http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/ Engadget Comments for Snapdragon and Tegra smartbook rumors swirl before likely year end push http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 9:59AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 11:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
What the heck is a smartbook? I'm looking forward to these Tegra machines. I hear they are powerful graphics chips. Now maybe if they can build netbooks that are much more powerful than today's current machine, that would make more sense.]]>Aug 3rd 2009 3:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 7:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
that aside, these aren't more powerful netbooks - they're smaller, cheaper, and significantly *less* powerful netbooks. IIRC, Tegra is two ARM11s duct-taped together, while Snapdragon uses a (single, but probably still faster?) Cortex A8 pretty much the same as the iPhone 3GS, but neither is in the same class as Atom. Both have graphics acceleration so they can play video, as long as it's using a media player that supports the hardware accelerator.

I think the future for small ARM-based netbooks (probably running fairly standard Linux variants rather than Android) is good, and I want one. :) But not quite yet. Next year, Cortex A9-based designs (with similar on-chip graphics) might be the real answer to Atom, especially if they're dual-core or even quad-core. [Not sure the latter is due next year, it might be later.]]]>Aug 3rd 2009 8:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
teehee]]>Aug 3rd 2009 10:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:04AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
Personally?.. I am just trying to come up with the next useless portable device that will give me crumbled fingers before I am 50.

How about --- SmartSlate! Or... Smarter-than-the-average-smart-phone-but-without-a-phone-NetCellBook!]]>Aug 3rd 2009 10:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
These will not run windows. These will be overpriced and will fail. ]]>Aug 3rd 2009 10:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
That said, I'm not so sure these things will do real well either because mainstream public's head explodes if it isn't running windows.]]>Aug 3rd 2009 12:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/i dont see what the benefit is of these devices without a robust operating system to support them. its all very well saying it does internet , but most people want internt and some other thing . nobody buys a $2-300 device just for internet and word processing.

what they have here is a real opportunity to cater to the mid market , a real thumb-able device with a 5-6 inch screen with NO think bezel and real quality fast keyboard and they are blowing it. intel cant do it yet , the mids are too heavy , too thick and dont offer the battery life. ]]>Aug 3rd 2009 4:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/-
I don't see Crome OS being the best choice for these devices, it needs a couple more years before it take front stage on these new platform..
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AMD/ATI where the hell are you!]]>Aug 3rd 2009 10:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
Although smartphone chipsets like Snapdragon and Tegra include better hardware video decoding than the old GMA950 Intel Atom platform, Intel's GPU is faster. And this will certainly be the case when the new Atom SoC chipsets come out at the end of the year.

Likewise, the Intel Atom CPU is also faster than the ARM Cortex-A8 chips, and probably the dual-core Cortex-A9. The main draw of these ARM-based SoCs is the very low power of the platform. However, with an optimized linux build, the ARM based netbooks should do very well. (Look at the iPhone 3GS).

For decent graphics on a netbook, Nvidia's Atom--based ION platform is excellent, and AMD's new low-power platform should be out very soon.]]>Aug 3rd 2009 9:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
I suspect the mobile operators would love these things, because of the additional revenue opportunities over and above basic data contracts.]]>Aug 3rd 2009 10:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 9:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 10:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Sep 18th 2009 1:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 11:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 11:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 11:58AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 5:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
Cupertino is incapable of selling a computer in the price range these are targeted for (if the predictions are correct). Jobs and others have shown their disdain for "Cheap" computers time and time again. While I do think Apple is full of self righteous yuppies, I do agree with them on this one.

Apple is able to produce attractively designed hardware because their high profit margin gives them the money to hire R&D specialists, Designers ect, that most higher volume lower price companies don't have the margin for. Whether it's something you like, or you think it's worth it, is largely up to the consumer, but the reason why Apple is "different" to most people has nothing to do with the OS, it's the fact you definitely know an Apple product from any other just by looking at it.

In any case, it looks like these are being targeted as lower priced, light weight, long battery life little smart devices that provide the same features as your phone, but with an easier form factor to use for longer periods. I am looking forward to having one to use while I travel, since the battery life will be great.


Though I am excited to see the Apple tablet (if it exists), I have been dreaming of a large 100% tablet/touch interface device since I watched Star Trek TNG as a kid. However, I don't think the companies producing these $250 computers are at all worried about some $700 device.]]>Aug 3rd 2009 12:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/
- there's no indication that they won't succumb to the netbook price disease (announce at $200, sell for $350+, fall to $300 6-9 mo. later)

- netbooks at least offer XP/Win7. I can run Office 2k7, SPSS, STATA, Dreamweaver etc if I need to. I've also been fine with using Ubuntu. What sort of market niche is likely to buy a machine with a smartphone/propietary OS when contract-price cellphones with Wi-fi can do the same thing, if on a smaller screen. I know the Iphone can't be bought without a data plan, but plenty of other, large-screen phones can. Netbooks are useful because you can work on them. Smartphones like the Iphone, G1, Xpressmusic are not good for this purpose, but are good enough for browsing, email and music. Even with a better battery, buying an oversized smartphone at a lower unsubsidized price (maybe) doesn't really make a lot of sense to me; it can't even make calls! Even if it could, you're not going to be holding this thing up to your ear, are you? You could use a headset, but then you might as well Skype on a normal netbook.

Manufacturers are wasting resources by pushing forward new products when there's plenty of scope for improvement in the netbook sector.]]>Aug 3rd 2009 12:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 1:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/snapdragon-and-tegra-smartbook-rumors-swirl-before-likely-year-e/Aug 3rd 2009 2:44PM