Ultra-Thin Laptops To Be Next Intel-AMD Battleground 125
FinalAnkleHealer sends along an IBTimes article proposing that $500 ultra-thin laptops, capable of multitasking and editing multimedia content, could be the next market contested by Intel and AMD. "AMD partnered with Hewlett-Packard Co. in January to launch the Pavilion dv2. Intel launched its rival CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) chip this month and Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer Inc were among those that demonstrated laptops based on the new technology at the Computex trade show in Taipei. ... With more people gravitating toward mobile and wireless technology, consumers want smaller laptops — and most of those people would prefer doing more than surfing the Web, which the no-frills netbooks now excel at. ... Acer, the first company to introduce a cheap Intel-powered CULV laptop, expects revenue from that segment to account for 15 percent of its total sales by the end of 2009. Asustek, which pioneered the netbook in 2007, plans to launch five consumer-priced ultra-thins this year."
Ultra-thin? (Score:5, Interesting)
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If I can fit it in my wallet (or even the inner anorak pocket), I'd care. But if it has 10+" screen, thickness is moot.
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Then get a Lenovo W700ds ;)
Huge, powerful, and actually tries to have some battery life unlike the knockoffs.
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Actually I'm thinking more like the Vye S37, a netbook with a optical drive so it is thicker. Who cares if it is 2" thick as long as otherwise it is small and light. Thin just seems impractical and expensive... like "how did they make the HDD that thin?" But I wish the Vye had the battery life of the Asus EEE 1000he. And that it was cheaper to get with a North American keyboard. (the only site that I seem to find are in the UK or Australia)
I totally dislike the Seashell Asus EEE 1008 direction. Thin and les
Re:Ultra-thin? (Score:4, Funny)
That's what my wife used to say, but then she got a big fat black Thinkpad.
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If you ever have to use it, I suggest spraying it down with Lysol.
I've met your wife.
I do not want a keyboard... (Score:1)
I would really love a portable computer with the size of the Kindle 2 and the screen covering the whole thing.
There are two main problems with notebook form factor right now, one is the screen and the other is the keyboard. The screen is something can't be dramatically modified. However, A lot of the time Keyboard is unnecessary, and when needed a good quality rollable keyboard could be plugged (as well as a mouse) via USB port.
That idea could be further extended by designing the screen in a kind of accordi
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...that you can fold up!
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Re:Ultra-thin? (Score:4, Insightful)
And one inch isn't that thin. My Tiger era MacBook is only very slightly more than an inch thick. I'm pretty certain it wasn't the thinest laptop available at the time, and the MacBook Air has been released since then.
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Even then it's not that great -- I've had PDAs that were half the cost and thickness of that! Or what about the Sharp Actius MM10 [wired.com]? It was half an inch thick six years ago! Yeah, it cost $1500 back then, but surely you could build the same thing today for $500.
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Fine, so this is not for you. However, for a lot of business users, ability to slip in a briefcase designed for A4 paper is a big feature.
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I've had plenty of bags in the past that couldn't easily take my laptop.
Having said that, I agree that bend/cracked laptop screens springs to mind, but only when we're talking about a $500 machine. You only have to pick up an adamo or MacBook Air to realise they're not going to bend or crack.
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And you don't imagine thickness would in any way be related to size or weight? It's not like they're the same volume as any other laptop, just thinner and thus wider. :P
Besides, "ultra-thin" is just a marketing name for the sub-market.
"capable of multitasking" Really? (Score:5, Funny)
FinalAnkleHealer sends along an IBTimes article proposing that $500 ultra-thin laptops, capable of multitasking and editing multimedia content, could be the next market contested by Intel and AMD.
Good to know they are not running MSDOS, DRDOS, CP/M, RSTS, RT-11, Windows95 or MacOS9.
Re:"capable of multitasking" Really? (Score:5, Informative)
waitwaitwait.
Win95 had real, genuine multitasking. It was win3.11 that had the "task switching" tech where the foreground window was running.
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As I understood it, Windows 95 had cooperative multitasking. In other words the currently running process had to handle an interrupt in order to allow the OS to switch tasks. The OS could not force a process to the background, and so it wasn't considered "true" multi-tasking by purists.
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Win95 had "cooperative multitasking" between Win16 programs, and "preemptive multitasking" between Win32 programs.
However, on a single core/single CPU, I really wouldn't consider either timeslicing mechanism to be "true multitasking" since in reality you are still only running one process simultaneously.
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it wasn't considered "true" multi-tasking by purists.
Yeah, only purists care that a poorly behaved app can freeze the computer for minutes on end.
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Hey, don't knock it. Some of the iPhone people need to be enlightened.
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Mac OS 9 is certainly capable of multitasking (either cooperative or preemptive, according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]) and can edit multimedia content just fine (what platform did you think iMovie [wikipedia.org] was designed for?). Of course, it only ran on PowerPC processors, so that might be an issue....
Slimness without performance? (Score:5, Informative)
I hope they are promoting slimness with performance. I wonder why today's computing power with 1GHz machines and 1GB memories does not feel snappy at all.
I remember using computers years ago with Windows 95 that were quite fast on systems with 200MHz CPUs and 64Mb RAM modules.
I hope they will not forget performance...maybe the ARM systems will deliver on this.
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Which is totally why they just released a new iPhone who's main claim to fame is better performance. If the looks were enough to make people ignore performance, Apple wouldn't have spent so much to upgrade the phone. They would just have put the new camera and digital compass into a phone using the same old CPU and GPU, without doubling the RAM or increasing the battery capacity. That way, they could have made more of a profit off the people upgrading for the sake of having the latest and greatest.
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You wonder why?
Consider the possibility, that Vista [wikipedia.org] isn't the best Microsoft operating system to pick for a laptop.
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900MHZ, 1GB, 16GB. I'm not even trying Vista. XP is far too slow to be usable (new www page takes >30s to open). Linux works acceptably but rather slow - 5s to open terminal, 20s to open Firefox, 5-10s page load (render) time... why?
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but xterm doesn't fit very well into the visual style.
So buy a Mac.
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It depends how you set up your linux environment. If you're using KDE4 with a million plasmoids and Compiz on max, then yes, it will be unacceptably slow. On the other hand, if you're using XFCE or fluxbox or some other "liteweight" DM, and a quick underlying OS, then it'll be zippy like no-one's business, even on a computer with a quarter of those specs. Hell, I've gotten Linux with a GUI (Puppy, to be specific) running fairly quickly on a AMD K6-era co
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I think I know what your problem is: disk I/O. Why? Because between 2005 and 2007, my primary laptop was a second-hand purchased 600MHz P-III with 256Meg RAM and a 4GB harddisk. Got it for 100€ and I immediately added 256Meg to "speed it up". I installed Windows XP SP2 and it ran just fine (Okay, browsing back then was Firefox 1.5.x) One day, the 4Gig started to fill up (4Gig is fine for the OS + Applications, but once you start gathering a bit data....) and I thought "let's repla
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900MHz what? Z80?
5 seconds to open terminal? Are you running your HD in basic ATA PIO mode?
Or maybe the 16GB SSD in your Celeron powered netbook is very slow ... what Linux distro are you using?
Ubuntu 8.10 on a VIA C7 at 1.2GHz (1GB RAM, 120GB HD) loads Gnome Terminal in a couple of seconds. That's a crappy CPU, slow HD. Firefox loads in a third of the time you're talking about.
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Make sure you system is running only what is needed. Usually most of the new PC a preloaded with tons of bloatware running in the background.
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Depends what you call POS, doesn't it? Let's define POS as computers you will find readily in the dumpster. I'm a computer dumpster diver and if the people at the recycling centre don't catch me, I take computers and try to refurbish them for the lesser lucky.
I've found a P-IV 1.9GHz/512Meg RAM (Rambus, so not very upgradable) with a dual-head graphics card. I've found several AMD XP 2400+ machines, usually with 256Meg DDR RAM, but find a few of
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I guess it depends on how much you rose color the glasses. These days I might just happen to have a torrent running in the background downlading 2MB/sec using SSL encrypted connections with lots of random writes, and the machine is still very usable. Try that on a system with 200MHz CPUs and 64Mb RAM and you might as well go read a book, because it'll be completely useless.
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ARM and floating-point (Score:2)
I hope they will not forget performance...maybe the ARM systems will deliver on this.
Perhaps someone can inform me on this topic, but I am under the impression that ARM is not going to offer this performance in situations where lots of floating-point ops are required.
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ARM is actually well ahead of Atom in this one. The Cortex A8 and A9 can be bought with an SIMD FPU unit that offers (relatively) flexible memory access instructions that I think only the latest Core resembles.
There's also the GPU peripheral IP available through ARM. Their SDK supports it.
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I wonder why today's computing power with 1GHz machines and 1GB memories does not feel snappy at all.
That's because back then you didn't have a Firewall, a fully featured browser like you have now, 3D desktops, Wifi, Bluetooth and onboard video and sound eating up your entire CPU, background services like-... Oh you get the point. Operating Systems were shitty compared to the features we have now, that's why, even if it's under the hood...
On a side note: KDE 4.x is faster than Vista, but the windowing system in Vista is faster than Kwin. Why is that? Yeah Vista is slow but the UI is smooth as hell... :/
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Just use properly written software. It exists among practically all of those categories (actually, what's funny is that the most feature packed browser is also the most usable by far on old machines...).
My machine here that's very comparable to "1GHz&GB" absolutelly flies in comparison to Core 2 Duos, etc. of many people, riddled with bloatware (and they have less functionality then me!)
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The user's perception of the performance differences between older CPUs running Win95 and newer CPUs running modern OS's has nothing to do with the processors that AMD and Intel are selling. It is the software. it is partly the operating system. it's partly the fact that people run a lot more junk in the background then they used to.
it is also sometimes the OEM's fault unfortunately.
amusing antectode: a friend of mine was recently having serious performance problems with his new laptop. I spent half a
Supporting linux (Score:1)
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OSS? (Score:1)
"OSS" stands for "Open Source Software", of which Linux is a fine example. "OS" is what you were probably looking for, which stands for "Operating System".
Ports (Score:2, Insightful)
Thickness will be limited by large ports such as VGA, USB annd ethernet, unless they make everything wireless.
Re:Ports (Score:5, Informative)
There's quite a bit of room before we hit that barrier. Macbook Air is 20mm thick in its thickest place. RJ45, the thickest of the ones you listed is 8mm in the thickest place, meaning a well-engineered socket can be 1cm thick (and a better-engineered one will collapse to half that size when not used). Ethernet is dying in the laptop world too. VGA is dying, HDMI is 4.45mm tall. I think USB at is to stay the longest, with its 5mm plugs.
Anyway, the first centimeter can be shedded with little/no obstacles from the socket side.
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I beg to differ.
Whilst Wireless is the way forward, no doubt, it still cannot achieve decent transfer speeds compared to ethernet. I get 11MB/s over 100MBit Ethernet and 2MB/s over 802.11g WPA and 5-6MB/s over 802.11n @ 130MBit.
Lets not forget that 802.11n is in the second iteration of a draft and is *still* not finalised. Recent cards can achieve supposedly 270/300MBit speeds which might get you up to the same 11MB/s rates that 100MBit Ethernet currentl
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Video out (VGA or otherwise) is unnecessary in this class of machine -- but even if you did want it, you could use Mini DisplayPort. Ethernet is unnecessary. USB is necessary, but is also thin enough to fit -- and if it isn't, you could use Mini- or Micro-USB.
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displayport + wireless and usb is only like this thick:
_
_
done.
Just more battery life (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just more battery life (Score:4, Insightful)
Only when you're truly going to innovate make it 24h!
My big-ass notebook has a battery that is around 5% of the total volume (rough calculation) and it manages 2.5 hours of normal work or 2 hours of more intense usage. When you have a battery that is 50% of the volume of the tiny netbook (and the chipset is much less power hungry than an ordinary notebook) you can easily make the battery life tenfold of what it is today.
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If you can make a thin laptop, just add on a massive battery and make it as thick as a regular one. I don't care how thin it is, but a laptop that can survive normal use on battery for 8 hours would be an amazing thing.
Depending on what you name "normal use", I think that Eee 1000HE may be enough for you. I have used my for a complete day without needing to plug it to the mains.
I have been using my Eee for a lot more than web-surfing. I can watch video, play games (http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=57479) and even composing/playing music (tuxguitar).
The *only* thing I may recommend is upgrading to 2GB RAM (from 1 GB RAM available out of the box), but so far, I haven't done this and is not a real problem.
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If you can make a thin laptop, just add on a massive battery and make it as thick as a regular one.
I'm with you in spirit but the giant battery would tack 10 pounds onto the weight. We need micro fusion generators that weigh just a few ounces.
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Considering we can't even build fusion generators that produce power at all, it's just as plausible to wish for a laptop that runs on unicorn farts. Maybe a small nuclear (fission) battery would be a more realistic goal.
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You mean like apple's MacBook Pro line?
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If I were to put the entire base of the laptop full of those batteries, they alone would weigh 2.8kg. The laptop itself weighs, from the tried and tested "hold it up and think of a bag of sugar" method, 2kg without the battery.
I think your idea needs refining a little.
concentrate on NOT SUCK 1st, then go for THIN (Score:1, Interesting)
seriously, laptops have so many problems, we don't need to add EDIBLE to the list
"Consumers want smaller laptops" (Score:4, Funny)
As a happy Acer Aspire One user (running Fedora 11), I'd appreciate a 10" (maybe 12", at a push) version for easier, mobile working, but it's clear that the netbook market was a double-edged sword for the manufacturers because the units were popular, but margins were crap.
I've slowly watched the decent netbook products migrate towards 12" screens at price points that make me think "I might as well get a low-end laptop for that" and although "ultra thin" would be nice, it's not top of my list. The 'regular' technology in the netbooks/slim laptops is 'fine for me'.
Fair enough, I am not 'everyone', but how many are willing to pay a premium for ultra-thin cases, batteries etc. when the kit on the market today isn't exactly hernia-inducing? This smells of a marketing angle designed to keep margins up. We're not all like Mac sheeple that will buy it simply because it's shiny and made by Apple/Acer/Asus etc.: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary [theonion.com]
Re:"Consumers want smaller laptops" - Dell mini 12 (Score:2)
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I just sold my Acer Aspire One and got a HP/Compaq Mini. Same size, similar weight, same specs more or less. The only real difference is the added bluetooth, and a 10" screen instead of a 9". In fact, it's 10.1" instead of 8.9". What a difference that extra 1.2" make. I wouldnt go any bigger, but this screen at this price point (250 euros more or less) is the sweet spot for me. At least until we see 50 euro ARM netbooks.
I used to have a 12" HP, and although you wouldnt think it, and it only seemed a *wee bi
How about a cell-phone sized computer? (Score:1, Interesting)
Say, with a project-able display and project-to-any-surface keyboard?
Bonus if it weighed no more than today's smart phones and lasted all day between charges.
I know, I know, "dream on," at least for this decade.
Or, how about a computer-sized cell phone? (Score:2)
A 10" or 12" (4:3) touchscreen (or Wacom-style digitizer), less than 1/2" thick (preferably 1/4", like an iPod Nano), 12 hour battery life, slow processor (good enough for web surfing). It would be perfect!
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I'm not sure about the project-able display (though wireless HDMI is available, you'd have issues with lugging the TV screen around with you), but a projectable keyboard [thinkgeek.com] is readily available. And it connects via bluetooth, so you can keep your cellphone-sized PC in your pocket.
I'd like to see this become a reality (displays projected onto spectacles for instance), but unfortunately software requires more processing power than you can shake a big stick at, so I don't expect it to happen anytime soon. It'd be
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wait...you lost me...how would this destroy managed code? it's a display...should have nothing to do with the internals of the system, am i wrong?
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If you want it lighter, but still have a decent sized keyboard and screen, then the only way to do that is to make it thinner.
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or less dense?
fix landscape portrait sync problems (Score:4, Insightful)
rather then worrying about thin, how about the hardware and software people get to gether and have a std for web pages, so we don't have these awful problems of landscape screens and portrait pages (even worse for most pdfs - people edit them in word for portrait display, which never happens on screen, can't adobe make a pdf that auto changes the format of the file to fit screen or print mode ?)
Re:fix landscape portrait sync problems (Score:4, Funny)
how about the hardware and software people get to gether and have a std for web pages
It happened already. It's called MySpace and most pages indeed look like they had some STD.
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You use html if you want a document that adapts to different screen sizes. PDFs are supposed to look the same anywhere.
Some web designers do design their pages in ways that break this, but your complaint is with them, not the hardware and software people.
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Making text files simultaneuously "just work" for both landscape and portrait modes is an insurmountable task; mostly because there will always be something you can tweak about the final product, ultimately defeating the whole point of such software.
Take a simple flyer for example, the amount of vertical space allows for lots of neat, short snippets. A horizontal flyer ends up sub-par, because it looks both less businesslike and it can contain fewer sections of text. Short and sweet is the way to go for b
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Text files "just work" anywhere. I think what you mean is "word processor documents".
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Agreed, thank you for the clarification.
The Screen Orientation IS the problem (Score:2)
This is a classic case of proposing a completely unworkable fix for a problem that shouldn't even exist in the first place!
The real problem is that most people on the planet have *never* watched a movie on their laptop, and never intend to, but marketdroids aiming for this small demographic (driven by the MPAA, who tell them people actually want to watch DVDs on thier computers) stick the rest of us with increasingly short and wide screens that inhibit all the real work done on laptops. All these things ar
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why does tufte get such praise ? afaik, most of what he says is his opinion - not backed up by studies or surveys of any sort
just because he expresses his opinions vociferously doesn't mean they are right
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Good point. I agree Tufte has many acolytes who simply parrot whatever he says, and that much of what is says actually *is* simply a pronouncement of his opinion, often without sufficient analytical thought to back it up.
That said, Tufte's a good writer, a decent thinker, and has been right often enough and on enough topics to have built a certain degree of credibility. Personally, I think "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" is indeed a great nail on which to hang a career, but his ideas on u
Battleground? I Doubt It (Score:4, Insightful)
As much as I love AMD, I would like to know what the submitter was thinking calling it a battleground. It's only a fair fight for AMD so long as Intel's not interested - AMD (and their manufacturing partner née subsidiary) can't match Intel's manufacturing abilities. AMD doesn't have an Ultra Low Voltage chip; Intel has a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo that runs at 10W [intel.com], meanwhile it's murky at best for AMD's competing chip line, the Neo. The only specs given out to the press for the new fual core version [notebookreview.com], which is 18W for the 1.6GHz version, with the chip still being built on the 65nm process which hobbles AMD from the start. Bear in mind that the Neo is Athlon 64 based, which means that it's not clock-for-clock competitive with the Core 2 Duo (you'd need a Phenom II-based core for that). In other words, the Intel chip eats less power and gets more performance at the same time.
So if Intel's serious about this, it's only a battle so long as they don't decide to crush AMD with products and pricing. Intel is light years ahead of AMD in the mobile space due to their process technology advantage. Even TFA points out that they expect 8 hours out of the Intel CPUs, but only 5 hours out of the AMD CPUs. It's entirely lop-sided in Intel's favor.
Now TFA does mention AMD will have Congo later this year, but even if that's 45nm (AMD has not commented on that matter), it's unlikely that they'd be able to meet Intel's power envelope. When you look at the desktop chips this stuff is derived from, the Phenom II takes more transistors and as a result power than the Core 2 Duo, and that's only to reach a clock-for-clock parity. Congo wouldn't change this.
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Isn't this Transmeta territory? Transmeta was making ultra low power chips before it was the in thing to do. My question would be why weren't intel and AMD doing this 10 years ago?
http://www.transmeta.com/index2.html [transmeta.com]
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Because people cared a lot more about speed then. That's a terrible way of putting it, as people still care plenty about speed, but more and more people actually have 'enough' speed these days, so other things are getting more attention.
shill (Score:1)
Of course, 10w is not what we are targeting at USD 500 and below.
Which kind of eliminates INTEL entirely, unless they buy Marvell back.
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As much as I love AMD, I would like to know what the submitter was thinking calling it a battleground. It's only a fair fight for AMD so long as Intel's not interested - AMD (and their manufacturing partner née subsidiary) can't match Intel's manufacturing abilities. AMD doesn't have an Ultra Low Voltage chip; Intel has a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo that runs at 10W [intel.com], meanwhile it's murky at best for AMD's competing chip line, the Neo. The only specs given out to the press for the new fual core version [notebookreview.com], which is 18W for the 1.6GHz version, with the chip still being built on the 65nm process which hobbles AMD from the start. Bear in mind that the Neo is Athlon 64 based, which means that it's not clock-for-clock competitive with the Core 2 Duo (you'd need a Phenom II-based core for that). In other words, the Intel chip eats less power and gets more performance at the same time.
Mod parent troll. Do you work for intel or something? http://www.amd.com/us-en/ConnectivitySolutions/ProductInformation/0,,50_2330_9863_9864,00.html
There's a link for the AMD geode processor that pulls 1.1W.
So if Intel's serious about this, it's only a battle so long as they don't decide to crush AMD with products and pricing. Intel is light years ahead of AMD in the mobile space due to their process technology advantage. Even TFA points out that they expect 8 hours out of the Intel CPUs, but only 5 hours out of the AMD CPUs. It's entirely lop-sided in Intel's favor.
WTF? This argument only makes sense in the fantasy land where companies don't care about making money. Intel is doing everything they can in every space they compete in, including this one.
Now TFA does mention AMD will have Congo later this year, but even if that's 45nm (AMD has not commented on that matter), it's unlikely that they'd be able to meet Intel's power envelope. When you look at the desktop chips this stuff is derived from, the Phenom II takes more transistors and as a result power than the Core 2 Duo, and that's only to reach a clock-for-clock parity. Congo wouldn't change this.
Citation needed?
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What surprises me here is the lack of mention of ARM.
An ultra-thin netbook type machine requires an ARM processor to have an half-way decent battery life (ultra-thin usually implies smaller batteries). A CPU that consumers 7W (such as the Atom) is using 6 Watts too many IMHO.
Um, snapdragon? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure Intel would like all of that pie and unfortunately for us, they are willing to do anything to get it. Including strong arming Asus when they showed an Arm based chipset running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform (running Android no less). A quick intervention from Intel and Microsoft and Asus was saying that 'the project is on hold' while sharing a stage with a VP from each of Intel and Microsoft.. Story on slashdot a couple days back.
Oh and these arm based devices can run all-day(apparently), nevermind 8 hours.
http://gizmodo.com/5273723/asus-demos-snapdragon+based-eee-pc-with-android [gizmodo.com]
AMD can win on video alone hear as intel gma sucks (Score:1)
AMD can win on video alone hear as intel gma sucks and amd has good on board video.
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Ah, you've already covered that. Apologies.
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They do?
My ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 begs to differ.... That card sucks on both Windows and Linux. Yes, surely because it has no dedicated memory, but you did say "on board video" which pretty much never got memory of its own.
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Well, yes, but people will remember the products they had before and frankly, I've never been a happy camper with ATI. I've seen high-end cards (when they were already bought by AMD) fail to deliver: flakey drivers under Windows, not working at all under Linux.
I just can be freaking glad that I didn't have an Intel chip in that machine, because I just can't imagine any worse performing card. Heck, the Intel graphics chip on my Asus EEE performs better! (Might have to do with the small resolution of the s
Also the HP Pavilion tx2500z a great little tablet (Score:2)
Anyway, if CULV is the new 'battleground', I think on one hand Intel would have an advantage because of their typically lower TDPs (thermal design power, heat that needs to be removed) for a given performance level, however on the other hand, AMD u
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I looked at the new Neo based DV series in Costco... nice looking, very light, good battery life, battery doesn't stick way out like with the tx2100. I almost bought but for two reasons, 1) I do like the tx2100 rotating touch screen (if only Ubuntu supported it better), 2) The Neo based sys
Who will care? (Score:2)
When you can get a smartbook that can do all this, runs 10 hours, and costs $100-$200? /., about these [ARM + nVidia Tegra acceleration + Linux] devices coming out in autumn?)
(Remember the article here on
Sounds like... (Score:2)
ith more people gravitating toward mobile and wireless technology, consumers want smaller laptops â" and most of those people would prefer doing more than surfing the Web, which the no-frills netbooks now excel at. ...
Not really. Because when you're looking at smaller laptops, you are by necessity looking at smaller screens. Smaller screens - no matter how fast the processor behind them - are not going for doing involved tasks beyond writing documents (if the keyboard suits) and surfing the web. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish up some work over SSH on my Blackberry.