We’ve been seeing the Mobinnova Beam smartbook show up at trade shows for months. Now it looks like you’re finally going to get a chance to purchase one soon. Mobinnova has teamed up with AT&T to offer the 3G-enabled smartbook powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 platform.

Tegra 2 combines a low power 1GHz ARM Cortex A9-based processor with high performance graphics capable of playing 1080p HD video. The smartbook can handle local and internet video thanks to Flash 10.1 hardware acceleration.

The Mobinnova Beam has an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display and weighs just 1.84 pounds. it measures 9.2″ a x 7.3″ x 0.8″. The device supports 802.11b/g WiFi and has a 3G modem for connecting to AT&T’s mobile broadband service when you sign up for a contract.

The smartbook has 512MB of RAM and 512MB of flash storage for the operating system plus a solid state disk with 8GB to 64GB of storage space. You can also use the SD card to add up to 64GB of storage.

While the demo unit I saw at CES was running Windows CE, Mobinnova will support both Windows CE and Google Android. AT&T is expected to launch an Android version by the end of Q2, 2010. There’s no word on pricing yet.

You can check out my hands-on video with the Mobinnova Beam from CES after the break.

Mobinnova press release (PDF Link)

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The FCC has published a few (very few) documents related to the upcoming Mobinnova Beam smartbook. The Beam is a 10 inch mini-laptop with NVIDIA Tegra graphics. Up until recently it was known as the Mobinnova élan, but the company changed the name a few weeks ago and announced that the Smartbook would soon be available in the US.

The Beam has a low power ARM-based processor designed to help the machine get excellent battery life. But it also has NVIDIA graphics which will enable 720p HD video playback and some 3D games. It uses the same chipset as the Zune HD portable media player which I’m currently reviewing, and 3D games look great on that tiny handheld device.

There’s not a lot of information in the FCC documents about the Beam, but the folks at Engadget noticed that it’s labeled as the BEAMATT, which means there’s a pretty good chance that AT&T will be the distributor for this portable computer. We should know more at CES in January.

NVIDIA has been showing off a mini-laptop with an 8.9 inch display called the Mobinnova élan since this summer. The Mobinnova computer is one of the first laptops to use NVIDIA’s Tegra platform, which bundles an ARM-based processor with high performance graphics. The net result is a mini-laptop with excellent battery life that can run for 5 to 10 hours while playing HD video or up to 24 hours when playing audio.

But up until now there’s been no word on a price or launch date. Now Laptop Magazine is reporting that the little laptop has a new name and something resembling US launch details. The computer will be renamed the Mobinnova Beam in the US. As expected it, will run Windows CE, which is a low power OS that can run on ARM processors (unlike Windows 7).

The Mobinnova Beam will support 720p video playback. And once Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is released, it will be able to handle HD video streams from the web since the software update will add support for NVIDIA GPU acceleration.

Laptop Magazine reports that the Mobinnova Beam will be available at a subsidized price in the US when bundled with a 3G data plan from a wireless broadband provider. There’s still no final word on the pricing, release date, or who that wireless carrier will be, but Mobinnova is expected to have a few announcements at CES in January.

You can find more images of the Beam at Laptop Magazine.

First introduced at Computex earlier this month, the Mobinnova élan is a mini-laptop powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra platform which bundles an ARM CPU with NVIDIA Graphics to enable HD and 3D video performance on an extremely low power machine. This particular model is running Windows CE, but you’d almost never know it because the device has a custom 3D user interface that rests on top of Windows CE. It can also run a full version of Firefox and has full featured audio and video players.

The folks at Netbook News shot a video overview of the UI, which lets you play movies, view photos, and perform other tasks without using the default Windows CE tools. The UI takes advantage of the NVIDIA GPU and includes high quality 3D animations. The computer can handle playback of 1080p video and has an HDMI output for pumping HD video to an external display. I’m not 100% sure, but I think you might be limited to 720p video output. It should be able to handle 6 hours of video playback on battery power.

Mobinnova calls this little laptop a “viewbook” because of its entertainment focus. So you can add that to your list of jargon alongside netbook and smartbook.

You can check out the video of the Mobinnova élan after the break.

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While you might not really expect much from a mini-laptop running Windows CE, the Mobinnova élan is definitely raising some eyebrows at Computex. That’s because this little 8.9 inch Smartbook is rocking the NVIDIA Tegra platform under the hood. That means it bundles an ARM-based processor with an NVIDIA graphics processor to deliver smooth playback of 720p or 1080p video.

Oh yeah, and you should also be able to get 5 to 10 hours of battery life while playing HD video continuously. The computer will run even longer if you’re just using it to surf the web, although the computer seems to have a ridiculously large battery, although Laptop Magazine’s Joanna Stern says it’s just a 3 cell battery.

Now, the funny thing is that the Mobinnova élan doesn’t have an HD screen. But the little laptop shows the power of the Tegra platform. And at the very least it means you can watch high definition videos without converting them into a lower resolution format first.

The smartbook is running Windows CE 6, but NVIDIA has customized the user interface with its own slick looking program launcher. Unfortunately I think Windows CE netbooks are going to continue to be at a disadvantage until someone ports a full web browser like Google Chrome, Firefox, or Safari to run on the platform. Because while Skyfire and Fennec show promise, when you give someone a device with a nearly full sized screen and keyboard, I don’t think they’re going to want to use a mobile browser designed for cellphones.

You can check out a short video of the Mobinnova élan in action after the break, courtesy of Engadget.

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