Comments on: HP says no to Intel's Turbo Memory

Company calls new flash memory module a poor value and says it limits flexibility.

[Randys2cents]

right decision

I applaud HP's openness in this matter, and I might ad that
I believe their decision is the correct one. While this technology
might have been viable a few years back when flash prices were
high, I believe this is no longer the case. I think this is a case of
both the software (Vista) and the hardware (intel) becoming out
of date before it even hits the store shelfs.

[ethana2]

Indeed.

AMD and Linux, all the way. Although, as Windows can only run on the cutting edge, and Linux runs on everything (read: doesn't encourage e-waste), we may see slow adoption of some of these features in our community. Still, I must admit I find them unnecessary. Instead of adding another screen and all that, just make sure your OS can come out of hibernation really fast, and go back in quickly as well. Less complicated, wider benefits, all that.

[BigGuns149]

Maybe, maybe not

I know that I was talking with an Intel rep was mentioning that there was one diference between Robson and Readyboost though. Vista will not use Readboost during bootup because it is not fixed media. As the Intel rep joked, "Imagine if you had a portion of your OS on removable media and you accidentally disconnected it?" Can you imagine the BSOD?

Robson on the other hand works in bootup as well as during regular operations. Furthermore, you also have to compare the relative speed of the Turbo Memory module to the typical flash drive. One thing that is neat is that you can preload a certain amount of the OS in non-volatile memory. Normally a good chunk of the boot time is copying close to a gig worth of dlls into RAM. With a typical HDD reading at about 60MB/sec it is going to take almost 20 seconds just to read all of that stuff. If you could have most of that stuff preloaded imagine the load times. That being said for general operations you wouldn't benefit too much.

Most typical operations wouldn't benefit too much provided that you had sufficient RAM. Once you have things cached up there would be little benefit to the TurboMemory.

I can understand not putting it on typical machines, but I think that on some of the higher end machines you would want to put this at least as an option.

Furthermore, this story seems questionable. I had an HP rep noted that they were going to release a 20" laptop in third quarter this year that would have eSATA, a Radeon HD, TurboMemory, and the Santa Rose chipset. This story may only relate to the European models. The article does not mention whether this was the US or the European division. I know that HP has different models in the US versus Europe. Anyone too familiar with HP's stuff knows that. Therefore, this story may have ZERO relavance to the US reader of this article. Just my 2c.

[georgescott]

Bad Choice

Joe consumer looks at two laptops with the same configuration one with Turbo Memory and one without. If the pricepoint is close, they will pick the one with Turbo Memory because no one is going to inform them at the sales counter that they won`t be able to use there own memory card later that would give them more performance.

HP's laptops, none having turbo memory will be looked at by the consumer as inferior. Luckily for HP common sense dictates that Turbo Memory will die a certain death quickly but still it will hurt HP's bottom line and they might even have to change there decision.

[Randys2cents]

new exciting name change

I agree. Of course HP always has the option of a cool name change.
For example: The new HP NITRO. This would even the playing field
for joe consumer. You can come up with a dozen other names that
would also do the trick.

[GeoffJohansen]

Great Decision, HP!

HP is right on the mark with this decision. Intel's turbo memory is another case of the Intel Marketing machine trying to cram questional technology down the throats of consumers by wrapping it up in the Intel Brand. Kudos to HP for not following on this one like so many lemmings, er, I mean PC manufacturers in the industry.

[fred dunn]

Good Move HP. Just because it's intel...

doesn't make it the right decision, ie;RAMBUS, Pentium4 NetBurst, Itanium over an integrated 32/64 bit x86 chip (until AMD was selling the heck out of them). Just because Intel says it's great that doesn't mean it's worth the extra dollars. I'd much rather spend my money on system RAM than "readyboost". "driveboost" will be shipping with most drives so why increase the base cost of a system just because Intel says it should. Only the likes of Dell fall for that because they are still Intel's lapdogs.

[Exult]

I applaud HP's move and am glad to have recently purchased a Pavilion notebook as I use my 2 gb flash drive for ReadyBoost, works great!