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A smartbook was a class of
mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...
that combined certain features of both a
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
and
netbook Netbook was a commonly used term that identified a product class of small and inexpensive laptops which were sold from 2007 to around 2013. These machines were designed primarily as cost-effective tools for consumers to access the Inte ...
computer, produced between 2009 and 2010. Smartbooks were advertised with features such as always on, all-day battery life, 3G, or
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
connectivity and
GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
(all typically found in smartphones) in a
laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
or tablet-style body with a screen size of 5 to 10 inches and a physical or soft
touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...
keyboard. A German company sold
laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
s under the brand ''Smartbook'' and held a
trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...
for the word in many countries (not including some big markets like
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, or
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
). It acted to preempt others from using the term ''smartbook'' to describe their products. Smartbooks tended to be designed more for entertainment purposes than for productivity and typically targeted to work with online applications. They were projected to be sold subsidized through
mobile network operator A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier, is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell ...
s, like
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
s, along with a wireless data plan. The advent of much more popular tablets like Android tablets and the
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...
, coupled with the prevailing popularity of conventional
desktop computer A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...
s and
laptops A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
have displaced the smartbook.


History

The smartbook concept was mentioned by
Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...
in May 2009 during marketing for its
Snapdragon ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants commonly known as dragon flowers, snapdragons and dog flower because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They are native to r ...
technology, with products expected later that year. Difficulties in adapting key software (in particular, Adobe's proprietary
Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the ...
) to the ARM architecture delayed releases until the first quarter of 2010. Smartbooks would have been powered by processors which were more energy-efficient than traditional ones typically found in desktop and laptop computers. The first smartbooks were expected to use variants of the
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
, such as Google's Android or
ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfac ...
. The
ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...
processor would have allowed them to achieve longer battery life than many larger devices using
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...
processors. In February 2010,
ABI Research Abi or ABI may refer to: Organizations United States * American Bankruptcy Institute * American Beverage Institute * American Biographical Institute * Applied Biosystems Inc. Elsewhere * Agencia Boliviana de Información, a Bolivian press age ...
projected that 163 million smartbooks would ship in 2015. In many countries the word ''Smartbook'' was a trademark registered by Smartbook AG. In August 2009 a German court ruled Qualcomm must block access from Germany to all its webpages containing the word ''Smartbook'' unless Smartbook AG is mentioned. Smartbook AG defended its trademark. A February 2010 ruling prevented Lenovo from using the term. By the end of 2010, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs admitted that
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...
s such as the
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...
already occupied the niche of the smartbook, so the name was dropped. In February 2011 Qualcomm won its legal battle when the German patent office ruled the words "smart" and "book" could be used. However, several trademarks have been registered.


Designs


Always Innovating Touch Book

In March 2009 the Always Innovating company announced the
Touch Book The Touch Book is a portable computing device that functions as a netbook, and a tablet computer. Designed by Always Innovating, a company situated in the city of Menlo Park, in California, USA, it was launched at the DEMO conference in March 2 ...
. It was based on the
Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...
OMAP 3530 which implemented the
ARM Cortex-A8 The ARM Cortex-A8 is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. Compared to the ARM11, the Cortex-A8 is a dual-issue superscalar design, achieving roughly twice the instructions per cycle. The Cort ...
architecture. It was originally developed from the Texas Instruments
Beagle Board The BeagleBoard is a low-power open-source single-board computer produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key and Newark element14. The BeagleBoard was also designed with open source software development in mind, and as a way of ...
. It had a touchscreen and a detachable keyboard which contained a second battery. The device came with a Linux operating system and the company offered to license their hardware designs.


Sharp Netwalker

Sharp Electronics is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Since 2016 it has been majority owned by the Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Sharp employs more than 50 ...
, introduced their PC-Z1 "Netwalker" device in August 2009 with a promised ship date of October 2009. It featured a 5.5" touchscreen, runs Ubuntu on an
ARM Cortex-A8 The ARM Cortex-A8 is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. Compared to the ARM11, the Cortex-A8 is a dual-issue superscalar design, achieving roughly twice the instructions per cycle. The Cort ...
based Freescale i.MX515 and was packaged in a small clamshell design. Sharp reported 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 Adobe Flash Lite (formerly Macromedia Flash Lite) was a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, a software application published by Adobe Systems for viewing Flash content. Flash Lite operates on devices that Flash Player cannot, such as mobi ...
3.1 installed.


Pegatron prototype

Pegatron, an Asus company, showed a working prototype of a smartbook in August 2009. It consisted of an ARM Cortex-A8 based Freescale i.MX515 supports 2D/3D graphics as well as
720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...
HD video, 512 MB DDR2
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
, 1024x600 8.9" LCD screen, Bluetooth 2.0, 802.11g and run off a
SD card Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...
. It also featured one USB and one micro USB port, a VGA port as well as a card reader. The smartbook ran
Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
Netbook 9.04 and contained a version of
Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is Software, computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming media, streaming audio and vide ...
which was out of date. The
bill of materials A bill of materials or product structure (sometimes bill of material, BOM or associated list) is a list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, parts, and the quantities of each needed to manufacture an end ...
for the Pegatron smartbook prototype was $120. In November 2009 Pegatron said it had received a large number of orders for smartbooks that would launch in early 2010. The devices were rumored to sell for about $200 when subsidized. Asus announced plans to release their own smartbook in the first quarter of 2010.


Lenovo Skylight

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...
was expected to announce a smartbook on November 12, 2009 at an analyst meeting. A
Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...
device concept was shown, and announced in January 2010. In May 2010 the Skylight was cancelled.


Compaq Airlife 100

In late January 2010 a U.S.
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) listing featured a device from HP that was referred as ''smartbook'', while a prototype of the same device was already shown earlier. In beginning February on Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HP announced it will bring this device to market. The specifications will most likely be following: * CPU: 1 GHz Qualcomm
Snapdragon ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants commonly known as dragon flowers, snapdragons and dog flower because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They are native to r ...
processor *
Operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
: Android * Display: 10.1 inch
touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...
* Storage: 16 GB SSD * Networking: 3G and
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
* Battery: up to 12 hours, 10 days in standby mode In the end of March 2010 the smartbook made an appearance at FCC again, this time listing its 3G capabilities. According to FCC, the device will support GSM 850 and 1900, as well as WCDMA II and V bands. These WCDMA bands may indicate the usage in AT&T network in the United States. Details of the product is now available on the HP website.


Toshiba AC100

In June 2010, a smartbook device from
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...
was announced. It features
Nvidia Tegra Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics proc ...
processor and is able to remain in stand-by mode for up to 7 days. The device was officially available at the Toshiba
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
site. Originally delivered with Android v2.1 (upgradable to v2.2 since 2011 ) it can also be modified to run a customized
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
distribution. In Japan, was sold as "Dynabook AZ".


Genesi Efika MX

The
Genesi Genesi is an international group of technology and consulting companies in the United States, Mexico and Germany. It is most widely known for designing and manufacturing ARM architecture and Power ISA-based computing devices. The Genesi Group co ...
company announced an MX Smartbook as part of their
Efika Efika is a line of power efficient ARM architecture and Power ISA based computers manufactured by Genesi. In Esperanto ''efika'' means "efficacious, effective, or efficient". EfikaPPC The EfikaPPC, sometimes also referred to as EFIKA 5200B, was ...
line in August 2010. It was originally priced at
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
349, and some reviewers questioned if it was small enough to fit this definition. It is ostensibly a derivative of the above-mentioned Pegatron design.


Others

In September 2009,
Foxconn Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan and Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer established in 1974 with headquarters in Tucheng, New ...
announced it is working on smartbook development. In November 2009, a
Quanta Computer Quanta Computer Incorporated () () is a Taiwan-based manufacturer of notebook computers and other electronic hardware. Its customers include Apple Inc., Dell, Hewlett-Packard Inc., Acer Inc., Alienware, Amazon.com, Cisco, Fujitsu, Gericom, Lenov ...
pre-production Snapdragon powered sample smartbook device that ran Android was unveiled. Companies like
Acer Inc. Acer Inc. ( ) is a Taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation specializing in advanced electronics technology, headquartered in Xizhi, New Taipei City. Its products include desktop PCs, laptop PCs ( clamshells, 2-in-1s, co ...
planned to release a smartbook, but due to the popularity of tablets,
MacBook Air The MacBook Air is a line of ultrabook computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. It consists of a full-size keyboard, a machined aluminum case, and, in the more modern versions, a thin light structure. The Air was originally positioned ...
and
Ultrabook Ultrabook is a marketing term, originated and trademarked by Intel, for a category of high-end laptop computers. They were originally marketed as featuring ultra thin form factor and light weight design without compromising battery life or per ...
s, plans were scrapped.


See also

* Mobile internet device *
Ultra-mobile PC An ultra-mobile PC, or ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), is a miniature version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this d ...
*
Virtual keyboard A virtual keyboard is a software component that allows the Input device, input of characters without the need for physical keys. The interaction with the virtual Computer keyboard, keyboard happens mostly via a touchscreen interface, but can also ...
*
Netbook Netbook was a commonly used term that identified a product class of small and inexpensive laptops which were sold from 2007 to around 2013. These machines were designed primarily as cost-effective tools for consumers to access the Inte ...
*
Subnotebook Subnotebook, also called ultraportable, superportable, or mini notebook, was a marketing term for laptop computers that are smaller and lighter than a typical notebook-sized laptop. Types and sizes As typical laptop sizes have decreased over t ...


References


External links


ARM Community Blogs on Smart Mobile Devices


News stories

*
Smartbook Playing Field Wide Open for Linux
{{Computer sizes Classes of computers Japanese inventions History of telecommunications History of computing hardware