Component manufacturer Asustek, which more or less created netbook trenden has now also begun to show great interest in a new ultra mobile market, ARM-based Smart Books. These ultra-mobile PCs are the most common with netbooks, except that it uses a more sleek style with extremely low power consumption. The key is the new hardware platform based on ARM architecture where ASUS likely use the Nvidia Tegra SoC chip for both CPU and graphics.

Another option might be the tvåkärniga Cortex-A8 processor, which it wants to focus more on CPU power. Clearly, in all cases the computer will be equipped with a relatively small screen and that the first models to emerge in the first quarter of 2010. Low power consumption and attractive price tags are the key ingredients.

With a street price of around 1,500 Swedish crowns smart books will certainly be the cheap option, even compared with netbooks, but without support for Windows or other x86 operating systems, it can be a difficult product to sell at this price segment.

ASUS wants to broaden its Eee PC family, and you can sew together a functional hardware platform with a workable OS, Ubuntu or else Chrome OS tentatively, it might be an interesting product.