Lenovo has officially unveiled the most impressive entrant to date in the nascent smartbook category .
The Lenovo Skylight is a small clamshell device with a 10.1-inch high-resolution screen, flash storage, 1.3 megapixel camera and an integrated 3G modem. In a brief hands-on with the device, I was impressed with the design and build quality.
The smartbook is classy enough to command a higher price tag than the sub-$200 target for the category, although its $500 cost could be subsidised by an operator offering a two-year contract.
This is the device that was held aloft by Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm CEO, at the company’s analyst day in November as the first of the new breed of mobile devices to feature its ARM-based Snapdragon processor.
It has little competition at present – the Sharp Netwalker is the only smartbook to be made available so far, going on sale in Japan in the autumn. It features a Freescale processor and the chipmaker launched a reference design on Monday to inspire PC makers to create more smartbooks for the category.
The Skylight, available in April, sets a higher benchmark. It has a full-size keyboard but weighs less than two pounds and has a battery life of up to 10 hours. The operating system is Lenovo’s own take on Linux with an attractive user interface.
The Skylight may be expensive for a smartbook, but it establishes the credentials of the category as it seeks to challenge Intel- and Microsoft-powered netbooks
