UK Exclusive Preview : Pink Pegatron Smartbook

Last week, ITProPortal was convened to an anonymous-looking building in West London where we were granted an interview with Ian Drew, vice president, Segment Marketing, ARM, along with a yet-to-be released device, the Smartbook.

(ed: One could also argue that the Datawind Ubisurfer was the first proper smartbook out there and comes with Vodafone GPRS, an ARM-based platform and a Linux operating system.)

Ian works for ARM (Advanced Risc Machines, the creators of the Acorn Archimedes PC) and not for Pegatron and although the smartbook is the focus of today's preview, it is only a single piece of a puzzle game whose name has yet to be unveiled.

But first, let's have a look the Pegatron smartbook. The device that we had for preview was pink in colour and is a prototype - a very, very slim one - see the comparison with the the EEE PC we brought. Ian claimed that "tens of" these devices are roaming the earth as we speak.

But even if it was "only" a prototype, it worked flawlessly. The particular smartbook ITproportal reviewed was powered by a single-core Freescale i.MX515 (ARM Cortex-A8) which is clocked at 800MHz and launched in January 2009.

The processor supports 2D/3D graphics as well as HD 720P video. Ian told me that multicore, higher clocked versions could be coming by next year, depending on market demands.