The term smartbook was coined a few years back to describe a laptop-like device that was running smartphone software. The product category never seemed to get much further than the pre-announcement and demo stage. But smartbooks might be giving it one more go with the THD N2-A, a 13-inch laptop running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
On the outside, the N2-A bears a striking resemblance to the MacBook Air. It has a big trackpad, slim wedge-shaped casing, and flat chiclet keys. The screen is LED backlit and runs at 1366×768. There is also a cloned MagSafe charging port, which I’m sure Apple would love to sue over. Inside the N2-A is more like a smartphone, albeit one from a few years ago. There is 1GB of RAM, but the ARM chip is a 1.2GHz single-core built on the older Cortex-A8 architecture. Storage is limited to 8GB of flash memory.
The trackpad and keyboard are tied into the software itself, but that is the only interaction you’ll get. There is no touchscreen, so you’re left moving the mouse around to manipulate the UI in a way you were not intended to. There are no Android-specific keyboard keys, but there is a Windows key — THD uses this same shell for a similar Windows 7 machine.
While this is stock Android 4.0, the N2-A is not a Google-certified device. There won’t be any official Google apps like Gmail, Talk, or Maps. The Play Store is also out. If you think $149 sounds like a good deal, I’m sorry to burst your bubble. THD isn’t selling these to consumers individually. The N2-A is going out in batches of 500 units for the time being. That works out to $74,500. It’s possible a reseller could pick up a batch of these devices, but you probably won’t ever see one for so cheap.
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