Asus’ Snapdragon-powered Android Eee PC smartbook on ice

The CEO of Asustek, Jerry Shen, does not see a market for smartbook devices right now and has frozen plans for its own Qualcomm Snapdragon Eee PC using Android. The device was first spotted during Computex in June, but Asus has never confirmed plans for mass production.

“Currently, I still don’t see a clear market for smartbooks,” said Shen during an investors conference in Taipei. The reason why an Asus smartbook has been put on the back-burner is due to limited engineering resources according to PC World. This is despite the fact that manufacturing could be outsourced to Pegatron, who has already shown a number of smartbooks. Despite this, a number of smartbooks from other manufacturers are expected by the end of the year. Let’s just hope it is as close to that $199 mark that has been muted for a while.

Via Engadget.