Demo'd at DEMO 09: ARM netbook, 15 hours of battery life

At the Demo 09 show in Palm Desert, CA today, a start-up named Always Innovating showed off a Linux-based netbook with a touch screen, a detachable keyboard, and a touted battery life of 10 to 15 hours. The company's Touch Book netbook also happens to be the industry's first with an ARM processor, as opposed to the Intel Atom CPU used in most other netbooks.

Pre-orderable now, the Touch Book is slated for delivery this spring at pricing of $399 with the detachable keyboard and $299 without the keyboard. The detachable keyboard concept has appeared before in convertible tablet PCs as well as some netbooks. But although the Touch Book might lack the same horsepower as a convertible tablet, it's certainly a lot less costly than PCs in the tablet category, which still run anywhere from around $1,000 to above $3,500. Ten to 15 hours of battery life isn't bad, either.