The smartbook concept is only a couple of years old but the number of devices is set to grow dramatically. ABI Research reckons there'll be 163 million smartbooks shipped worldwide in 2015.
Jeff Orr, the company's senior analyst, defines a smartbook as "a low-powered device running a mobile operating system that is always connected, either via WiFi or (more often) using cellular or mobile broadband. Smartbooks can take many different shapes. They are a subset of MIDs (mobile Internet devices) and netbooks, and address the same potential users, usage, pricing, and market needs. The difference is that they don’t use x86 processors."