On Monday, the Lenovo Group Ltd. formally announced its first ever smartbook, a gadget that tends to move away from the conventional "Wintel" hold on the mobile computing sector.

The company's new offering, Skylight, is equipped with Qualcomm Inc's Snapdragon chip, which is used in smartphones as well, and has a Linux based operating system, instead of the traditional Windows by Microsoft.

The Skylight has emerged as one of the first offerings in the smartbooks world. These devices are "hyper-connected" consumer machines, based on the power saving ARM chip architecture, instead of the traditional x86 platforms by Intel, which is presently dominating the netbook market.

The Skylight sports a 10 inch screen and is ultra light, weighing less than 2 pounds. Users can choose to pick up the device in red or blue, and the smartbook features a unique "clamshell" design.

Skylight will sell in the US at a price of $499 starting April this year. Later during the year, the smartbook will be available in China and Europe.