and it strikes me that they can be really interesting for some, if they can behave like a mobile phone in terms of always connected. That is, push mail, im status and similar.

Sure, a smartphone can do the same, and one could go with a smartphone and a redfly, either in hardware or software on ones netbook or laptop, rather then a smartbook. But in the end that will be up to the customer.

in the end tho, i suspect whats needed is not new hardware, but new ways to use computing on the go. The laptop or smaller just means we can move our office desk to any flat surface on the planet, but are still doing the same old tasks that be always have done.

it may well be that we need to get rid of the “head down” mode of computing, by having the IO of the computer at the tip of our fingers and nose, rather then in some pocket or bag/backpack where we need to dig it out each time we need to use it.

It’s only ARM9 processor, so it’s slow, but in terms of speed at 533mhz it’s probably not far from the performance of HTC G1, Magic or Hero even though the HTC have faster ARM11 processors.

The main advantage with the ARM laptops is that there are half a dozen or more ARM semiconductor solution providers. TI, Samsung, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Freescale and Nvidia at the least. You can even add a few more processor makers onto that. They are all making ARM Cortex based laptop reference desins and competing on the price.

To me, the only performance ARM needs to reach is to run a web browser like Chrome at full speed, meaning, you click and things happen instantly, and you scroll and it feels just fine, and you open as many tabs as you want and switch tabs and everything seems great. I believe this is possible already with ARM Cortex A8 and will only be improved with A9 in the next few months.

Chrome OS will be released next week, I do believe we will see Smartbooks before Christmas though the mass production may only launch after CES.

Those smartbooks we hear about launching at AT&T are not the core of smartbooks that I think will revolutionize the industry. Cause if you signup for a 24-month data plan, the pricing advantage of ARM is harder to discern for the public.

Though when you talk about the price for a unlocked open laptop, the price for ARM version will be less than half of using the atom of Intel. And battery life truely will be very different, upwards 20 hours on a 3 cell battery with ARM and Pixel Qi while Intel has a hard time reaching 10 hours with Pixel Qi and a 6 cell battery.

Thus, look forward to $100 ARM9/ARM11 entry level laptops, all the way up to $150 to $200 ARM Cortex A8 types. All with 3G support either through dongle or internal, and totally unlocked. All being able to run a full Chrome browser with unlimited tabs and speed of page loading and scrolling, no matter the amount of RAM, and no matter the type of Linux it’s installed on Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu or some other Linux OS available.

But I disagree with the weight advantage
for example:
5″ Archos 5 IT – 200 gm, Viliv S5 – 450gm
7″ SmartQ7 – 450gm / Atom UMPC – 700gm
9″ Always Innovating Touchbook – 650 gm, Archos 9 – 800gm
Innovative Converged Devices announced Vega – 15″ 1,3kg slate!
Sony P is a very expensive product – there is now such ARM product to compare with
Moorestone will be in a year

I think the 200gm advatage is considerable if speaking about sub 1,3 kg devices