What’s inside your next laptop?
Back in February, I got to see an amazing prototype cell phone from Toshiba. It stood out because of the computer chip inside – a new, 1 GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm.
The phone was the hottest item at 3GSM in Barcelona. The handset looked like a slightly oversized iPhone with a bigger screen.
At the Qualcomm booth, they were produly showing what Snapdragon could really do – including absolutely incredible-looking 3D grahpics. We’re discussing a cell phone!
Unfortunately, Toshiba has no immediate plans to bring the TG-01 to the U.S. Their PR representatives in the U.K. never answered my e-mail questions or returned phone calls.
Luckily, we may see Snapdragon before we see that phone. Today, at Computex, Taiwan’s big computer industry show, the processor was being demonstrated in a new hardware format – the netbook/notebook.
Asus, masters of small portable computers, was proudly showing a next-generation Eee mini (the 10008HA Seashell) running on that same 1GHz Snapdragon capable of, among other things fanless operation and 720p video. The prototype computer was also running on Google’s Android operating system. With no Intel or Microsoft hardware could become even more affordable.
Engadget.com, reporting from Computex says Qualcomm will also preview even more powerful 1.3GHz (with video enhancements) and 1.5GHz (dual core) processors at the show.
Larger laptops/notebooks could be next to shed Microsoft Windows/Intel (Wintel) components.