Lenovo and Toshiba Ready to Launch Smartbooks

Japan-based Toshiba and China-based Lenovo are set to launch new smartbooks by the end of August and the end-of-year holidays, respectively.

Toshiba will launch a smartbook under its Dynabook line, featuring Nvidia's Tegra 250 processor, Google's Android operating system and a 10.1-inch display. The device will initially launch in Japan and gradually spread to Europe, the Middle-East and Africa.

In addition, Toshiba is preparing two ARM-based tablet PCs for the end of 2010, which the company has outsourced to Pegatron Technology.

Although Lenovo has already revealed its two smartbooks, the Skylight and IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, the company recently decided to upgrade their specifications from Qualcomm's single-core 1GHz processor to Qualcomm's new dual-core 1.5GHz processors such as MSM8260, MSM8660 and QSD8672, while also switching the operating system to Android, and so will delay the official launch until the end of the year.

Compal Electronics and Wistron will both benefit from these orders as Wistron is manufacturing the smartbooks for Lenovo, while Compal is in charge of Toshiba's device.