The Loongson CPU may be the darling of the Chinese media, such is the capacity for nationalist fervor on the Mainland, but in the West it has been met with emotions ranging from mild curiosity to abject cynicism. As a MIPS based processor in a similar vein to an ARM chip, the current Loongson 2F architecture would seem to have enough grunt to compete in the ultra-compact Smartbook and possibly all-in-one desktops segments. If this review is anything to go by however, the real challenge for Longsoon/Lemote is getting the software right, which is of course where Google's Chrome OS fits in.

Sold by a partly government funded company known as Lemote,  products like the Yeelong notebook PC  and the Fullong Mini are designed to work with open source software like Linux, but as the aforementioned reviewer notes, these devices are somewhat hampered by their pre-installed Lemote Loonux OS(seriously), which he describes as  '...ugly like Brian Peppers. Uglier in fact', so perhaps the move to Chrome OS is indeed a wise move.

Regarding Loongson-based devices, apparently there have been significant orders made for the CPU, with 7 to 9 inch designs like the netbook above, appearing around China with the first Lemote store recently opened in Beijing. The netbook device apparently sell for under 200 bucks, which would place it directly in smartbook territory.


Time will tell whether Longsoon can grab a piece of both mainstream and shanzhai markets in the long run, and while it might seem like pie in the sky right now, it's surely a mistake to underestimate the power and influence of the state in these matters.