After yesterday's developer chat it's hard not to be excited about Chrome OS. During the talk, it was mentioned several times that Chrome was intended to be used in products like netbooks and not larger laptops and desktops. While smartbooks weren't specifically mentioned as supported or not, it seems likely that they will be. Especially in light of this news from Digitimes.

They're reporting that Pegatron Technology has received a "large volume" of smartbook orders from several different clients. It's believed these smartbooks will launch in Q1 2010 on several different carriers. These first smartbooks are expected to cost around $200 USD. Most of them will sport a Linux OS, due primarily to their tiny display size. Now, here's where things get interesting;

"Google Chrome OS-based smartbooks are expected to be available on a large scale in the second half of 2010, Shu added."

Expect a big roll-out of Chrome smartbooks around summertime. While nothing's been confirmed yet, this makes total sense. Chrome is an operating system built around browsing as quickly and easily as possible. Smartbooks have no real purpose other than Internet use. Chrome is going to dominate these devices.