Nikkei Electronics Asia -- September 2009
Cover Story -- Part 2: Analysis
Smartbooks Use Price to Cut Into Netbook Market

A number of new players are entering netbook peripheral markets in search of success. The keys seem to be low price and clear target applications.

From the end of 2009, the gap in the market between smartphones and notebook personal computers (PC) pioneered by the netbook will see a flood of new types of products such as Smartbooks, mobile Internet devices (MID) and more.

While they overlap with various applications, including netbooks, these new contenders boast their superiority over the netbook and hope to carve a piece of the market out for themselves. Within the netbook category, a new product genre of ultra-thin notebooks (otherwise known as consumer ultra-low voltage, or CULV, notebooks) is appearing, also in the hope of grabbing some of the market from netbooks.

Smartbooks:
Aiming for the Ideal Net-Aware Terminal

There are hopes for Smartbooks to become nothing less than the ideal mobile thin client for Internet connection. Networks running Windows are just PCs at heart, but in fact many people are using them as just Internet terminals.

Given that, it seems reasonable that a more refined terminal could acquire a pretty large market, and many people seem to agree, based on the success of the netbook.

Two firms are already taking action: Freescale Semiconductor Inc and Qualcomm Inc, both of the US, developing ARM core-based processors and other chips for mobile phones. The companies have jointly proposed the Smartbook.

Freescale Semiconductor showed a concept model (Fig 1) of the Smartbook, made collaboratively with the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) of the US, at Computex Taipei 2009, held in June 2009. The goal was probably to make it clear just how different it is from the netbook.

The major specifications of the Smartbook are, roughly speaking, (1) a processor with an ARM core, (2) 4- to 10-inch screen size, (3) NAND Flash memory storage device instead of a hard disk drive (HDD), (4) Linux operating system (OS), including Android, and (5) internal third-generation (3G) communication functions.

First, processor dissipation will be lower than it is with the currently popular Atom from Intel Corp of the US, making battery-drive time longer than that of netbooks. Most netbooks can get two or three hours from a charge, but according to Junko Sunaga, senior director, Marketing, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, Qualcomm, "It looks like Smartbooks will run for eight or nine hours." Qualcomm recommends using the Snapdragon, with an ARM7 core, 3G communication functions, Wireless Local Area Network (LAN), Bluetooth, Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) functions and more, while Freescale Semiconductor recommends its i.MX515 with the ARM Cortex-A8 and a 2D/3D graphics code, high-definition (720p) video decoder, etc (Table 1).

Smartbooks can also be made thinner and lighter than netbooks, thanks to the low dissipation of the ARM core processor and the lack of an HDD. The Linux-based OS makes for a faster boot than Windows can offer. In short, it is easier to use as a mobile terminal than a netbook.

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