Lenovo joins the smartbook gang
ARM-based smartphone/netbook launched
Lenovo has unwrapped its first smartbook– an ARM-based PC with 10.1in display.
Skylight is Lenovo's first smartbook
Called Skylight, the machine has been created to fill a gadget gap that supposedly exists between smartphones and netbooks. As such Skylight combines “the long battery life and connectivity of a smartphone with the full web browsing and multimedia experience of a netbook”, according to Peter Gaucher, Lenovo’s Executive Director of mobile internet product management.
Qualcomm’s 1Ghz Snapdragon ARM II CPU powers Skylight and users will see Linux running on the machine’s 1280 x 720 resolution display, Lenovo said.
Skylight doesn’t have an onboard HDD or SSD to speak of. Instead users are provided with 8GB of integrated Flash storage, 2GB of online storage, a 4GB external Flash drive and a Micro SD memory card slot with 8GB card bundled in.
A 1Ghz Qualcomm CPU powers Skylight
Speaking of online connectivity, Skylight is equipped with 3G support though an integrated SIM card slot and also features a 1.3Mp webcam.
There isn’t, somewhat unsurprisingly, a Blu-ray or DVD drive on Skylight, although you can hook the PC up to an HD display over its mini HDMI connection. The machine’s other ports include two USB jacks and a headset jack.
Skylight weighs in at around 900g and measures a meagre 253 x 201 x 17mm, but Lenovo promised that the PC’s battery will hold out for up to 10 hours.
Skylight will hit Blighty later this year
Lenovo has priced Skylight – which is available in “Earth Red” and “Lotus Blue” bodies – up at $500 (£312/€346). The machine’s set to hit North America in April, though won’t arrive in Europe until later in 2010. ®
COMMENTS
Trackpoint
Another vote for the little rubber nipples from me.
Paris for reasons that I sadly can't put my finger on.
Interesting...
... right up until the price got mentioned... then I switched off.
I found a netbook too heavy and restrictive on screen size for what I got out of it (web browsing, vpn and ssh mostly, the media playback was crap thanks to Atom & 945), and I find a smartphone too small to be productive for much other than a quick look at something on a simple site (hoping N900 will be an improvement though)...
A gadget such as this, ~800g or less, web browser, media player and some linux goodies such as SSH etc could be useful... but only at around £150 does it sound worth it to me, definitly got to stay under £200.
Because it beats using a touchpad
It'd be nice if people stopped hating on other people's preferred tools, thanks.
I'm actually having to use a touchpad-equipped dull right now, and have had to for a year, and all that did was make me miss the trackpoint on the previous box more. I get tenfold the false inputs, like when the screen jump-scrolls up and down because my thumb hovered half an inch above the stupid pad. Dammit, I'm typing here, don't disturb!
For someone like me, touch-typist unix admin and software engineer, whose desktop primarily consists of xterms full of software, xterms with sessions to other boxes, xterms with text-based email clients, and so on and so forth, a trackpoint actually saves a lot of superfluous hand movement over both mouse and touchpad, and makes for tight keyboard+copy/paste integration.
I'm not advocating the death of touchpads; I'm sure many are greatly helped by it. But I am hoping at least some laptop/netbook/whatever manufacturers would value the trackpoint and cater for people who actually need a professional's computing tool instead of the usual {suit,3rd world kid,soccermom}-peergrouped fare. I have a little list of wishes, and it starts with a trackpoint.
Price!
Smaller, less powerful and less functional that my current Netbook, but twice the price! Are Lenovo staff on drugs or something?
