14 DAY TRIAL // Smartbooks have been gaining attention on the IT market thanks to their being a sort of hybrid between smartphones and netbooks. Basically, they are designed with a netbook form factor while boasting certain smarphone capabilities such as an always-on and all-day battery life. Lenovo just finished launching its own product, named Skylight, and, naturally, plans to showcase it during the Consumer Electronics Show.
The smartbook has a 10.1-inch screen, but is much thinner than any netbook model to date. Unlike netbooks, however, it does not use x86 processors, leveraging, instead, the capabilities of the ARM architecture. The Snapdragon chipset used in the device's construction runs at 1GHz. The device itself has 20GB of flash storage, an 8GB miniSD card and 2GB of Lenovo cloud storage space. In addition, the Skylight is designed with two USB ports (one in a flip-jack form), a mini-HDMI and will be able to connect to the Internet through the built-in WiFi and the AT&T WWAN module.
“Snapdragon-based devices like the Lenovo Skylight will change the way we connect to the world and how we enjoy the web and media while on the go,” Luis Pineda, senior vice president, Marketing and Product Management, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, said. “Lenovo is leading the way for innovation in this space by utilizing the groundbreaking capabilities of our Snapdragon platform. We are excited for consumers to enjoy the new mobile experiences that the Skylight will deliver, such as extended battery life and increased connectivity.”
The Skylight will supposedly be able to run on battery power for up to ten hours while offering the possibility for a seamless web browsing and accessing “web gadgets” such as Facebook and Gmail. The smartbook even has various multimedia features thanks to its custom OS based on Linux. Among the built-in special elements are Amazon MP3 and Roxio CinemaNow for music and movie purchasing. Coupled with the screen capable of a 1280x720 resolution, it may be that even movie viewing will be possible.
“The web has become the window to the world for more and more people, helping them connect with friends and family across town or thousands of miles away,” Peter Gaucher, executive director, Mobile Internet Product Management, Lenovo, added. “Skylight combines the long battery life and connectivity of a smartphone with the full web browsing and multimedia experience of a netbook to create one of the first devices in this developing smartbook category. Consumers want choices. They can now choose from a full portfolio of Lenovo mobile consumer devices including netbooks, smartbooks and laptops.”
The device will be demonstrated at CES, but its price tag has already been disclosed and seems somewhat on the high side. The Skylight's tag is of $499, which suggests that its marketing performance might turn out weaker than intended, unless it is subsidized. It will be available in the US starting in April, and will be sold through www.lenovo.com and www.att.com. The product will reach Europe and China in the second half of this year.