Sony Ericsson appears set to launch a netbook. Sorry, smartbook - the phone firm's micro laptop seems likely to be as much phone as portable PC.

There's not much else to add, alas. SE hasn't, of course, said anything. The claim comes from a "reliable" Taiwanese mole cited by Netbooknews.com. The source had no other information to share, so it remains unclear whether the SE machine - if there is an SE machine - will be based on Intel's Atom chip, Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Nvidia's Tegra or whatever.

Nokia has been rumoured to be working on something similar, possibly equipped with Intel chippery thanks to the two companies' recent technology alliance. So it seems unlikely that SE would simply ignore what one of its major rivals is doing. ®