Qualcomm's Snapdragon based smartbook to get a formal launch soon

It will be powered by an ARM processor and Linux OS

This is what the Snapdragon powered Smartbook will look like

Qualcomm the giant name in the cellphone-chip making industry is all set to launch it’s first smartbook running on the Snapdragon platform. The company has been showing a lot of prototype netbook and smartbook models using the Snapdragon platform since last year but no formal launch was made. Now, the much awaited Qualcom Snapdragon powered smartbooks will finally be at Qualcomm’s annual analyst meet which is to be held in New York.

Similar to smartphones, the smartbooks are also designed to remain connected with high-speed (3G) wireless data networks. Moreover, they have some other features similar to the smartphones like - Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth, GPS connectivity, and the most important thing i.e. both are really light weight. Smartbooks offer high-quality multimedia performance with 3D graphics, HD video, and much more. Smartbooks are based on Qualcomm Snapdragon processor which uses Linux operating system whereas most of the netbooks available in the market today run on Intel’s x86 platform and use the Windows operating system.

Some of the benefits of Qualcomm's Snapdragon based smartbooks are:

• High quality internet browsing experience
• Full support for stored high definition video content
• Full access to social networks with the help of instant messaging, video conferencing, and chat
• Energy efficient battery with perhaps eight hours of battery life
• Instantaneous connectivity, greater mobile performance, and perceptive usability
• High quality video clips and pictures
• Full support for High performance 3D UIs, games and more

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Processor powered smartbook feature a low power ARM-based processor with high quality wireless connectivity including WiFi, 3G, GPS, and Bluetooth. The biggest disadvantage of this product is that all Snapragon processors, the 1-GHz QSD8x50, updated 1.3-GHz QSD8650A and 1.5-GHz, dual-core QSD8672 doesn’t support Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 as it has ARM processor. As this runs on Linux platform this may repel some customers from this product.

Some big names in the field of computer manufacturing like ASUS, Toshiba, Compal, Foxconn, High Tech Computer are going to use the Snapdragon microprocessors in their smartbooks, these will be available from early 2010 onwards. Asus will be the first OEM to launch a smartbook, using the Android Operating System from Google.