Businesses and home users may soon have a new type of mobile computing device that fits between a smartphone and a netbook.
Freescale has unveiled a smartbook tablet reference design featuring a 7-inch touch screen with up to four times the viewing area of a typical smartphone that is approximately one-third the size and volume of a typical netbook.
Prototype devices are expected to be demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday.
According to Freescale, devices will cost about $200 and provide instant-on functionality, persistent connectivity and all-day battery life. The smartbook will support both Android and Linux operating systems.
The Freescale tablet includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a 3D desktop framework with touch screen/qwerty keyboard support.
It will run applications such as a web browser with Adobe Flash Player and multimedia plug-ins, a media centre, PDF and image viewers, a mail client, an RSS reader, an office suite, handwriting utilities and various widgets for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Weather and SMS.
The reference design measures 20.0cm x 1.3cm x 14.9cm and weighs 376g.
