Book ^[4]. This device is based on the Texas Instruments OMAP3530 which implements the ARM Cortex-A8 architecture. It was originally developed from the Texas Instruments Beagle Board. It has a touchscreen and a novel detachable keyboard which contains a second battery. The device comes with a Linux operating system and the company offers to share their hardware designs with other "parties that show strong commitment to the open source movement" ^[5].

Foxconn

In September 2009, Foxconn announced it is working on smartbook development.^[6]

Sharp Netwalker

The Sharp PC-Z1 as seen on IFA 2009

Sharp Electronics, introduced their PC-Z1 "Netwalker" device in August 2009 with a promised ship date of October 2009. This device features a 5.5" touchscreen, runs Ubuntu on an ARM Cortex-A8 based Freescale i.MX515 and is packaged in a small clamshell design. Sharp reports that the device weighs less than 500 grams and will run 10 hours on one battery charge. The device is said to run 720p video, and have both 2D and 3D graphics acceleration. It comes with Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 installed.^[7][8]

Mio

They are also selling a smartbook from November 10. It's an 7 inches device and it runs windows ce 6.0 The device has a 266MHz ARM-based processor from VIA and supports 128MB to 256MB of memory. It has 1GB of flash storage space and supports up to 4GB. There’s also an SD card slot and 3 USB ports for adding additional storage or peripherals.^[9]

Pegatron prototype

Pegatron, an Asus company, has showed working prototype of smartbook in August 2009. It consisted of an ARM Cortex-A8 based Freescale i.MX515 supports 2D/3D graphics as well as 720p HD video, 512MB DDR2 RAM, 1024x600 8.9" LCD screen, Bluetooth 2.0, 802.11g and run off a SD card. As a peripherals it featured one USB and one micro USB port, a VGA port as well as a card reader. The smartbook ran Ubuntu Netbook 9.04 and the version of Adobe Flash Player was "not the latest one". The bill of material for the Pegatron smartbook prototype was $120.^[10]

In November 2009 Pegatron said it has received a large number of orders for smartbooks that will launch in early 2010. The devices should sell for about $200 when subsidized.^[11] Furthermore, Asus plans to release its own smartbook in Q1/2010.^[12][13] Later, Asus postponed the smartbook launch to Q2/2010.^[14]

Qualcomm

Qualcomm was expected to announce a smartbook on November 12th, 2009.^[15] Later it turned out a Lenovo device concept was meant and was really showed on that date, and will be reportedly officially announced on the CES 2010.^[16][17][18] The Lenovo device will be sold through AT&T carrier in the US.^[19] It is also suspected that Acer may be the first to launch a Chrome OS Netbooks^[20] so we may expect Smartbooks to come soon after.

Smartbook AG

The word Smartbook is a name of a laptop line sold by Smartbook AG, Germany, since 2006. The product line had been reportedly sold since 2001.^[21] Examples of the company's Smartbook product line include following models: i-1100Z (2006),^[22] i-1500C (2006),^[23] i-2500V (2006),^[24] i-3900Y (2006),^[25] i-7500N (2007),^[26] Predator (2008),^[27] Heaven XTC (2008),^[28] ZENiD (2008),^[29] Hornet (2008)^[30] and ZENiD GC CRYSTAL & Smartbook Heaven Puro (2009).^[31]

Trademark

In Germany, Austria, Australia, Benelux, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Sweden, Singapore, Turkey and Ukraine the word Smartbook is a trademark registered by Smartbook AG.^[32] Therefore, in these countries the word may not be used in the sense described in this article.^[33] In accordance to German court ruling, Qualcomm has to block access from Germany to all its webpages containing the word Smartbook unless Smartbook AG is mentioned.^[34] The company has announced it will protect its trademark, but is willing to sell it.^[21]

See also

• Mobile internet device
• Ultra-Mobile PC

References

External links

• Qualcomm Smartbook microsite
• ARM Community Blogs on Smart Mobile Devices
• Smartbook News Site
• Smartbook Discussion Forum

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