What exactly is a smartbook, aside from a term drawn from the the obvious blend of "smartphone" and "netbook"?

First mentioned last November in a speech by , a smartbook will be a computing device similar in size or slightly smaller than today's netbook with smartphone-like features.

Glen Burchers, consumer marketing director at Freescale Semiconductor Inc., says those features could include all-day battery life, instant-on capability and "persistent connectivity," and specs such as an ARM-based chip core, a Linux OS version like Google Inc.'s Android, and, most importantly to consumers, a price point significantly lower than today's netbooks.

"We fully expect $199 devices with 8.9-inch screens, Wi-Fi, full-sized keyboard, 8-hour battery life, 512MB of RAM and 4-8 Gigabytes of [solid-state] storage by the end of the year," Burchers said.

By comparison, the cheapest netbooks based on Intel Corp.'s Atom CPU, such as Hewlett-Packard Co.'s , sell for under $300.