Back in the day, Netbooks ran Linux and packed solid-state drives. But Windows XP and big hard disk drives have prevailed.
Toshiba's mini NB200 does not offer a solid-state drive option in featured configurations nor Linux
The early Asus Eee PCs--which almost single-handedly created the Netbook market--came with a Linux operating system and small-capacity solid-state "flash" drives ranging from 2GB to 8GB. Early Acer Aspire Netbooks were also offered with Linux and a solid-state drive.
Those devices bore little resemblance to PC laptops. The Eee PC was a tiny, stripped-to-the-bone device that required minimalist hardware to run an efficient Linux OS. (Will a wave of Google Chrome OS-based devices revive the minimalist Netbook next year?)
Fast forward to today: Windows XP rules, with a Netbook-specific Windows 7 on the way. And a glance at the Netbook lineups from any top PC maker--including Hewlett-Packard, Acer, and Toshiba--reveals few, if any, Linux offerings and equally few solid-state drive options.
Rather, beefy hardware configurations sporting 160GB hard disk drives and as much as 2GB of memory are the norm.
And a report from market researcher iSuppli says higher prices for flash memory chips may undermine high-capacity SSDs in mainstream laptops too.
Average pricing for widely used 16-gigabit flash chips rose to $4.10 in the second quarter of 2009, a steep 127.8 percent increase from $1.80 in the fourth quarter of 2008, said Michael Yang, senior analyst for mobile and emerging memories at iSuppli, in a report released Wednesday.
Prices will inevitably come down again but so will the cost-per-gigabyte of hard disk drives. Because of the distinct performance advantages over hard disks, solid-state drives are not going away, but they won't displace hard drives as the standard for storage in PCs anytime soon.
As for Linux, time will tell if Netbooks return to their roots with Google's Android and/or the Chrome OS next year.
Texas Instruments and Qualcomm executives talked Wednesday about the opportunities they see for the just-announced Google Chrome operating system.
Prototype Qualcomm Snapdragon processor-based device
(Credit: Qualcomm)The Chrome operating system is "lightweight," a term that Google uses, meaning the OS runs fine on less hardware. Chrome will initially be targeted at Netbooks--essentially ultra-small laptops--that will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010, according to Google.
Both TI and Qualcomm believe the Google OS will provide more opportunity for new-fangled devices to gain wider acceptance. And both believe this is an opportunity for their respective ARM processors--which power many of the world's cell phones--to gain more ground.
Analysts see the makings of a broad realignment in the computer industry. "What Google is betting on with the Chrome OS (is a) shift in computing and consumer behavior," Charles King, president and principal analyst at Pund-IT, wrote in a research note on Wednesday. "If that scenario truly comes to pass, it could disrupt the efforts of virtually every vendor focused on personal computing."
Texas Instruments, which has been working with Google on the Chrome OS, expects big changes in the design of devices, according to Ramesh Iyer, TI's head of worldwide business development for mobile computing.
"Netbooks are really the tip of the iceberg. We need to fast forward into the future and think of things beyond the Netbook thanks to this initiative from Google," Iyer said in a phone interview. TI's OMAP ARM processor powers a number of cell phones and smartphones including the recently-announced Palm Pre.
"We see the future being cloud computing really. You are walking around with a simple tablet, that is probably no thicker than the thickness of your display. It may have a (physical) keyboard, it may have a soft keyboard. ... Read more
In a recent and so-far relatively obscure video, VMware CEO Paul Maritz offers, at times, a sharp critique of the Intel chip architecture and the challenges of getting it into cell phones.
VMware CEO Paul Maritz
(Credit: EMC)At the TiEcon 2009 conference in mid-May, Maritz gave a brief oral history of the Intel x86 chip architecture. He noted its shortcomings and the challenges presented by ARM, the chip design that powers most of the world's cell phones and will power Netbooks running on Google's just-announced Chrome operating system.
The video has been made available by TechPulse360.
"Consumer devices came along and there was one problem with the x86 instruction set. All of that complexity in there, accumulated over the years, meant it's a power hog. It loves electricity," he said in the video, referring to Intel's x86 architecture, which virtually all PCs use today.
Maritz--who worked for five years as a software and tools developer at Intel before spending 14 years as a top-level executive at Microsoft and then joining VMWare a year ago--continued: "In consumer devices like phones you can't have that. Battery life becomes paramount," he said.
Maritz described how Intel experimented with the ARM processor architecture and bought a license "for a much simpler microprocessor," referring to Intel's development of the StrongARM architecture, which eventually became a designed called XScale.
Subsequently, Intel decided to get out of the business, according to Maritz's depiction, because the devices were "low-end, low-power, low-profit." Here Maritz is referring to Intel's XScale business, which was sold to Marvell Technology in 2006.
Maritz continued, describing how Intel wanted to get back to its roots: "high performance, complex microprocessors." Then, Intel realized, according to Maritz, that it had to get back into that market: "This ARM thing is a real problem, we're going to have to go back into that space."
In response to the video, an Intel representative said: "Paul Maritz is not privy to all of Intel's future product plans."
Note: Though the video is from May, it did not come to my attention until very recently. I think the topic is important enough to bring up now because Maritz is a high-profile CEO at a large company that builds software that runs on Intel processors and because he's speaking about one of Intel's greatest challenges.
A report claiming that Nvidia has been ousted from Apple laptop designs has gained prominence quickly because the graphics chip supplier is still dogged by past problems.
"The word is that Nvidia is out of Apple designs," according to a June 26 report from technology Web site SemiAccurate. The report has been cited widely with varying degrees of credence given to it.
"When I say out, I mean on the Nehalem-based Macs," Charlie Demerjian, the author of the report, said in a phone interview Monday, referring to future laptops from Apple that will be based on Intel's new Nehalem Core i series of chips.
Nvidia, not surprisingly, doesn't see it that way. "These rumors are baseless," an Nvidia spokesman said Monday. Apple had no comment.
Nvidia graphics processors are currently used widely in Apple MacBooks. And Apple has been touting a new technology in its upcoming Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system called OpenCL, which takes "the power of graphics processors" and makes it available to Snow Leopard for everyday computing tasks.
However, lurking below this push to tap into the compute power of the graphics processor lie past issues with Nvidia chips. A May 29 Apple knowledge-base article (Article: TS2377) couches frustration with Nvidia in diplomatic language, according to Demerjian. The article updates a similar notice Apple published in October of last year.
"Nvidia assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected," according to the Apple May 29 statement. "However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected."
"The 8600M referred to in the Apple support page...had a particular material set," Nvidia said Monday, repeating a statement it has made several times in the past. "That particular combination of material set is no longer being used by Nvidia."
In a May 20 disclosure as part of a Form 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nvidia said that some notebooks still have problems associated with its graphics chips.
And past statements from not only Apple but the world's largest PC makers lend weight to the tenor of SemiAccurate's assertions about Nvidia's chip problems, if not necessarily to the accuracy of the report's claims about Nvidia's future at Apple. Hewlett-Packard said last year that it had been grappling with Nvidia chip issues since November 2007. And Dell made a similar statement last year.
Writing about the SemiAccurate report, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Doug Freedman said Monday: "If the reports are indeed true...Although negative at the margins, this shortfall could be offset by new product ramps." Freedman cited upcoming products--that will offset any negative impact--such as Nvidia's Tegra chip for smartphones and its Ion chipsets for laptops and Netbooks.
Is there a downside to squeezing a real graphics processor into a 3-pound, ultra-thin laptop? Not if it's a MacBook Air.
Surprise: higher performance = lower heat
After extensive use of two versions (the January 2008 original and October 2008 refresh) of the MacBook Air, my conclusion is that a decent graphics chip can--over the long haul--not only deliver the expected boost in performance but, surprisingly, contribute to better battery life while, even more surprisingly, bringing down the heat to acceptable levels.
First, let me address the original Air. I have used this version now for about 18 months. Though it has been remarkably reliable, the Intel graphics (housed in the chipset) is its Achilles' heel. And I'm talking about heat problems, not performance shortcomings.
The culprit for me is video-intensive tasks (I don't play games). Any extended video turns up the heat to lap-warming, or much toastier, levels. This can get downright uncomfortable at times. Not only does the bottom of the laptop get hot but the keyboard too.
Nvidia'a graphics-oriented chipset (the GeForce 9400M) and Intel's updated processor used in the new version of the Air brings the heat down to lower levels. Overall, this Air runs cooler and longer with the higher-performance graphics. (The Nvidia 9400M graphics chipset is also used in Netbooks from Lenovo and Samsung.)
I won't repeat the performance benchmarks, which have been amply cited in many reviews on the Web. Suffice to say, Nvidia's 9400M delivers better gaming benchmarks (see second link above) than the Intel graphics in the original Air.
And what about newer versions of Intel's chipset? By comparison, the ultra-thin Dell Adamo, an Air rival, uses a Mobile Intel GM45 Express chipset (the successor to the Intel GMA X3100 graphics used in the original Air) for its graphics. In this review, the Adamo was bested consistently by the Air with Nvidia's chipset.
I also see (which is supported in some reviews) better battery life with the newer MBA. Generally, I can squeeze 1.5 to 2.5 hours (depending on what I'm doing) out of the original MBA. With the newer version, it's 2 to 3 hours.
And now that the Air can be had for $1,499 (versus $1,999 for Dell Adamo), it's a fairly reasonable deal. (Remember: the high end version of the MacBook Air debuted at more than $3,000 back in January of 2008.)
Though solid-state drives are in vogue, market forces and technical issues are giving the venerable hard-disk drive new life.
DRAMexchange, a Taipei-based market intelligence firm, said last week that the adoption of solid-state drives by computer vendors has slowed as the price of the NAND chips--the raw material of solid-state drives--has increased. The firm also said that computer makers have been cautious about using solid-state drives because current Windows operating systems are not fully optimized for SSDs.
Numonyx NAND flash chip
(Credit: Numonyx)And the popularity of flash storage is waning in Netbooks. These tiny laptops at one time used solid-state drives almost exclusively. But Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and others are moving en masse to configurations with large hard-disk drives in lieu of smaller-capacity solid-state drives.
SSDs typically offer higher performance--often much higher performance--than hard-disk drives and are more durable since they have no moving parts.
While those merits still apply, lingering doubts about the long-term retention of the data in a solid-state drive is making the hard disk look not quite so passé. Ed Doller, the chief technical officer of Numonyx, a flash memory chip maker which was spun off from Intel and STMicroelectronics last year, addressed this issue in a recent phone interview. Numonyx makes two kinds of flash: NOR, used for storing computer programs, and NAND, used widely as a data storage medium in digital cameras, media players, smartphones, and solid-state drives.
"It's if versus when. With a hard drive it's if it's going to fail. With an SSD, it's when is it going to fail," Doller said, who critiques NAND only because his company is looking for a new storage medium--such as phase change memory--that can overcome some of NAND's inherent limitations.
Doller spoke about an epiphany he had after booting up a 20-year-old IBM AT. "I fired that thing up and it actually booted from the hard drive. If that same computer had been built with a solid-state drive, I can almost guarantee you that would not have worked. It would have lost its information over that period of time," Doller said.
... Read moreUpdated at 12:15 p.m. PDT: adding Intel comment and additional discussion about laptop casing.
An analyst said Wednesday that some PC makers are hitting snags as they try to bring out ultra-thin laptops.
"Early production units being built in plastic, with the bottom case being plastic, are cracking," said Broadpoint AmTech analyst Doug Freedman, in a phone interview, referring to discussions he had with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and and original design manufacturers (ODMs). Typically ODMs don't market under their brand name but supply devices to OEMs, which then slap on their own brand.
Freedman wrote about the problem in a research note distributed Wednesday morning.
"So, to get that really thin form factor that they're after, they're probably going to have to go with a metal case," he said.
Pricey ultra-thin laptops like the MacBook Air and Dell Adamo are made of metal. Lower-cost ultra-thin laptops are typically made of plastic.
In the report, Freedman refers to ODMs and OEMs trying to bring out laptops based on Intel's "CULV" technology. CULV, or consumer ultra-low voltage, is a strategy Intel launched at Computex in June to engender a category of low-cost ultra-thin laptops that offer the portability of Netbooks but are more powerful--and more expensive. These laptops use low-power "ULV" (ultra-low-voltage) processors, as dictated by the space-constrained, ultra-thin designs.
"ODMs were advising their customers to switch to full-metal cases," Freedman said of his discussions with ODMs. "Cost-reduction features are going to be hard in that form factor on the industrial design side," he said.
Intel issued a statement Wednesday saying that the case problem that Freedman refers to has nothing to with Intel processors. "Case design issues reported to be found by an ODM, not consumers, in early production units for ultra-thin laptops have nothing to do with Intel processors whatsoever. We want to be clear that this is not a CPU design issue," Intel said in a statement.
Freedman said some PC makers are opting for large, 11- and 12-inch Netbooks with the Atom processor--and Nvidia's Ion chipset in some cases--instead of ultra-thin ULV laptops based on Intel's Pentium, Celeron, or Core 2 architectures.
"Just look at Lenovo. They're the guy that is not falling in line with Intel's aspirations of 'we don't want 12-inch Netbooks.'" he said.
This summer, both Samsung and Lenovo will begin marketing 11- and 12-inch class Netbooks, respectively, based on the newest Atom processor and Nvidia's Ion chipset.
Nvidia on Monday confirmed that Samsung will bring out a Netbook based on the graphics chipmaker's Ion chipset, another design that breaks the Netbook mold.
"Ion really transforms these small laptops, like the upcoming Samsung and Lenovo Ideapad S12, into fully capable notebooks," Rene Haas, general manager of notebook products at Nvidia said Monday in a statement.
Ion brings mainstream PC graphics to Netbooks, including 1080p high-definition video support and better gaming, according to Nvidia.
The disclosure of the Samsung Netbook follows the Lenovo IdeaPad S12--due in August--the first Netbook announced from a major PC maker to employ the Nvidia chip.
Upcoming Samsung Netbook based on Nvidia's Ion chipset and Intel Atom processor
(Credit: Nvidia)Though Nvidia would not confirm specifications, Netbook Choice is reporting that the Netbook, branded the Samsung N510, is due in July and will sport an 11.6-inch screen--large for the Netbook category, where screens typically top out at about 10 inches.
The Samsung Netbook would be another manifestation, following the Lenovo IdeaPad S12, of Nvidia's efforts to break the Netbook mold as defined by Intel: a low-performance device with a screen under 11 inches in diagonal size. Nvidia claims designs like Samsung's and Lenovo's are more notebook than Netbook.
Samsung's Netbook bears Nvidia badge
(Credit: Nvidia)"The Netbook term was created by Intel to define a segment offering a limited experience, but with Ion you don't have those same limitations," Nvidia's Haas said. "These systems can handle mainstream gaming, HD video, and new GPU-powered applications. You might as well call them notebooks, because that's what they are."
The N510 will also pack an Intel 1.66GHz N280 Atom processor, according to Netbook Choice. The N280 is Intel's latest Atom processor that, ironically, is offered to Netbook makers with supporting Intel silicon that delivers better graphics performance than previous Intel Atom technology. That Intel feature, however, is not available when a PC maker uses Nvidia's higher-performance Ion silicon that integrates Nvidia's 9400M graphics chip--the same chip used in Apple's MacBook line.
Other Samsung Netbook features include a 160GB hard disk drive, 1GB of memory, and Wi-Fi (draft-n), Bluetooth, and a Webcam, according to Netbook Choice.
Nvidia's Ion is also used in tiny desktop PCs such as the Acer AspireRevo and ASUS eeeTop.
The premium pricing of Apple's Mac Mini desktop is due to its laptop lineage, according to a teardown analysis by iSuppli.
Apple Mac Mini
(Credit: Apple)Though probably not a surprise to Mac Mini connoisseurs, the diminutive desktop bears higher component costs due to its use of parts designed for mobile PCs, iSuppli said in a report released Friday. In short, inside the Mini is a virtual laptop.
The entry-level version of the new-generation Mac Mini carries a bill of materials (BOM) of $376.20, which increases to $387.14 when manufacturing costs are added, iSuppli said. The low-end model in the Mac Mini lineup is priced at $599, "reflecting the relatively thin BOM/manufacturing margins" of Apple's PCs in relation to its lower-cost consumer items, specifically the iPod line, according to iSuppli.
"Unlike most desktop computers from other brands, the Mac Mini and, indeed, Apple's entire Mac line make extensive use of components designed for notebook computers," said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst for iSuppli. "Apple knows how to make computers better, smaller, and more attractive," he said. "Such an achievement, however, comes at a premium."
This sentiment is echoed in a CNET Reviews write-up of the Mac Mini. "While we're still impressed with the Mac Mini's ability to pack so much into a tight package, Apple can't get away from its PC competitors that offer more features for less money," CNET Reviews said.
That said, mobile components abound. ... Read more
How do I calculate the size of meatballs?--O'Brien asks.
(Credit: 'The Tonight Show' with Conan O'Brien)"How do I calculate the size of meatballs?" That was the title of one of the seminal Intel science projects that late-night comedian Conan O'Brien covered in a segment last night on NBC's "The Tonight Show."
O'Brien was at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, billed as the world's largest pre-college science fair. Intel is one of the sponsors of the "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," which launched recently with the retirement (from that show) of Jay Leno.
"Even though Intel is one of the world's largest corporations and they could crush me like a fly, they were nice enough to let me go visit their science fair in Reno, Nev.," O'Brien said.
"1,500 dweebs, nerds, and Poindexters," O'Brien said, describing the high school kids attending the event.
Conan O'Brien interviews science fair participants
(Credit: The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien)A project of note was a "See Through Camera Jammer." "So if someone has a see-through camera, your device stops them from seeing through people's clothing?" O'Brien asked. "Why would you make this?" The response from the high school kid who did the project: "Because it's illegal." And Conan responded: "But I paid a lot of money for that thing."
He ended the segment with a visit to the meatball size-measuring project. "Of course, not everyone here is a genius. 'How do I calculate the size of meatballs?' This was a $13 million study commissioned by Chef Boyardee," he joked.
The link to "The Tonight Show" replay is here. Note that the Intel segment begins at about the 6:30 marker into the show.
