Pegatron Smartbook caught in wild (again)

We were only talking earlier on today about Pegatron's Smartbook plans, and then along comes Shanzai with a quick hands-on report with one of the company's first models.  There's no telling whether this is merely a prototype or something we'll see in Q1 2010 with a brand-name plastered across it, but we do know it was featured at ARM's "Technical Symposium 2009" in Taipei this week.

According to Shanzai, it's a 10-inch unit with a fanless ARM processor – no word on whether that's Qualcomm's Snapdragon – that the company expect to have always-on connectivity and speedy boot times.  Meanwhile battery life is deemed to be sufficient for "all day" use, and while we're still more than mildly sceptical about such claims, we're definitely hopeful that it turns out to be true.

The Pegatron machine looks slightly thicker than the Quanta prototype we played with earlier this week, though given the amount of flex in the Quanta's keyboard that's probably no bad thing.  Only Lenovo have publicly confirmed that they'll be pushing a Smartbook out the door in January.