Sony Ericsson is planning to enter the smartbook arena. But, the most surprising fact (or should I say, rumor) is that it will be an Android powered device. According to the guys at GadgetMix.com, some Taiwanese source suggests that Sony Ericsson is working on a smartbook to be released by the end of this year. No details about the device were available, but it is speculated that the the device “will use ARM processors to run some mobile OS, possibly Android.”.
This news is nothing more than a rumor as of now. But, it remains to be seen, how far this device will be acceptable in the market. Sony Ericsson is generally famous for its high prices. Will that be the case with this device too ?
Acer has announced its plans to launch Android powered netbooks in the fourth quarter of 2009. Recently, ASUS had also reported its decision to launch Android powered “smartbook”.
“Today’s netbooks are not close to perfection at all. In two years, it will all be very different,” Jim Wong, Acer’s global president for IT products, said at a news conference at Computex show, recently held in Taipei, “If we do not continue to change our mobile Internet devices, consumers may not choose then any more.”
There are no reports about the pricing or the specifications. But, probably, it will run on Atom processor.
Every other day, we get news of an Android powered netbook being launched by some company. Will this prove to be a big threat to the current netbooks OS giant, Microsoft ?
May be, its too early to predict. Android is a new OS and its success or failure will, to a large extent, depend on the kind of and the number of applications that will be able to run on it.
Imagine running Google Android on a small netbook. Feels marvelous, isn’t it ? This is going to be turned into reality, very soon. ASUS demoed its Android powered Eee PC, running on Snapdragon Chipset, by Qualcomm.
Qualcomm calls it the ultrathin netbook a “smartbook”. It consumes extremely low power. So, it requires no cooling, hence it is a fanless device. This contributes to its thin built.
Here’s the video showing the “smartbook” :
Lets just hope that this “smartbook” paves the way for many more netbooks in the Android world.
