Windows 7, new laptop designs to converge
A rip-out-the-carpet PC refresh of both software and hardware is in the offing as Microsoft's latest operating system and new laptop designs converge later this year.
Intel's Mooly Eden, general manager, Mobile Platforms Group, speaks at the Intel Technology Summit in San Francisco
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)At the Intel Technology Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, an executive described the imminent mobile future, including a major refresh of Netbook silicon, better-designed "ultrathins," and turbo-powered high-end laptops.
Netbooks may undergo the biggest change. Models that appear after Windows 7 ships in October will see the most significant overhaul internally since the Netbook category debuted back in the spring of 2008. Intel's new "Pine Trail" Atom silicon will collapse most of the core chips onto one piece of silicon, improving the power efficiency and boosting performance.
"There will be integrated graphics inside the same (processor) core so you get better performance," said Mooly Eden, general manager of the Mobile Platforms Group at Intel, describing how the graphics processor and main processor will be grafted onto the same chip--an Intel first.
The segment just above Netbooks is ultrathins. These sleek, sub-$1,000 laptops should appear in greater varieties from more PC makers later this year, according to Intel--about the same time Windows 7 hits the streets. Aesthetics will be crucial. "You can't sell a keyboard and a screen," Eden said, describing the ideal ultrathin laptop design. "You have to sell something that somebody will desire. We need to go beyond the great CPU, great performance...to something that a normal consumer can look at say 'I want that.'"
One of the challenges for Intel is making sure these sub-one-inch-thick designs don't overheat. Eden described the use of laminar air flow technology to cool a laptop's outer skin. "This is the difference between thin comfortable and thin uncomfortable," he said.
Intel is also designing new fans that are better at getting hot air out faster. "We are putting a lot of effort into designing fans," said Eden. Intel demonstrated the fan technology at the conference Wednesday.
Intel described laminar air flow technology to cool the skin of ultrathins
(Credit: Intel)And how does Intel see these segments breaking down into screen sizes? Netbooks will have 10-inch class displays, while the "sweet spot" for ultrathins will 13.3-inch, though some larger ultrathins may have 15.6-inch screens, according to Eden. He also said there may be "some experimentation" with 11.6-inch designs.
Higher up the laptop performance scale are Core i7 mobile processors, also due around the same time that Windows 7 hits the streets. Eden showed how the gigahertz speed--or "clock speed"--of individual mobile processor cores will instantly spike in performance to accomplish a task then, in the next instant, go idle--what Intel calls HUGI or Hurry Up and Get Idle.
HUGI is a power-saving technology: the faster a task is accomplished, the faster the processor can return to idle mode--a state that uses only the bare minimum of power. Along these lines, Eden did a demonstration of Turbo Boost technology.
In the demonstration, one of the cores (inside, let's say, a mobile quad-core chip), would jump well over the processor's rated speed. For example, a processor rated at 2.0GHz, for example, may run one of the cores at 2.60GHz (or higher) while the other cores are idle. In the gaming world, this is referred to as overclocking.
A common theme of all these laptop designs was power efficiency, above and beyond Intel's traditional message of performance. All-day computing--on battery power only--seems to be one of the major rallying cries within Intel.
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
A very thin laptop for example may well have the added benefit of being attractive to other people but the primary benefit lies in the reduced weight that you no longer have to carry around and the smaller space taken up in your bag. The environment also benefits due to smaller amounts of materials used.
On the other hand good aesthetics, because it is attractive has the practical benefit of increasing the desirability of an object and thereby increasing sales of an object for the manufacturer.
Companies that invest a lot in industrial design do not do that because of teenage desires to impress friends, but for very real benefits to the consumer which in turn return them bigger profits. Sneer all you like but aesthetically pleasing devices are a very good thing for good reasons.
Well, surely a better question is, who doesn't care what it looks like? Appearance, of course, is a subjective discussion but it is an important factor nonetheless. Given 2 devices that are equal in all respect but one is more appealing in its appearance to you, which would you choose? Somehow I doubt that you are simply going to flip a coin to make the decision.
The appearance of something is ALWAYS important because humans are inherently visual in our nature. Heck, art is one of the things that truly separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Their advantage over netbooks seems to be their full functionality as laptops.
Obviously, any ultra-thin laptop will face immediate comparison with the MacBook Air. While I truly admire its aesthetics, I am put off by a lack of an internal optical drive and its built in battery. Even though the external SuperDrive addresses the optical drive issue, there is no getting around the limitations of an integrated battery. While it can be replaced for a reasonable price comparatively, I prefer the convenience of being able to swap out batteries when necessary.
"this whole " i need a replacable battery" is plain stupid. it is just a talking point with no real life relevance."
It may not be relevant to your "real life" but it is to mine. I use a laptop for field research where AC power is usually not an option. I also have a good deal of experience with both Li-Ion and LiPo battery systems so I'm a little more aware than most when it comes to their shortcomings.
I don't play with my laptop at the local coffee shop that has public WiFi, nor do I use it while flying unless I absolutely must. In those situations I prefer the real life relevance of a good book or periodical.
Our old Sager 5640 laptop battery died 5 yrs ago, but we still use it daily...
Our old Sager 5640 laptop battery died 5 yrs ago, but we still use it daily...
As far as aesthetics are concerned, it really depends what you want to use your laptop for. If you're a casual computer user: e-mail, word processing, internet, then the low performance needs won't require a beast under the hood. If you're using the laptop as primary computer for CPU intensive tasks - gaming, video, music, then your concern will probably be performance. Sitting a waiting for a computer to finish something sucks, no matter how pretty your computer looks. I personally prefer performance, but to each his own.
An Intel first, as in, this is the first time that Intel has done this. Others have already done this before. I really wish writers would try to be more clear about sentence structure. Someone could easily read this as saying that "Intel is the first company to put a graphics processor and main processor on a single piece of silicon". Which of course is completely wrong.
Where are the editors?
"Aesthetics will be crucial. "You can't sell a keyboard and a screen," Eden said, describing the ideal ultrathin laptop design. "You have to sell something that somebody will desire. We need to go beyond the great CPU, great performance...to something that a normal consumer can look at say 'I want that.'"
LOL
apple leads, the rest follows. as always.
Performance is only one measure of the computing experience - raw specifications mean very little without the software to make use of it, although this is a very subjective debate. However, as I have said before, software and not hardware is the most important component of a computer system. Buying simply based on hardware specifications is not a wise course of action.
I remember there was one introduced about 10 years ago. It was brought to you by the people who pioneered portable computing... the compaq M300.
Seriously. The only thing we are using DVDs is for movies, if we move to SD cards we can throw those away. Laptops will be cheaper and lighter.
blu ray or any optical format will never be as convenient as flash for everyday removable data task, and by the time blu-ray becomes(or if ever) mainstream, flash capacity will be affordably surpassing 25gb probably even 50
optical formats are only sticking around for software/Media distribution purposes. With the internet distribution creeping up here I only see it making sense for large games in the future
After doing the upgrade on Saturday I went out and played a round of Golf this morning.
I stared with Golfshot GPS and the phone kept going to the black screen with the Apple on it. I had to reset it 4 times by the 3rd hole. I gave up on it and tried ViewTi Golf. Not nearly as good of a GPS app but it was the one I bought first.
This app made it through 2 holes before giving me the same experience. I finally got the phone to start and turned off GPS and the phone has been fine the rest of the day.
Way to go you Slack ass developers at APPLE. Wait until the 13th hour and put out an untested POS firmware update.
So now you have to decide update your phone to be safe or have it cripple your phone.
I've got a buddy that has not done the upgrade and both Apps worked great as they had on mine in the past (less the lousy batter the iPhone has).
That would be like criticizing Google's search engine because you don't like something about their Android OS.
Win7 is an ideal OS to put on a netbook or even low power laptop. I'm sure there will be other alternatives to look at as well for these new products. Give it time.
The other 80% will be all XP and the rest will be Mac or Linux... in other words, after Windows 7: Mac OS X, Linux and post-Windows (Vista/7/8) will have an equal slice of the market... while the rest of us, will still use XP...
Good job Microsoft... lost against your own kind...
I also couldn't torture myself any longer will my 6 year old dell, but that is another story.
If i want speed i have eSata for now ( external space is the only place i see speed being useful) eSata will probably still have better real world speeds then usb 3.0 any how. So basically for usb 3.0 you are waiting for have power over the same wire...
obsolete same year of purchase is more of a operating system/ software/ geek bling thing. As far as losing out on usefull things goes... put linux disto of choice on "obsolete" PC = "gee wiz! internet works again" or more recently "wow, this computer i bought with vista works fine"
- by cosuna August 4, 2009 11:17 AM PDT
- I wonder in what point in time will american authors will concede to the world. I read this paragraph and smiled:
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- by Seaspray0 August 5, 2009 6:40 AM PDT
- that's because the english measuring system is used in america. The metric system is slowly being adopted. I wish it was a faster adoption because I believe the metric system is much better.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (62 Comments)"Netbooks will have 10-inch class displays, while...ultrathins will 13.3-inch, though some larger ultrathins...15.6-inch screens...may be "some experimentation" with 11.6-inch...".
Why not write it as it should be:
"Netbooks will have 10-inch class displays, while...ultrathins will 34cm, though some larger ultrathins...40cm screens...may be "some experimentation" with 30cm..."
As you can see, only old LCD screen sizes are measured on inches, most modern designs are metric based. Converting them to inches, creates funny numbers and inaccurate facts.