Home | Publishing | Books

Shanzai- How much will good smartbooks cost?

By: vi

Read More About Books

Its no secret that Qualcomm is pushing smartbooks for their Snapdragon platform and MIDs as well. The above pic if you look at it closely, or in its original form here shows a MID supposedly transferring files to a smartbook. But after extensively reviewing the Lanyu eBook smartbook, the first smartbook that was actually available for purchase, we made some value judgments about how it wouldn’t be a great deal at US$98. We did say however that a better quality smartbook would be an excellent value at that price. But how much will a better quality (1 GHz SnapDragon CPU?) smartbook really cost?

First we need to realize that there was very little room or need for margins in Lanyu’s US$98 price. They have no sales channel whatsoever to please. So the price was simply the Lanyu eBook BOM plus a bit extra for themselves.

A larger company trying to sell a smartbook through some kind of sales channel, even a simple online one with someone like Dynamism for example or a more complex one where product ends up on retail shelves will have to build in some profit margin for several more players.

Qualcomm will also undoubtedly charge more for licensing its higher spec’d Snapdragon ARM platform than Anyka did for its lower spec’d 266MHz ARM processor based AKARM, ARM 920-AKCHIP.

Snapdragon specs from the Qalcomm site:

The QSD8x50 platform consists of the QSD8250™ which supports GSM, GPRS, EDGE, HSPA networks while the QSD8650™ supports both CDMA2000 1X, 1xEV-DO Rel 0/A/B, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, HSPA networks. Both chipsets include:

• 1 GHz CPU
• 600MHz DSP
• Integrated 3G mobile broadband
• Support for Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® connectivity
• Built-in seventh-generation gpsOne® engine with Standalone-GPS and Assisted-GPS modes
• High-definition (720p) video decode, and multiple video codec support
• High-performance 3D graphics – up to 22M triangles/sec and 133M 3D pixels/sec
• High-resolution up to WXGA (1280x720) display support
• 12-megapixel camera support
• Multiple audio codecs: (AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711, AAC stereo encode)
• Support for mobile broadcast TV (MediaFLO™, DVB-H and ISDB-T)
• Support for Windows Mobile®, Android, and a number of Linux®-based operating systems
• Qualcomm’s hybrid mode alternative solution

The more powerful Snapdragon platform would also support more advanced OS options and better media playback capability than the Lanyu which were the major pitfalls of the Lanyu eBook device. It remains to be seen how good the browsing experience would be.

Retail Price
Those mobile fun lovin fella’s over at JKOnTheRun.com way back in May wrote a pretty detailed blog about what smartbooks would need to do to succeed and their thoughts on price were pretty much inline with my own thinking. A very very good smartbook would need to cost US$199.00 (and going down from there considering whats rapidly happening to netbooks and low end notebook pricing). That would probably mean a BOM of around US$120.00 ~US130.00) for a mainstream tier 1 player to aim for to make that happen. I think its doable. I see a market of smartbooks of varying quality, consumer priced from US$100.00 (or free if your local carrier subsidies the pricing with a contract) to US$200. Despite our mixed review on the Lanyu device we’re bullish on the category and looking forward to reviewing more smartbooks.

P.S. I couldn’t resist including Qualcomm’s funny but true life commercial video about smartbooks and social networking in here… after I watch You’re a Mac and I’m a PC add on just about every other tech site in town ;)

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Shanzai based in Taiwan delivers all the latest news & views about shanzhai, shanzai, shanzai phone, cheap cell phones named as www.shanzai.com/

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Books Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Publishing | Books
Sign Up for a free account.
Our other websites
All about SEO
Beauty Tips Forum
Submit Articles
Member Login
Link Us
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
Sitemap
New Stuff
About Us
Developer
Good shopping portal
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard