back to article Lenovo joins the smartbook gang

Lenovo has unwrapped its first smartbook– an ARM-based PC with 10.1in display. Lenovo_skylight_03 Skylight is Lenovo's first smartbook Called Skylight, the machine has been created to fill a gadget gap that supposedly exists between smartphones and netbooks. As such Skylight combines “the long battery life and connectivity …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Given that this is ex-ibm we're talking about...

    ... the lack of a trackpoint is but one thing. Another failure by lenovo to make use of its assets.

    1. Victor 2
      Troll

      trackpoint

      Trackpoints are terrible and should go away once and for all! Kill it with fire!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        blasphemy

        I can't understand how you could think this unless you've never learnt how to use one, ok at first they are difficult but when you get used to them they are quicker, more accurate and less fiddly to use than any touchpad, by far.

    2. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
      FAIL

      Trackpoints? fail

      Using a trackpoint to navigate is ...

      like, hell... using a joystick/joypad to play an FPS.

      You can do it, but... FFS why?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Because it beats using a touchpad

        It'd be nice if people stopped hating on other people's preferred tools, thanks.

        I'm actually having to use a touchpad-equipped dull right now, and have had to for a year, and all that did was make me miss the trackpoint on the previous box more. I get tenfold the false inputs, like when the screen jump-scrolls up and down because my thumb hovered half an inch above the stupid pad. Dammit, I'm typing here, don't disturb!

        For someone like me, touch-typist unix admin and software engineer, whose desktop primarily consists of xterms full of software, xterms with sessions to other boxes, xterms with text-based email clients, and so on and so forth, a trackpoint actually saves a lot of superfluous hand movement over both mouse and touchpad, and makes for tight keyboard+copy/paste integration.

        I'm not advocating the death of touchpads; I'm sure many are greatly helped by it. But I am hoping at least some laptop/netbook/whatever manufacturers would value the trackpoint and cater for people who actually need a professional's computing tool instead of the usual {suit,3rd world kid,soccermom}-peergrouped fare. I have a little list of wishes, and it starts with a trackpoint.

  2. Gordon 10
    WTF?

    Bizarre Combination of Flashes

    Why both a memory stick and an SD card? Just bundle a 16GB sd and usb reader for it,

  3. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Interesting...

    ... right up until the price got mentioned... then I switched off.

    I found a netbook too heavy and restrictive on screen size for what I got out of it (web browsing, vpn and ssh mostly, the media playback was crap thanks to Atom & 945), and I find a smartphone too small to be productive for much other than a quick look at something on a simple site (hoping N900 will be an improvement though)...

    A gadget such as this, ~800g or less, web browser, media player and some linux goodies such as SSH etc could be useful... but only at around £150 does it sound worth it to me, definitly got to stay under £200.

    1. Jaques Croissant

      funny thing about netbooks

      VIdeo playback was horrific on mine until fairly recently, I think something wonderful happenedm like YUV scaling surface xv support or something, as I can watch Freeview full screen on it- mine has MythTV on it for sheer silliness. It runs like a dream, whereas before, it would have struggled to play the same video in a tiny window, in any of the apps that I use. VLC is much happier, too.

      Obviously, Ion chipset would be awesome, with WPPAUG or whatever it's called giving HD h.264 decode with about 15% CPU load, but meantime, this is nice.

    2. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
      FAIL

      Took the words right out of my mouth...

      Fail on the price. Bit too costly. They'd better do something about the price, this does not augur well.

  4. John Robson Silver badge
    WTF?

    why no corners

    why not fit a decent height screen and have corners on the thing - there is a massive amount of waste at the top.

    Otherwise it's a nice looking product idea - assuming 10 hours includes wifi/3g being on and possibly btooth for a keyboard

  5. Mark Boothroyd
    Thumb Down

    Price!

    Smaller, less powerful and less functional that my current Netbook, but twice the price! Are Lenovo staff on drugs or something?

  6. Jolyon
    Paris Hilton

    Trackpoint

    Another vote for the little rubber nipples from me.

    Paris for reasons that I sadly can't put my finger on.

  7. David Hicks
    Thumb Down

    10 hours?

    At that weight 10 hours is great. However - Asus has some of their eee range up to that sort of battery life with Atom.

    Not as light, as thin or as pretty, but they've got there. I wonder if the usage patterns compare.

    Hmmm. Still interested but too pricy and battery life not as impressive as promised.

  8. spegru
    Thumb Up

    Well Now...

    I like it, rounded corners and all. Integrated 3g, HDMI output and ARM processor for long battery life sound a tempting combination.

    And for those whinging about the admittedly highish price, don't forget that these will be snapped up by the network operators and subsidised to something much more attractive - just compare to the supposed full cost of an iphone or nexus one.

    I think I may hold off updating my mobile broadband contract for a while!

    It will also be interesting to see what business model they adopt for it - an iphone/android app store approach by any chance?!

    BTW although the screen is undoubtedly photoshopped/gimped I spy a chrome icon in the menu bar. Will this be a full on Chome device?

  9. Mick Stranahan
    Unhappy

    Exchange rate

    What is the betting it will be rather more than the current exhange rate for $500 when it arrives in the UK? For £200 I'd have one to replace my Dell Mini 10v, but at £350+. No thanks.

  10. Eddy Ito
    FAIL

    $500!! Really?

    What do they think this is, an iPhone? Oh, so twhat will it be with the VerizAT&T-MobiSprint subsidy? All I can say is the royalties to use 3G must be damn impressive.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    just rename it..

    an Acorn and IBM can acknowledge where ARM based cpu's came from....

  12. Peter Simpson 1
    FAIL

    1.3MP?

    Even the iPhone comes with a 3 MP cam now...

    1. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD

      LOL

      Like this matters.

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