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Lenovo Skylight hands-on and impressions (video)
We just got a chance to play with Lenovo's Skylight smartbook, which runs the company's new Skylight lightweight Linux OS on a 1Ghz Snapdragon. It's an impressively clean little package, with a 10.1-inch display, an integrated WWAN card, and a neat flip-out USB thumb drive for housing user data. Ports-wise you're not looking at much apart from mini-HDMI out, an SD card slot, and a second USB jack, although there is an internal microSD slot for more storage on top of the 8GB system drive. The idea is that all your personal info will live on the thumb drive, allowing users to just plug into any other Skylight and go -- and there were some hints that accessories like Skype handsets would eventually fit into that slot and connect over USB. As for the OS itself, the six-panel interface was certainly workable, although clearly not production-ready: it managed to load webpages and do some light Twittering, although there was some stuttering along the way. We're big fans of the chiclet keyboards Lenovo's got going here, but the mulitouch touchpad still needs some work. The biggest sell of this thing over a netbook seems to be its promised 12 hours of battery life and its trim body, but at $499 (when most netbooks are at least $100 cheaper) we aren't sure we get it. We can't get that thinness of it out of our head, but we'll be waiting on the AT&T subsided pricing on this one. Video walkthrough after the break. %Gallery-81542%
Lenovo's Snapdragon smartbook gets Android, pictured properly (Updated)
That's right, sailor, Qualcomm has been dishing some more info on the future of smartbooks, and we now know that the Lenovo number we noticed being teased earlier this month will be driven by a vanilla copy of Google's Android OS. Other data of import includes a purported battery life of more than eight hours and always-on connectivity through 3G (provided by AT&T in the US), WiFi and "other radios," all of which should go nicely with that 1GHz Snapdragon chip under the hood. If you ask us, and you should, this looks like the perfect candidate for a bit of USB-mounted Chrome OS glory. Update: Lenovo's PR team contacted us to clarify that the above device, although strikingly similar to the Lenovo machine (possibly a reference design), is a separate, Quanta-manufactured smartbook that was on display at a Qualcomm event last week. Nevertheless, it could still end up bearing Lenovo regalia, given that Quanta produces the IdeaPad line. [Images courtesy of Silicon.com; taken by Natasha Lomas]
Qualcomm shows off Snapdragon-powered Lenovo smartbook for AT&T
It may still have a few lingering problems with the "smartbook" name, but it looks like Qualcomm is pushing ahead with the still-nascent product category nonetheless, with CEO Paul Jacobs taking advantage of a recent investor get-together in New York to show off a new Lenovo-built smartbook that will apparently be offered by AT&T. Unfortunately, neither Lenovo nor AT&T is saying anything about the device just yet, and Jacobs doesn't seem to have offered much more than what was already known from the standard smartbook specs. There is the requisite low-res photo captured from the webcast, however, and all parties involved should be doing plenty more talking when this one makes its official debut at CES in January.
