Toshiba's AC100 8-hour Android smartbook plays 1080p video on a 1GHz Tegra 250 processor (update: video!)
By Thomas Ricker 
posted June 21st 2010 5:25AM
posted June 21st 2010 5:25AM
Update: Netbooked got its hands on with the Japanese Dynabook AZ twin and received confirmation that it'll ship in Japan in August for between ¥40,000 and ¥50,000 (about $438 to $548). Video after the break.
Toshiba unveils its ultraslim smart companion AC100
Highly portable smart companion with always-on capability needs less than a second to wake up from standby mode
06.20.2010 – Neuss, Germany – Toshiba Europe GmbH today entered the mobile internet device market by introducing the Toshiba AC100, which is designed with a clamshell form factor. Its slimness and light weight coupled with its always-on capability makes it the ideal device to consume media, browse the Internet and view and edit documents, emails and other messages while out and about. The AC100 can remain in standby mode for up to seven days. The highly personalisable 25.7cm (10.1'') AC100 will be available during the third quarter of 2010 throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The best of two worlds
"Our smart companion, the AC100, is a member of the mobile internet device segment that combines the best of two product categories: like a smartphone, it is always on, whilst offering the convenience of a clamshell netbook with a bigger screen and a full size keyboard," says Thomas Teckentrup, General Manager, Product, Strategy and Development Division, Computer Systems Group EMEA. It is targeted at users who utilise several devices but still desire an easy-to use, slim and light smart companion that can be taken almost everywhere and that offers superior usability to that of smartphones.
No need to recharge every day
The AndroidTM[1] based system takes less than a second to switch the AC100 from standby to full activity mode whilst supporting a smartphone-like 'always-on' capability. The Toshiba AC100 can go for up to seven days without having to be recharged. When being used intensively, it can provide at least eight hours of mixed browsing and video playback on one charge.
Simple-to-use and easy-to-personalise
The black and orange coloured AC100 is intuitively usable and offers the possibility to personalise the device by downloading applications and widgets. The AC100 ships with a number of applications pre-installed, amongst them Documents To Go®, for viewing and editing Microsoft Office files, an E-mail Client with POP3, IMAP and Exchange support, a messaging client, Opera Mobile for browsing the web as well as Toshiba Media Player for playing and viewing video, music and pictures.
Users can also deploy up to five home screens on their Toshiba AC100, which can be configured to change automatically depending on their location as indicated by the SSID[2]. For example, an owner could set short-cuts to work-related applications, widgets and 'live-files' to appear on the home screen when they are in their office, personal applications and widgets when they are at home and entertainment-orientated applications and widgets everywhere else.
Facts & Figures* The AC100
· NVIDIA® Tegra™ 250 Mobile Processor (1GH, ARM)
· AndroidTM2.1
· RAM: 512 MB DDR2 (333 MHz)
· up to 32GB SSD
· 25.7cm (10.1'') TruBrite® display with LED backlight, 1,024 x 600 pixels
· Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR*, WLAN (802.11 b/g/n), Mobile Broadband*
· 1 x USB 2.0, 1x Mini USB, Card Reader (SD, MMC), Audio out/Mic in combo socket, HDMI®
· 1.3 MPixel Webcam with integrated microphone
· Location based switchable desktop
· Toshiba Home Menu, a personalisable desktop with widgets and shortcuts
· Size: 262.1mm x 189.8mm x 14 / 21mm
· weight: starting at 870g
* depending on configuration and local availability
@everyone except sagi446
did you even read the article?
it clearly states it's got a 1024x600 res display
even if you run 1080p video on the integrated display instead of using the hdmi port, it's not magically going to display 1920x1080 pixels, it's going to downscale
@mrqs Did you even read the comments to my post?
They clearly stated that the native resolution is lower and that the 1080p support is for HDMI out and I admitted my ignorance. Now admit yours.
@pintonion
your 3rd comment seemed like you were still with your original thought so i disregarded the 2nd, but now that i've been to urban dictionary to look up "herp" and "derp", i see what you mean :)
well not the "herp" part, i still don't get that...
@mrqs It's like Uh oh. But in the now completely accepted net talk that you can't help but fall into.
Dual Core A9 @ 1GHz? Most likely rapes all Atom variations.
@sagi446 The Arm Cortex A9 cpu as good as they are are no where near what some of the new Atom cpu's can do on the benchmarks (dont forget there are dual core 64 bit atom cpu's due out soon and the Arm architecture is still 32 bit). Arm cpu's are more to do with doing a lot with less power not about grunt per-se.
@MrLinux We've never really seen independent benchmarks of A9 vs Atom. We've seen Intel's numbers of Moorestown vs A9. Of course, these are Intel's numbers.
I would still expect a 1.6GHz Atom to be faster, but not really by all that much. We're talking an in-order 2-way issue vs out-of-order 2-way issue design here.
Also, if they're putting this in a netbook format, I'd expect they'll be utilizing faster memory which has traditionally been what holds ARM devices back in performance compared to Atom.
@sagi446 I doubt that. The Coretex-A9 gets about 2.5 DMIPS/Mhz, while apparently the Atoms do a little better. So an Atom D510 with 2x 1.6Ghz cores should comfortably outpace an A9 with 2x 1Ghz cores. The A9 should have significant power (and therefore battery) advantages though.
@Gene Atom's achieved DMIPS/MHz is actually quite bad:
http://www.slideshare.net/napoleaninlondon/arm-cortex-a8-vs-intel-atomarchitectural-and-benchmark-comparisons
Even compared to the Cortex A8, let alone the A9.
This form factor would be MUCH BETTER served with Ubuntu instead of Android. A tablet is OK with Android because that is touch oriented but this has a trackpad and a keyboard so what is the point of using a crippled Linux like Android?
The Tegra2 is strong enough to run a full Ubuntu (altough I would put 1Gig of RAM into the system) with all of the productivity apps (OpenOffice...etc).
If this will be made to run Ubuntu/ARM properly, I may still buy it.
@sola wow, my words exactly. Perhaps you impulsively posted before reading my post before, or it didn't show up before you started posting, but that proves that I am not the only one who thinks this way. I fully support your opinion.
So basically this is a keyboarded touchscreenless android tablet? Smart...
Daddy Like
Goddammit, replace the screen with Pixel Qi, and I'd buy it.
i presume it means it can play 1080p via the HDMI out?? otherwise its not playing 1080p its playing 600p as thats the most the screen supports.
@hajj3
i think you may be onto something.
512MB DDR2???!!!...hmm.... IMHO this is a little underpowered.. even a DDR3 would've been better...
the Docs2Go & Video playback might need some more muscle...
@yodajedi Linux doesn't need a lot of RAM. Even Ubuntu would run fine on 512 MB of RAM.
This looks good.. but i think instead of building a netbook, why dont built a tablet with capacitive touch screen considering it runs android OS.. should killed ipad with its 1080p output..
Android needs to support multiple open windows to make sense on a laptop.... But this is one sexy beast.
Dual boot with ubuntu and im sold
Of course it gets 7 days of standby! It is only powered by a cell phone processor and running a cell phone operating system, with space for a bigger battery. Nothing special here.
@zachbitting Tegra 2's power envelope is actually higher than the majority of cell phone class SoC's (OMAP and Snapdragon are both around the 500mW range). Tegra 2's power curve is around the 1W range with peak power quite a bit higher.
Granted it's also a lot faster, but it's a device that is aimed at netbook/MID's.
This has the internals of everything the ipad could have and should have been....but no, we get a samsung a8 cpu instead of a9, 256 ram instead of 512, and VGA output instead of hdmi, for the same price....
I like the idea of a smartbook because I have a desktop and I don't need a full OS notebook/netbook. I like the idea of Android on it too but the execution isn't completely there for me yet. Chrome OS will probably be better.
My biggest complaint against smartbooks is their price. The fact that this costs more than most netbooks is annoying considering they don't have a full OS. But once the prices drop and bigger companies get behind the trend, I'll heavily consider picking one up.
@MrHashbrown I'd say storage is my biggest concern. I get the idea that these are supposed to be cloud devices but in the U.S., even "ubiquitous" 3G is...not very ubiquitous.
Add on top of that the fact that the carriers bend you over like Bubba from cell block 8 for every bit of data transmitted over their towers and I'd say we're just not ready for everything-over-the-cloud.
Maybe when LTE is rolled out and matured (3 years, perhaps?) we can have the compute nirvana that Google envisions but today? Give me at least 128GB on a device that's supposed to be primarily used for media consumption.
I think that's funny that they're using Intel's reference design for the new thinner Atom processors to run Android using nVidia's Tegra.
but it costs as much as a REAL netbook with Win7, what's the point?
This thing looks awesome, but for 40,000 yen!!!?? really? There`re trying to sell and andriod, 512MB memory smartbook for the same price as an NB305?
Anyone else think this looks just like a Palm Foleo? I understand that its different, because you dont need a phone to use this, but it still doesnt seem promising to me.
Toss in a Samsung Super AMOLED display and Froyo 2.2 to make this mine!
sweet machine and spec, now remember to keep it under $199
I have tried Android on my old eeepc 4G. And i can tell you, its quite confusing to use.
In laptop form factor, you don't have that custom Android quick access button, so, i get lost of what to do most of the time.
Also, the notification bar at the top, that you need to slide to open, it isn't pleasant to operate with mouse or touchpad.
I like Android. But i think its not the right OS for laptop form factor.
Anyway..maybe Meego would fit in. But, don't know when they'll be ready. They may lost the momentum here.
bit of a random thought but if we are really going to call ARM-powered netbooks smartbooks... can we call tables thickbooks?
Please put a slightly larger batter in it and give me at least 12 hours of real-world usage life! With these ARM netbooks, I don't even want to *think* about battery life and I'd gladly trade a bit of weight.
I'll also take a usable 12" model with 1366x768 (a good LCD TFT panel please).
Once these things happen, you've got a deal.