Computerworld

Forget the netbook, here's the smartbook

Intel says term 'confuses', but it may catch on
  • Eric Lai (Unknown Publication)
  • 07 June, 2009 22:00

If you still blanche at the term "netbook" for being an ungainly piece of vendor-speak, then prepare to be nauseated later this year as "smartbook" supporters start to bang that marketing drum.

What exactly is a smartbook, aside from a term drawn from the the obvious blend of "smartphone" and "netbook"?

First mentioned last November in a speech by a marketing executive from hard drive maker Western Digital, a smartbook will be a computing device similar in size or slightly smaller than today's netbook with smartphone-like features.

Glen Burchers, consumer marketing director at Freescale Semiconductor, says those features could include all-day battery life, instant-on capability and "persistent connectivity," and specs such as an ARM-based chip core, a Linux OS version like Google's Android, and, most importantly to consumers, a price point significantly lower than today's netbooks.

"We fully expect US$199 devices with 8.9-inch screens, wi-fi, full-sized keyboard, eight-hour battery life, 512MB of RAM and four to eight gigabytes of [solid-state] storage by the end of the year," Burchers says.

By comparison, the cheapest netbooks based on Intel's Atom CPU, such as Hewlett-Packard's just-announced Mini 110, sell for under US$300.

Intel successfully pushed the industry to accept the term "netbook" last year to describe the then-emerging class of mini-notebook computers that, for the first time, were offered at discount, rather than premium, prices.

Intel's Atom CPU and its closely-associated graphics chipset now dominate more than 90% of the netbook market. And the last shadow hanging over the use of the term netbook was lifted with the recent announcement by Intel that it had settled the trademark lawsuit brought by handheld computer maker Psion.

Freescale and fellow ARM silicon vendor Qualcomm argue that the term netbook simply does not do justice to the merits ARM-based netbooks will possess versus Intel-based netbooks.

"While 'netbook' is not a bad term, it has really come to mean a mini-notebook that uses an x86 chip and runs Windows," Burchers says. "There's a need for a product category that fits between a smartphone and a netbook."

Intel spokesman Bill Calder differs.

"Today we have iPhones, smartphones, mobile internet devices, netbooks, notebooks and more," Calder says. "We're not sure how adding another new term helps, and, in fact, it may only confuse consumers."

Richard Shim, a PC market analyst with IDC, isn't enchanted with the "smartbook" either.

"It's not very intuitive to me, I don't know what it is," Shim says. "I think it's going to be a challenge and will require some heavy marketing to get people to accept it."

Shim admits he has grown a bit jaded after seeing all of the variants on the basic subnotebook PC that vendors tried unsuccessfully for years to hype, until Asus finally struck gold with the Eee netbook in late 2007.

"To be honest, there's been a lot of terms that have been thrown around. Nothing's stuck, so the vendors tweak the terms, tweak the models and hope they find something that resonates," Shim says.

Philip Solis, an analyst at ABI Research, recognises the word game the ARM vendors are playing, but says it is justified.

"Some people are naturally going to look at it [cynically]," he said. But "any way you slice it or dice it, the smartbook is a different type of device."

The key, says Solis, is for ARM vendors to deliver on promises of lower prices than Atom netbooks, with or without the aid of bundling deals from telecomms operators, as well as make smartbooks thinner and lighter in weight than netbooks.

The latter may not be that difficult, as netbooks have started to become "super-sized" with 12-inch screens and DVD drives.