ARM-powered Wistron ‘FirstBook’ netbook spotted
March 26, 2009 at 6:07 pm
A recent video highlighting some ARM-based Qualcomm products at the recent Mobile World Congress had a hidden surprise towards the end. The video appears to show the first hands-on of Wistron’s FirstBook, a 3G-enabled netbook powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It is the Snapdragon chipset that Asus is apparently considering in future Eee PCs.
The Linux based netbook looks quite attractive and has more than a resemblance to the Sony Vaio P form-factor with its widescreen display. It appears to be extremely light and thin for a netbook. A 3G demonstration was made by surfing the net which showed it had a good response time. No specifications of the unit are known at this point, although it is rumoured to have an 11.1-inch display.
The unit may just be a concept, but given that it was demonstrated along with Toshiba’s upcoming TG01 smartphone, we hope it will become a commercial reality at some point. Interestingly, we already know that a Wistron netbook with Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU is due to appear at Computex Taipei in June. We’ll hopefully have further details on the FirstBook then, if not before. Check out the action in the video after the break. The FirstBook is spotted from 2 minutes 33 seconds onwards. Well worth a look.
March 26th, 2009 8:00 PM
If this comes with Ubuntu then I’m getting it.
March 27th, 2009 6:45 AM
I found the phones much more interesting than the netbook.