To begin with, I started this blog writing about "smartbooks" and today I can give you a heads up regarding this category of devices.
The AC100 is a niche product and in my opinion it has been launched ahead of its time. The "smartbook" defines a product that has the hardware of a smartphone inside a netbook form factor.
Nowadays the smartphones tend to be an important part of our everyday lives and interesting crossovers have emerged (see the Motorola Atrix and its docking station).
Nevertheless the Nvidia Tegra 250 SOC (system on a chip) has been designed for every mobile form factor that exists today. Today the users tend to own a notebook, a tablet ('cause of the hype) and a smartphone. Sooner or later you'll think about having a single device that can do it all. The AC100 isn't such a product by any means but it's a step forward. It has great hardware and the Android 2.2 does the job well although the Android Market is not officially supported. "Let's roll" - this time with the specs, not with the Autobots :)
- 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 250 SoC (built around a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor);
- 8GB, 16GB or 32 GB SSD;
- 512MB of DDR2 memory;
- 802.11n WiFi, optional 3G data, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
- 1.3 megapixel webcam;
- HDMI out;
- headphones jack;
- microphone jack;
- 1x USB 2.0;
- SD card reader;
- 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 pixel display;
- integrated stereo speakers;
- "fanless" design - no noise during operation;
The keyboard is comfortable to use whether you write e-mails, chat with friends or edit a doc. The chassis is quite slim an the weight of the device is "featherweight".
I'm not aware of future software updates for AC100 but Toshiba released an update by the end of July that solved some battery draining issues. They might be able to update the AC100 with an Android 3 version aka Honeycomb given that the Asus Transformer runs it pretty well.
So, what the future holds? Quad core tablets and netbooks for mobile fan(s)atics...
Links: AC100
Hacking the AC100
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