Lenovo Skylight: its first ARM / Snapdragon-based smartbook, coming in April for $499
By Darren Murph 
posted January 5th 2010 12:01AM
posted January 5th 2010 12:01AM
Lenovo Skylight Lights Up The Web with Industry's First ARM-Based, Qualcomm Smartbook
All Day Use, Always Connected Device Heightens Mobile Internet Experience, Connects with AT&T 3G Mobile Broadband Service in the U.S.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – January 5, 2010: Lenovo today announced the Lenovo Skylight, the first ARM-based smartbook based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon™ chipset platform. Skylight harnesses the best of smartphones and netbooks to create a new mobile consumer device. With a stunningly sleek and slim design, all day battery life, robust wireless connectivity and custom interface with live web gadgets, Skylight is designed to transform the mobile Internet experience. The Skylight smartbook connects with AT&T 3G mobile broadband service in the U.S.
"The web has become the window to the world for more and more people, helping them connect with friends and family across town or thousands of miles away," said Peter Gaucher, executive director, Mobile Internet Product Management, Lenovo. "Skylight combines the long battery life and connectivity of a smartphone with the full web browsing and multimedia experience of a netbook to create one of the first devices in this developing smartbook category. Consumers want choices. They can now choose from a full portfolio of Lenovo mobile consumer devices including netbooks, smartbooks and laptops."
"Now more than ever, consumers are looking for devices that will keep them connected virtually anytime and anywhere," said David Haight, vice president, business development, AT&T Mobility. "The Lenovo Skylight is slim and attractive with extraordinary battery life, and when paired with the nation's fastest 3G network and AT&T Wi-Fi service, it gives consumers a great web and media experience on the go."
Skylight brings users a brand new way to enhance their mobile web experience:
Beauty and Brains – Thinner than many smartphones, Skylight's sleek and lightweight design is a technological combination of beauty and function. Skylight is being introduced in two new vibrant colors, glossy lotus blue and earth red models. Skylight's clamshell design opens to reveal a brilliant high definition 10.1 inch screen designed for watching high definition videos or viewing photos. Tote it in a purse, backpack or bag. Weighing less than two pounds, Skylight is extremely mobile and lightweight enough for the user to tote it in a purse, backpack or bag. Unlike many netbooks, Skylight's full size keyboard makes typing easy.
No Power Cord? No Problem - Skylight has over 10 hours of active battery life,1 enough to allow the user to watch two movies or more back to back on the next plane flight.
· Simply plug it in at night to charge like a mobile phone. On the next plane flight, enjoy watching two movies or more back to back.
· Wireless Freedom – Skylight has built-in WiFi and 3G connectivity to give users a web connection nearly everywhere they go, and Skylight will seamlessly handoff between the WiFi and 3G. With the purchase of an AT&T DataConnect plan, users get 3G data but also access to AT&T's nationwide Wi-Fi network, including more than 20,000 Hot Spots in the U.S. for fast and easy web access on the go.
· Web Optimized Interface – Skylight's unique custom interface lets the full capabilities of the web shine through with live web gadgets. Users can check Google Gmail™, update their Facebook™ status, see what's new on YouTube™ or browse the Internet. simultaneously without having to continually refresh or log in. There are more than 18 preloaded web gadgets including Amazon MP3 to download digital music favorites and Roxio CinemaNow to buy and download digital movies. Powered by the Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon chipset platform and featuring 20 GB of standard flash and 2 GB of cloud storage, Skylight delivers the performance needed for mobile users unwilling to compromise their mobile experience and the flexibility to store their data wherever they like - in the cloud or on the device.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform offers a powerful combination of mobile processing performance, optimized power consumption, ubiquitous connectivity and powerful multimedia in a single chip.
"Snapdragon-based smartbooks like the Lenovo Skylight will change the way we connect to the world, and enjoy the web and media on the go," said Luis Pineda, senior vice president of marketing and product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. "Lenovo is leading the way for innovation in this space by utilizing the groundbreaking capabilities of our Snapdragon platform. We are excited for consumers to enjoy the new mobile experiences, such as extended battery life and increased connectivity that the Skylight will deliver."
Pricing and Availability3
The Lenovo Skylight smartbook will be available starting in April in the U.S. It will be available in China and in Europe later this year. In the U.S., it will be sold through www.lenovo.com, www.att.com and AT&T retail stores. Pricing will start at $499 at full retail price. AT&T offers two-year AT&T DataConnect service plans, as well as Data Connect Pass – a pay-as-you-need it data service available by the day, by the week or by the month.
For the latest Lenovo news, subscribe to Lenovo RSS feeds or follow Lenovo on Twitter and Facebook. . Follow Lenovo's activities at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas online.
All Day Use, Always Connected Device Heightens Mobile Internet Experience, Connects with AT&T 3G Mobile Broadband Service in the U.S.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – January 5, 2010: Lenovo today announced the Lenovo Skylight, the first ARM-based smartbook based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon™ chipset platform. Skylight harnesses the best of smartphones and netbooks to create a new mobile consumer device. With a stunningly sleek and slim design, all day battery life, robust wireless connectivity and custom interface with live web gadgets, Skylight is designed to transform the mobile Internet experience. The Skylight smartbook connects with AT&T 3G mobile broadband service in the U.S.
"The web has become the window to the world for more and more people, helping them connect with friends and family across town or thousands of miles away," said Peter Gaucher, executive director, Mobile Internet Product Management, Lenovo. "Skylight combines the long battery life and connectivity of a smartphone with the full web browsing and multimedia experience of a netbook to create one of the first devices in this developing smartbook category. Consumers want choices. They can now choose from a full portfolio of Lenovo mobile consumer devices including netbooks, smartbooks and laptops."
"Now more than ever, consumers are looking for devices that will keep them connected virtually anytime and anywhere," said David Haight, vice president, business development, AT&T Mobility. "The Lenovo Skylight is slim and attractive with extraordinary battery life, and when paired with the nation's fastest 3G network and AT&T Wi-Fi service, it gives consumers a great web and media experience on the go."
Skylight brings users a brand new way to enhance their mobile web experience:
Beauty and Brains – Thinner than many smartphones, Skylight's sleek and lightweight design is a technological combination of beauty and function. Skylight is being introduced in two new vibrant colors, glossy lotus blue and earth red models. Skylight's clamshell design opens to reveal a brilliant high definition 10.1 inch screen designed for watching high definition videos or viewing photos. Tote it in a purse, backpack or bag. Weighing less than two pounds, Skylight is extremely mobile and lightweight enough for the user to tote it in a purse, backpack or bag. Unlike many netbooks, Skylight's full size keyboard makes typing easy.
No Power Cord? No Problem - Skylight has over 10 hours of active battery life,1 enough to allow the user to watch two movies or more back to back on the next plane flight.
· Simply plug it in at night to charge like a mobile phone. On the next plane flight, enjoy watching two movies or more back to back.
· Wireless Freedom – Skylight has built-in WiFi and 3G connectivity to give users a web connection nearly everywhere they go, and Skylight will seamlessly handoff between the WiFi and 3G. With the purchase of an AT&T DataConnect plan, users get 3G data but also access to AT&T's nationwide Wi-Fi network, including more than 20,000 Hot Spots in the U.S. for fast and easy web access on the go.
· Web Optimized Interface – Skylight's unique custom interface lets the full capabilities of the web shine through with live web gadgets. Users can check Google Gmail™, update their Facebook™ status, see what's new on YouTube™ or browse the Internet. simultaneously without having to continually refresh or log in. There are more than 18 preloaded web gadgets including Amazon MP3 to download digital music favorites and Roxio CinemaNow to buy and download digital movies. Powered by the Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon chipset platform and featuring 20 GB of standard flash and 2 GB of cloud storage, Skylight delivers the performance needed for mobile users unwilling to compromise their mobile experience and the flexibility to store their data wherever they like - in the cloud or on the device.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform offers a powerful combination of mobile processing performance, optimized power consumption, ubiquitous connectivity and powerful multimedia in a single chip.
"Snapdragon-based smartbooks like the Lenovo Skylight will change the way we connect to the world, and enjoy the web and media on the go," said Luis Pineda, senior vice president of marketing and product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. "Lenovo is leading the way for innovation in this space by utilizing the groundbreaking capabilities of our Snapdragon platform. We are excited for consumers to enjoy the new mobile experiences, such as extended battery life and increased connectivity that the Skylight will deliver."
Pricing and Availability3
The Lenovo Skylight smartbook will be available starting in April in the U.S. It will be available in China and in Europe later this year. In the U.S., it will be sold through www.lenovo.com, www.att.com and AT&T retail stores. Pricing will start at $499 at full retail price. AT&T offers two-year AT&T DataConnect service plans, as well as Data Connect Pass – a pay-as-you-need it data service available by the day, by the week or by the month.
For the latest Lenovo news, subscribe to Lenovo RSS feeds or follow Lenovo on Twitter and Facebook. . Follow Lenovo's activities at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas online.
Oh snap!
@Lando Calrissian Oh snap for sure! I mean Snapdragon in April? For $499? I think the boat will have long sailed by then. Seriously.
@Anphaser The boat sailed on Linux netbooks a long time ago too. I can't work out how this will succeed where they didn't. Sure the battery life will be good, but modern Windows-based netbooks are pretty good too.
@Anphaser - Lately I've seen ridiculous MSRPs but then $150 instant supersale discount minus 15% bing cashback type crap going on. That way the sheep are all "ZOMG I got a $500 device for $300, I'm going to go poop my pants".
So there is hope that the ACTUAL street price will be quite reasonable.
@Anphaser The overall user interface is quite interesting. While the smartbook is running Linux, you’ll never see a command line or any of the usual desktop apps. Instead, there’s a dock at the bottom of the device that lets you access all the available applications. Right now there’s just over two dozen, but there could be more or fewer by the time the Skylight is available to the public. details: http://bit.ly/lenovo-skylight-leak-details
I haven't such a huge forehead since those Geico commercials!
@someone
Dude, your forehead size increases and decreases with time?
@JS Your forehead does too. It increased in size as you got older and will decrease if your weight changes (the skin will shrink to the lesser amount of fat).
God damn, Lenovo is going all out this CES, entire new refreshes for their ThinkPad and IdeaPad lineups, innovative new design for a Tablet/Netbook hybrid, a smartbook, new/refreshes to the ThinkCentre and IdeaCentre line-ups.
Good going Lenovo. Makes me proud that I own a Y550. Next time I need a new laptop, I'll definitely upgrade to the T5xx line. Hoping for great things from that new T510 Lenovo. Keep up the good work.
@Solidstate89
Exactly what I was thinking. These past few days have been ridiculous for Lenovo. The Thinkpad Edge and the X100e, definitely a step in a different direction for Thinkpad line, but judging from what I've read here it's a good step.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the W510, I plan to be getting one for Post-secondary, and the specs on it look awesome. Currently I have a Y530, which is a great machine, but I'm going into 3D animation so the W510 should be a great upgrade.
More power to Lenovo, all this news is further solidifying them as my favorite computer company.
@Solidstate89
Seriously. What happened to Lenovo. A couple decades of solid but staid notebooks (including the IBM years), followed by a hybrid laptop/tablet, a new linux distro, a netbook tablet, a smartbook, and a bunch of interesting minor products like the trackball/thumbboard remote.
Changes like that just don't happen overnight. Engadget, this looks like an opportunity for some investigative journalism.
Thats actually kind of nice.
Way way way overpriced though.
@DrDr I think thats the data plan mostly, plus its new tech.
This isn't the future, but it is definitely going to be a part of it.
I would love a no-moving parts, 10 hour super-light laptop for travelling.
@DrDr
I think it's hard to beat the cost of ATOM platform, LCD, Battery probably cost around the same. so this is something that costs more and can accomplish less than a netbook.
@DrDr Yup, at $499 this is DEAD. I can buy an 11" ultralight like the Asus AS1810tz for around that price, with Windows 7 Home Premium, more RAM, faster CPU, big disk, 802.11n, eSata, HDMI, etc etc.
Smartbooks were supposed to be CHEAP. If they can't be CHEAP there's no point to them. They have to be cheaper than the bottom end netbooks...
Wohhhhh!! miniSD? I seriously had to do a double take reading that one. The last thing that I can remember supporting that format was my Motorola Q9c. Didn't SanDisk discontinue/stop supporting that format? I know it's not that big of a deal but that definitely caught me off guard for a second. On a lighter note, the linux-based OS looks very creative. I've been glad to see recently that the Windows PC manufacturers are quite capable of creating really nice user interfaces themselves.
@dstafford72 Yeah, it's kinda weird, but I can see them attempting to go with a format that has a little more storage than microSD. Worst case, all four of the last microSD cards I've purchased came with both a standard SD and miniSD adapter.
that looks really attractive..can any linux deb be installed on it?
@artshark
Let's hope not.
Beautiful gadget. Looking forward to these smartbooks within the cloud environment.
I want one of these very very much bad. I only wish it was releasing now, so I could get use of it for the full semester, not just the end.
a supersized pda!
I've been waiting for one of those for years.
Wow I like that OS.... Does anyone know what it is?
@JefferyShin
Custom Linux, no idea what its based on.
Usually on of the major distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
That huge bezel up above the screen ruins it for me.
Lenovo's gonna rule CES!
@dpuk
The uh, Chinese company. Heheheh.... That's gotta sting...
Mike in Shanghai
This is very interesting, After watching the video I am very impressed 10hr battery life and its very small, perfect for trips/plane etc when you just need web basics , looks great.
$500 is not worth it. A $500 netbook woulld be way better,
@Peter F - Hell no. I would pay an extra $100 to lose about a pound and a half of weight and the thickness ANY DAY. Unless you're someone who is using your netbook as an actual laptop (in which case you're probably better suited for a 13-in CULV notebook), all you really need is barebones apps (web, email, chat, photos) in a portable form factor with good battery life. What the hell does a netbook have over this, other than price? This would be the perfect travel device for me.
@tonicboy The Asus AS1410 is only 3lbs. So this is a pound lighter than an 11.6" netbook that offers similar battery life. And about the same price. With worse specs.
" we're still struggling to see what niche these things are designed to fill"
Computers with processors built around an ISA that doesn't completely and totally suck ***.
"a customized version of Linux"
*sigh* Everyone will be wiping /that/. Why do they bother? Ubuntu is available for ARM. Install it with Flash and codecs, maybe an additional app or two, and leave it alone!
I'm not buying the design or the Operating system. I would rather spend a little more on a Nokia N900. smartbooks were projected to cost 200. they are trying to get rich of this one. Theres no way that this thing should cost 500 bucks. But i suppose they are making it that price so that when they sell i subsidized On ATT the real 200 price will look handsome to some noob or soccer mom that stumbles into a att store. I'll pass.
The double-"D" case design is distinctive but unattractive.
I'm interested to see what direction these non-windows "smartbooks" go. Seems to me that they could be a niche for hardware keyboard holdouts looking for extremely small form-factor in the face of all these upcoming tablets (but I guess that new Lenovo hybrid offers the best of both worlds). We'll see if the first wave of Chrome OS smartbooks can offer refinement over these random linux distros, however.
I can see this and the Chrome devices and some future Apple device - but to tell you the truth, I'd rather have the full blown OS on a netbook that lasts all day...
Yeah, what OS/Distro is that, and where do I find the SDK and App Store? :)
Hack off the Queen Elizabeth forehead look and you may have a market.
Looks nice, but I was half-expecting there to be a mirror on one side and make-up on the other.
I remember people kept harping on and on about the supposed 'windows tax'. Well here you have a non-windows computer and it's priced well above most netbooks with similar performance.
For $500 I can get any netbook or even decent notebook with Windows 7 and can do much more and install many more apps than this thing can.
Call me when this thing is priced around $200.
So much for 'windows tax'.
AT&T? LOLOL. No thanks.
@(Unverified) I agree with you...AT&T, what were they thinking? They cannot even take care of their 3G network now. Don't understand that decision at all!!!
Lenovo needs to make this product compatible with Sprint/Clearwire's 4G system with a 3G/4G chip (which is presently not compatible with Linux but that I am sure can be changed). Then we have a great system that you can use across the country and are able to take advantage of the higher speeds, cheaper prices and no data limitations of WiMax when you are using this in a WiMax market.
500 is a tad high for a cellphone processor with a 13" screen.
@icemuffin No man, it's cellphones with cellphone processors and 3.5" inch screens that are the rip off. How does a Nexus One cost $530 when something like this can be made for less?
This product is going to fail miserably. There is no niche market between smart phone and a netbook. Consider that there are netbook out there that have battery life that last for around 10 hours, make this product irrelevant. Another thing is Software, nowaday you can't have a device that run only software develop by yourself, you need third party software.
@k2001 Agreed on the fail. Nonetheless, I cannot wait until Lenovo dumps this failure on the discount market, and they get blown out for $199 or less.
Mmm Poland Spring.
This is cool, but $500? A lot of the stuff is already available on smartphones (facebook, gmail, youtube, etc). People that are interested in this are more likely already have a smartphone that can already do those things. So what's the point? For $200, maybe, but $500?
One thing I specifically like is that the UI doesn't look like Windows. A problem for non-Windows netbooks has been the expectation that they will work like Windows. The fact that the early implementations tried to look like Windows didn't help.
By having an interface that is so non-Windows means people will just use it with the expectation that it will be a different.
Only $50 less than a base ThinkPad Edge, slower but no more portable than netbooks... what's the point?
I like the styling though.