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If you’ve been wondering how HP plans to make an operating system designed for smartphones usable on a laptop, the answers are now here. Kind of. While the Compaq Airlife 100 smartbook isn’t actually shipping yet, you can download the user manual, FAQ, Quick Start guide, and a few other documents from HP’s support site. There’s also information on how to import songs to the device from iTunes on your PC.

Here are a few things I learned:

• The smartbook runs Adobe FlashLite 3.1.7 out of the box — it’s not clear if Flash Player 10.1 support will come later.
• Like a smartphone, you can connect the Compaq Airlife 100 to a PC using a USB cable.
• You can print photos to a “compatible HP printer connected to a WiFi network” using the photo app.
• There’s a file manager app — something noticeably missing from most Android smartphones (although third party apps are available from the Android Market).
• The Airlife features 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS connectivity, and you can even send text messages over 3G.
• The device ships with RoadSync Mail for syncing email and calendar information with corporate accounts using Microsoft Exchange Server.
• When you close the lid the Compaq Airlife 100 goes into sleep mode, but you’ll receive audio notifications for alerts and new messages.
• The computer ships with QuickOffice for reading Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files.

While the Compaq Airlife 100 has a touchpad, it doesn’t work like a typical laptop touchpad — because there’s no mouse cursor. Instead you use the touchpad to scroll through screen items. You can tap the touchpad to click/select. The buttons on the side of the touchpad let you open menus, go to the Home Screen, and go back to the previous screen.

via myHPmini