Asus To Make $180 Smartbook

Speculation throughout the Internet suggest that Asus is going to make an extremely cheap portable that will run Android and will cost less that $200. This sounds like the mythical $100 laptop, which has not been achieved with any reasonable success as of yet.

These speculations broke out after Asus’ CEO was interviewed by a Korean news site. In the interview, he seems to be talking about a new device that the company will be releasing in the year 2010. Jerry Shen (CEO, Asustek) said that his company is in the process of making a smartbook and tey will be launching it in the first quarter of 2010.

Smartbooks are different from netbooks. They are usually less powerful than netbooks and are also smaller. Smartbooks are made generally for the lowest rung of computing needs and are popular as devices that are given to younger students. They are usually made to be durable and cheap so that they can be made, purchased and distributed in bulk.

However, smartbooks do not have a clearly defined line that separates them from the netbooks. With technology evolving so fast, both segments seem to be overlapping at quite a few points. Hence, Asus’ target to make this smartbook needs more details before any estimated can be made about its performance and reception.

But there are already talks about what OS the netbook is going to use. Smartbooks are usually sold with an embedded OS because of the lack of resources. These are usually system-on-a-chip solutions that require very little resources. But since the price point was given at something around $184 (converted from Korean Won), it is unlikely to run Windows. And since the Android OS is already open source and so very sophisticated, that is likely to be a good choice. Other embedded OS’ are not nearly as advanced as the Android. Also, they are not as well maintained and supported by third-party developers.