Skytone Plans to Bring the World’s First Android Based Netbook to Consumer Market

Previously we mentioned about Hewlett Packard and Asustek evaluating Google’s Android Operating System targeted for Netbook market. However, none of them has a solid plan on when to come out with the actual end product. While waiting for other major PC manufacturers to adopt the Linux based OS, now seems that Skytone, the China-based manufacturer could be the potential first one that will bring this OS into netbook market with the official announcement of its Alpha 680.

Alpha 680 is powered by a Freescale i.MX31, an ARM11 based SoC (System on Chip) and further back up with 256MB DDR2 memory and up to maximum of 4GB flash ROM (with additional SD card slot for memory expansion). Although it doesn’t have a mainstream specifications but the processing power could be sufficient for typical office applications and multimedia handling especially in netbook market that emphasizes mostly on network connectivity with Ethernet, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g technology and optionally on cellular network through USB dongle. Some other feature sets include built in camera module, standard 7-inch 800X480 WVGA LCD display, USB 2.0 host ports and many more.

The first Android based netbook will be commercialized in June this year and at a retail price of $250, it can be considered quite a good deal in view of its potentiality as the world’s first Android netbook available in consumer market.