NetbookTech

Lenovo confirmed on Thursday that the company will be announced their first “smartbook” product at CES 2010 in January. According to PC Magazine, the device will be sold by AT&T, presumably as part of a mobile broadband subsidized package. No further details on the system were provided by either Lenovo or AT&T.

“Smartbook” systems utilize Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon processor and come with a non-Windows OS – typically Linux. A spokewoman for Lenovo was quoted as saying in an email:

"Lenovo is developing a smartbook based on Snapdragon, which we expect to announce at CES… Unfortunately, there are no further details at this point.”

[Check it out]

One of the first Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Smartbook devices made an appearance last week at Chicago’s “4G World”. Dubbed the “Mangrove” and manufactured by Korean manufacturer, C-motech, the Smartbook apparently runs Windows Mobile 6.5 (there’s apparently support for Android also). No further details as of yet.

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Qualcomm and NVIDIA are making sure their netbook oriented products will work well under the upcoming Windows 7 OS. Qualcomm announced an updated version of their Gobi2000 3G embedded chipset with support for Windows 7 while NVIDIA announced new certified WHQL drivers that will make their new Ion platform compatible with Windows Vista (and hence Windows 7).

Qualcomm’s updated second generation Gobi2000 3G embedded chip is designed to allow mobile devices like netbooks and notebooks access multiple 3G networks such as HSPA or EV-DO.  The new Gobi2000 module features:

• Adds support for additional radio frequencies within the 800MHz and 900MHz bands including UMTS900
• Improved uplink capabilities with support for up to 5.76 Mbps via HSUPA
• Support for assisted GPS and gpsOneXTRA Assistance Technology
• Includes Qualcomm’s MDM2000 chipset

The company is currently sampling chips and expects to have systems with the chipset during the second half of this year.

Separately, NVIDIA announced that the new Ion platform has been certified for the Windows Vista OS (and hence will work just fine for Windows 7). What this basically means is – the Ion platform now has certified WHQL drivers for the Vista OS. According to NVIDIA, Microsoft has certified the Ion platform to perform the following:

• 1080p HD video including Blu-ray movies
• DirectX 10 support
• Support for Premium Windows Vista features such as Aero glass and Flip3D
• GPU acceleration for faster photo editing and video transcoding

[via PC World]

Qualcomm had several Snapdragon based devices on display at the Digital Experience tonight. Snapdragon is Qualcomm’s effort to deliver a system on a chip (SoC) platform for a class of devices similar to netbooks – something more powerful than a regular smartphone or mobile internet device (MID) – something that can deliver all the functionality found in netbooks yet also offer instant-on capabilities and all-day long operations.

On display at the Qualcomm booth were sample designs created by folks at Inventech (at least that’s what was told to me by the Qualcomm rep there). As you can see, these sample designs are in fact convertible designs running a Linux OS.

For those of you curious about Snapdragon, here are some of the features (the latest Snapdragon model):

• Dual CPU single chip designs capable of speeds of up to 1.5GHz
• Integrated multi-mode modems including HSPA+
• Integrated GPS, Bluetooth
• 1080p recording and playback
• Wi-Fi
• MediaFLO, DVB-H and ISDB-T
• Integrated 2D and 3D graphics engine

There are also single core Snapdragon models with built-in support for either GSM or CDMA/HSPA networks.

15 manufactures are now developing more than 30 Snapdragon-based products. First products should appear in the first half of this year. Manufacturers developing Snapdragon based products include:

• Acer
• ASUS
• C-motech
• Compal
• Foxconn
• HTC
• Inventech
• LG Electronics
• Quanta Computer
• Samsung Electronics
• Toshiba
• Wistron