When we think of the thinnest laptops money can buy today, the MacBook Air instantly springs to mind, along with Intel’s new breed of Windows-based Ultrabooks. That could all be set to change in the near future however, with chip maker Qualcomm plotting razor-thin ‘Smartbooks’.
Qualcomm’s Senior Vice President, Rob Chandhok has admitted to PC World that the company is working on a more powerful Quad-Core version of its latest Snapdragon S4 processor, which it plans to put into Windows 8 laptops that will be “much lighter than what Intel calls an Ultrabook”, and much thinner, too.
Dual-Core versions of the Snapdragon S4 chip have been used in the latest smartphones, such as HTC’s One X (U.S version). The chip’s architecture can accommodate a further two cores, Qualcomm says, which will make for ultra-portable and fast Windows 8 notebooks. The S4 chip is based on the ARM technology that is used in many mobile devices, from smartphones to tablets and portable games consoles. Because of this, the processor contains many of the qualities desirable for something like a notebook: long battery life, high resolution displays and always-on connectivity to Wi-Fi and mobile networks.
Qualcomm originally came up with the idea of the Smartbook back in 2009, with Lenovo on board to release the first product, known as the ‘Skylight’. Unfortunately that product never made it to market, and Qualcomm went back to the drawing board. The first line of Smartbooks is expected to launch later this year, although Qualcomm is keeping hush on which manufacturers could create such devices using their platform.
Smartbooks will go into direct competition with rival chip-maker Intel and its Ultrabook range, with which it has already launched many exciting products from manufacturers such as Acer and Dell. Ultrabooks are the Windows equivalent to Apple’s MacBook Air, although few have reached the same level of thin.
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Via: CNET