IDC analyst Richard Shim said the first wave of netbooks brought a PC feel to bridge the gap between laptops and smartphones. ARM netbooks, he said, represent a push from the opposite direction.
“The smartphones are now moving up,” he said.
It is widely expected that the Computex trade fair in Taiwan in June will see a number of announcements about ARM-based netbooks. With less expensive ARM chips and free or very cheap operating systems, the netbooks could sell for even less than US$200 if, as expected, wireless carriers subsidize purchases bundled with a data plan.
Tech blogs were recently buzzing about a prototype netbook built by Taiwan contract laptop maker Wistron Corp shown at the recent CTIA show in Las Vegas. The device was based on Qualcomm’s ARM-based Snapdragon platform.
ARM shares have risen about 35 percent in the year to date, compared with an about 14 percent gain in the DJ Stoxx European Technology Index.
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