There must be some tech news today that doesn’t involve the Google Chrome OS announcement, but if there is, I can’t find it. The big news from Google and the upcoming new OS for netbooks is generating a lot of tongue wagging, but more importantly it is provoking a lot of thought. There are many ramifications about a Google Chrome OS that will continue to pop up over time and one of them has hit me right between the eyes: smartbooks. Those are the net-centric notebooks running ARM processors that were a hot item at the recent COMPUTEX trade show. Many of the prototype smartbooks being shown at COMPUTEX were running Android but now I’m thinking that likely won’t happen.

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It hurt the whole mobile community to hear the woes of OQO. Last month, the company that helped define the early UMPC and MID markets closed up shop due to financial challenges. As sad as someone’s bad times are, certain folks can find a little happiness in the situation in the form of closeout prices.

GottaBeMobile says that our good buddy Hugo Ortega can still get a handful of OQO Model 02 devices direct from the factory. Prices are ranging from $995 to $1,495, depending on the configuration. If you want a piece of history as well as a pocketable PC, I wouldn’t wait on this.

I’m a little tongue-in-cheek with my post title, but watching the video of Kinpo’s Android tablet raises a good question about UMPCs in general. Why shoehorn a desktop operating system onto a mobile device? Obvious answers to that question mainly involve applications: support, availability, compatibility, and the like. The downsides are generally worse battery life due to X86 processors and inefficient user interfaces. That particular issue is lessening with Intel’s next-genration Atom platform in the works though.

UMPC debate aside, have a look at Kinpo’s 7-inch Android tablet, and see what you think. No word on price or availability yet, and it looks like there are still some kinks to be worked out. I like what I see. Thoughts on Android for a device like this?

(via Engadget)

Intel has been madly pushing the Mobile Internet Device (MID) for some time. MIDs are positioned to be cheaper handheld web devices that fall under the UMPC in size and price yet are bigger than smartphones similarly equipped. Intel has been pushing them hard in an effort to sell their low-end processors that are not typically used in other devices.

Sources close to the business state that Intel forecast MID sales of 150,000-200,000 devices since a new processor launched in March but the reality is closer to 30,000. Reasons for the low sales are said to be the poor economy and failure to convince consumers to take on the expensive 3G data plans needed for connectivity.

(via electronista)

The news that Psion and Intel have come to an amicable settlement to their “netbook” trademark fight was good to hear. The term “netbook” kind of snuck up on all of us who cover this stuff, and once it became widely used, it was only a matter of time before a trademark issue would arise. Psion had successfully trademarked “netbook” years ago, and it seems the standard practice is to defend your trademark or risk losing it.

We are just starting to see the term “smartbook” get used more frequently, and Qualcomm has adopted it to describe small laptops using its chips. This got me to thinking about another possible trademark fight down the road, so I decided to check to see if anyone has trademarked the “smartbook” name. It turns out that not only is the term trademarked, but by several different companies.

A quick search of official trademarks shows that there are 10 different “live” trademarks using the “smartbook” or “smartbooks” terms. These trademarks are not related to little laptops, but we know how companies are when it comes to protecting their turf. Could this come to bite Qualcomm and others down the road?

More insights on Qualcomm’s smartbook products arrive today, courtesy of a DigiTimes interview. Earlier today, they spoke with Luis Pineda, senior vice president of marketing and product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT). Here are some interview quotes that jumped out at me, along with my own thoughts:

“[W]hen Qualcomm looked at the netbook platform, our attitude was that these devices needed to gain more in connectivity.” – This is where Qualcomm can offer a competitive advantage; their newest Snapdragon product handles the processing, video and wireless connectivity with a single chip. Connectivity support includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3G technologies. Fewer components are needed to offer a full computing experience while at the same time reducing space, heat and costs to build.

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As I was out running some errands earlier today, Stacey over at the main GigaOm site did a little catching up with Qualcomm. Last time I met with them, they showed me some very basic netbook prototypes with tons of potential, but I wasn’t sure exactly where they were going with the idea. Today, I can see it. And even better: I like it.

Qualcomm is wisely transitioning the name of their device idea from a netbook to a smartbook. That’s wise because the current netbook term usage comes directly from Intel, although we all know that Psion created the first actual device branded a netBook. The subtle name change differentiates Qualcomm’s offering from Intel’s while also combining the terms “smartphone” and “netbook.”

Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor offers the brains and connectivity (both Wi-Fi and cellular 3G, not to mention GPS and Bluetooth) for a smartbook on a single chip, allowing for smaller devices. The first iteration of such a device looks like a Sony VAIO P in terms of the form factor: a full keyboard with a very short but wide display, almost like a large clamshell. Being ARM-based, a device of this size could run between eight and ten hours on a single charge. Qualcomm says you can leave the device in standby for a week, but I’d never neglect a device for that long.

Will such a device compete with the netbook of today? If you’re looking for a computer that runs an X86 operating system and programs, no. But if you want a portable device to browse the Internet and run web-based applications all day, it ought to work nicely. With my own preference to use the web over client applications, I’d love to get my hands on just such a smartbook. Qualcomm says the smartbooks are coming this fall on the product site devoted to the new devices. I’ll be waiting.

Image Credit: CellPassion

In the past, I’ve criticized the Nokia Internet Tablet platform as a nice device but one of limited use. Essentially, the product has evolved as a Mobile Internet Device that relied on Wi-Fi or a supplemental smartphone for its connectivity. That constraint may be a thing of the past, based on reported specifications for a next-generation device dubbed the N900. CellPassion alleges this to be a picture of the device.

Here’s the gist of the specs (all believable in my opinion) making their way around the web, courtesy of BGR:

• Maemo 5
• Dimensions: 59.7mm x 111mm x 18.2mm
• Weight: 180g
• 3.5-inch 800×480 (WVGA) touchscreen
• OMAP3430 500/600 Mhz processor
• 5.0 MP Carl Zeiss camera with dual-LED flash, auto-focus and sliding cover
• 1GB total virtual runtime memory
• Wi-Fi, HSPA, GPS, accelerometer

In addition to these features, MobileCrunch says that the device will support T-Mobile’s voice network. If that’s the case, the N900 becomes far more compelling, because it won’t require carrying an additional device, i.e., a phone. The device is roughly the size of Nokia’s N97 handset, which is expected to launch next week. Ideally, a subsidy deal with T-Mobile USA would offset the cost of the N900, keeping the price to $299 or less.

I’m still not sold on the idea of yet another mobile device platform, but this all has me thinking about Nokia’s long-term operating system plans. If Maemo runs well, is intuitive to the user, and can support a vast array of applications, maybe Symbian 60 gets relegated to inexpensive feature-phones?

I don’t expect this to win me any friends in the Maemo world, but I think it’s a valid question. Believe me, I wish Nokia and the open-source community nothing but success with their mobile platform. This isn’t about me liking other operating systems or not liking Maemo. It’s about the mobile space in general and the fragmented platforms we have for handhelds like smartphones, mobile Internet devices and Nokia’s Internet Tablets. Do we need another platform?

I’m wondering if Nokia would be better served by porting Google’s Android operating system over to Maemo. Maybe, maybe not. I’m all for innovation, so it’s not like I want to see them stop work on Maemo; I’m just trying to peer into the future and see if Maemo still has a place. Since it’s geared specifically for Nokia’s Internet Tablets, maybe I should be looking ahead to see if they have a place in the future. I think they could, but possibly more so if they ran on a widespread platform.

Anyway, just a random thought that was spurred on by the news from Brighthand on the release of the Maemo 5 Beta SDK today. The good news is what’s inside this release:

• OMAP3 support
• HSPA data connectivity
• High definition camera support
• Hardware-based graphics acceleration
• Support for desktop widgets
• Modest e-mail client (shown above)

Add all that up and I’d expect to see a very capable next-generation Nokia Internet Tablet. Curious as to your thoughts as I know we have some Internet Tablet fans here.

Image courtesy of pocketables.net

Updated: The UMID M1 has been available in Asia for a while but it’s only just starting to get available outside of Korea. Pocketables has received a unit from Australia and the obligatory unboxing has ensued. The UMID is basically a tiny clamshell that tries to be a UMPC and a netbook at the same time, but in my opinion fails at both. That failure is magnified when you factor in the price range of A$1,000-A$1,400 for the M1. UPDATE: these prices are Australian Dollars, the U.S. equivalent is around $800-$1,000.

I had the chance to play with the UMID M1 at the CES early this year and I found the keyboard to be too small to be taken seriously. It was not even a good thumb-typing experience for me and overall I found the device to be too darn small to be a clamshell. The specs of the M1 are typical of little PCs, 1.3 GHz Atom, 512 MB memory, 16 GB SSD and a webcam (hooray!). The tiny size of the M1 forced UMID to make some design compromises, the most notable being the need for these goofy adapters:

Image courtesy pocketables.net

Check out the unboxing photos to see how attractive the M1 is and be sure and follow the Pocketables continuing coverage of the UMID.