HP have announced a new Compaq Airlife 100 Smartbook with Google Android powered. The new HP Compaq smartbook comes with a Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, a 10.1-inch touchscreen display, a 16GB SSD, SD card slot, VGA webcam, WiFi, an integrated 3G, a long lasting battery that has up to 12 hours running up to 10 days in standby mode. The HP Compaq Airlife 100 will be released in Europe this Spring.

According to a report by Digitimes (as cited by Engadget), a section of Taiwanese manufacturers are all set to launch netbooks based on the Snapdragon and Tegra platform, as early as Q4 2009. Users will be able to see the following devices by year end:

• Acer’s Android powered netbook
• Mobinnova’s 8.9-inch élan (for US and European markets)
• Inventec’s 10-inch Tegra based smartbook called the Rainbow
• A netbook based on above platform from Asus (won’t be launched before November 09)

Although the above reports can not be confirmed and are mere speculations but it will be really nice to see such devices in the market competing against the Intel Atom powered netbooks.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform offers a great combination of processing power and battery life. In terms of connectivity it offers 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth capability, and GPS. Snapdragon-based devices are thin, ultra-portable and easy to use, with an intuitive user interface, and mobile OS. They have the capability to decode HD video, support high resolution displays, and offer improved 3D graphics.

Similarly, Nvidia’s Tegra system-on-chip with an ARM processor has been developed by NVIDIA for devices such as smartphones, PDAs, and MIDs. The Tegra integrates CPU, GPU, northbridge, southbridge, and memory controller onto a single package. This platform also provides decent performance and good battery life.

It would be interesting to see netbooks based on this platform. Earlier, we have had a glimpse of such devices at the Computex trade fair which was held earlier this year. There are a number of smartphones available in the market that run on these platforms and look quite promising, but, the performance of these processors on a netbook is yet to be seen.

Credit : notebookcheck.net

Interesting piece in the New York Times today about Acer — the company is about to ride the tidal wave of netbooks and other el-cheapo computers straight to the number two spot on the PC sales chart. That’s a big deal — no non-US company has ever made it so high — and it’s interesting that the strategies Acer took to get there are the same things Dell’s been trying to do lately: it’s heavy on low-cost, stylish laptops and netbooks, it keeps inventory extremely lean, and it relies on an extensive set of retail partnerships in Europe. What’s more, the Aspire One has been the best-selling netbook for a while now, and we’d say Acer’s way out in front of the CULV thin-and-light race with the Timeline — in fact, we’d say the only open question here is whether the company can take all this computing success and translate it to something worthwhile in the smartphone space. Based on what we’ve seen so far, we’ve got our doubts, but we’ll see what those super-secret Android sets look like before we place our bets.

Credit engadget.com