There is still no availability date or price tag, but Hewlett-Packard has released further details of its first smartbook, the Compaq AirLife 100. The company made its smartbook plans known back in January, when it demonstrated the product with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs at CES. Earlier this week, Smartbooktalk forum revealed the link to the new HP information page.
In addition to what we already know about the system – it runs Android, has a Snapdragon chip and supports 3G and Wi-Fi – we now know that the AirLife will have 512 of RAM, 512MB flash memory, a 16 GB SSD and 10-inch screen.
Further, HP will include software that may appeal to business users. The QuickOffice document handler lets users work with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files, while RoadSync Exchange software provides synchronization for e-mail, calendar and contacts. It will also support IMPA and POP3 e-mail, include wireless printing capability, Adobe Flash Lite and NDrive navigation with GPS.
We at The Smartbook Blog are happy to see more information about one of the industry’s first smartbooks, but are a little perplexed as to why HP would, for the second time in four months, release details of a product with no information on when said product would be available or how much it will cost.
While HP dallies and Lenovo has pushed back the release of its first smartbook, the Skylight, the netbook contingent is gearing up for the first ever Netbook Summit, to be held in late May. The event will feature keynotes and breakout sessions on topics that address challenges including “improving the netbook experience” as well as networking, security, application development, storage and backup and a session on “platform choices: netbook versus smartbook versus notebook versus smartphone.”
The mobile platform category “tablet” was not mentioned in the list of choices. Speaking of tablets, Apple COO Tim Cook used the occasion of this week’s earnings conference call with analysts to again throw netbooks under the bus, saying he “can’t think of a single thing the netbook does well.”
Really? Not one thing? There’s tens of millions of netbook owners who could probably list at least a few.
Lisa
