UK Exclusive Preview : Pink Pegatron Smartbook

The other thing one will notice is how light the smartbook is. At around 850g, it is as light as the first 7-inch Asus EEE PC netbook and a full 50 percent lighter than the current crop of 8.9-inch models.

It is significantly slimmer than any netbooks we've tested until now - and that includes the Asus Seashell 1008HA.

Build quality on the Pegatron Netbook was quite good and on par with entry level netbooks. Battery life is expected to reach around 8 hours - we didn't have time to test it - thanks to, what we were told, was a two-cell 4400mAH battery.

The keyboard was properly laid (except maybe for the small right hand SHIFT button). The keys had the right amount of spring and felt reassuringly solid. Ditto for the touchpad with that fused right/left button.

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Our prototype ran on Ubuntu Netbook version 9.01; a lonely attempt to restart the smartbook failed and we had to cold boot the device.

We were not able to test many applications except playing around with Firefox. We did get some stuttering when trying to play some BBC iPlayer content.

This, Ian told us, was down to the lack of proper drivers and the fact that the version of Flash on the smartbook was not the latest one. The system appear, overall, quite responsive during the short time we spent with it. 

Attempts to obtain the permission to open up the smartbook with a screwdriver failed miserably as well. Next time maybe.