While Nokia essentially discontinued their pioneering internet tablet lineup some 2 ½ years ago, a tablet/pad by a certain fruit company has helped spur astonishing level of interest in various types of portable ARM-based internet and media devices.

At Computex, Freescale are demoing their latest enhanced Cortex-A8 ARM processor (i.MX53 Processor Family) with a large number of different devices.

See for yourself: Freescale Launching New i.MX53 Processor Family, Shows Off Tablets, MIDs, eReaders

Personally, besides being in the market for a "modern" compact 4"-6" internet tablet or "phone companion device", I'm also in love with the smartbook (i.e. ARM-based netbook) they featured (video clip included)!

Thin, light, compact, with undoubtably long battery life, Debian-based OS (Ubuntu), nice keyboard and a standard 1024x600 display... now if only it came with a matte screen (glossies are useless anywhere near bright light sources, incl. the great outdoors) and the instant 1-second boot by Ubiquitous also featured in that story.

Doe this have anything to do with the Linaro announcement?

Well, only in the sense that Freescale are participants in the newly announced Linaro joint Linux-on-ARM-hardware development effort and here Freescale were promoting their latest "enhanced" Cortex-A8 chippie through demo devices (some already in the market) of various shapes and sizes...

Personally (this is becoming a habit! ) I like ARM platform's multiple chip manufacturers with single open architecture and roadmap approach.

(And sorry for the dup; slow ignition here sometimes )

I too am eager to see real, actual smartbooks come to market, to replace my trusty Samsung NC10 netbook.

Unfortunately there have been a lot of trade show announcements and demos for the past year, but nothing really appealing and actually available.

If they are to stand a chance in the competition, smartbooks should not be just cheap, dumbed-down netbooks, and really play on their differences and strong points.

For me, thickness and weight are more important than width/length, so what I'd look for in a smartbook would be thinner and lighter, but with at least the same battery life, for about the same going price, and a larger screen with better definition (11 or 12" with at least 720p). Oh, and most importantly, a great keyboard.

The first brand with such a beast on offer gets my next buy :-)

It is nice, now if only they could pressure all the peripheral chip and IP makers (read: Imgtec) to go open with their drivers or, at the very least, specs so we don't have to constantly fight closed blobs.

freescale have been showing off products (SoCs) and concepts lately but i dont think there are many actual devices out there that make use of them.

for one i would love to have seen their tablet with keyboard dock become a actual product.