The Hewlett-Packard Envy 13 offers an excellent example of what a cutting-edge ultraportable should be--and it moves past the Apple MacBook Air in some important respects, despite its overly ambitious price tag.
First, let me say that I use a MacBook Air as my main machine and am well aware of its merits. That said, it is beginning to look a little long in the tooth when juxtaposed with the Envy 13--which, like the Air, offers an aluminum chassis. I will also draw comparisons with 13-inch MacBook Pro since the Envy seems to fall somewhere between this and the Air.
(See CNET review of Envy 13.)
Let's start with the Envy's engine. The Envy offers a ULV (ultra-low-voltage) processor option that you won't find in any Apple MacBook: a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo SU9600 that draws a mere 10 watts. This is Intel's highest-performance 10-watt dual-core processor--a crucial power-saving and heat-reducing option for ultra-thin designs like the Envy or MacBook Air. The more widely used SL9600 (which many reviewers mistakenly refer to as ultra low voltage) draws 17 watts.
But HP charges a premium for this processor, too. Selecting the power-sipping SU9600 adds $200 to the cost of the Envy. But at least it's an option.
HP Envy 13 is more advanced than the MacBook in some important respects.
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)Next, graphics. The Envy has switchable graphics. What does this get you? More battery life. When plugged in, the Envy uses the "discrete" (standalone) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics processor. When unplugged it switches to the less-power-hungry--and lower performance--Intel integrated graphics.
The truth be told, most of the time users don't need discrete graphics. But it can be a godsend in Windows 7, for example, when doing transcoding--which converts, for instance, a movie on a PC to a format that makes it viewable on an iPhone or iPod. And, of course, discrete graphics is needed for playing demanding games.
The ATI 4330 graphics seem to be more capable than ... Read more
Intel and Microsoft will hold an event next week to discuss collaboration on improvements to Windows 7.
The event, on September 1 in San Francisco, will "share how the two companies collaborated on key enhancements during the development of Windows 7," according to Intel. Steve Smith, vice president and director, Intel's Digital Enterprise Group Operations, and Michael Angiulo, general manager of Windows Planning and PC Ecosystem at Microsoft, will talk at the event. Microsoft plans to launch Windows 7 on October 22.
Windows 7 collaboration will be demonstrated by engineers from both companies, according to Intel. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is working closely with Intel, whose chips will power the vast majority of PCs running Windows 7.
In a blog posted in July, Intel described how Microsoft and Intel "saw unique opportunities to optimize Windows 7 for Intel processor technology" in the areas of performance, power management, and graphics.
The blog discusses improvements to multitasking based on "SMT Parking," which provides additional support to the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology. With Hyper-threading, the operating system sees a single processor core as two cores (i.e., a dual-core chip becomes a virtual quad-core processor), thus potentially improving multitasking--or doing tasks (threads) simultaneously.
In addition, improvements over Vista for boot and shutdown times have been implemented during the Windows 7 development cycle, according to the blog.
And on Intel's Web site, the chipmaker lists desktop motherboards and associated drivers that have passed logo certification for Windows 7.
Another beneficiary of improved Windows 7 technology: Intel solid-state drives, which are typically faster than hard-disk drives and gaining ground in niche markets such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers. SSDs will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 technology called the Trim Command. Trim will allow blocks of data to be freed up for reuse to better maintain the performance of the SSD.
Windows 7 will also do more than previous operating systems with graphics via DirectX 11. Advanced Micro Devices has described DirectX 11-related technology that enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games. And, beyond games, Windows 7 has the potential to turn a graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD or Nvidia into a general-purpose compute engine, used to accelerate everyday computing tasks like a central processing unit, or CPU. Specifically, "the compute shader" can be used to speed up more common computing tasks. The buzz word used to describe this technology is a mouthful: GPGPU or general-purpose graphics processing unit.
Memory chip makers will offer more sophisticated flash drives for smartphones--technology that will be comparable to the solid-state drives found in laptops today.
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The Palm Pre comes with an 8GB flash memory drive: flash drive makers like Micron Technology will market more sophisticated flash drives for future phones.
(Credit: Palm)Today's flash drives, which typically range up to 32GB in capacity in products like Apple's iPhone, often use relatively unsophisticated techniques for reading and writing data. In general, the technology is not very different from that used in basic cell phones or digital cameras, according to Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron's memory group.
But as smartphones--and possible future tablet devices--become more like personal computing devices and less like basic MP3 players, memory chip makers will begin offering more sophisticated flash memory, said Shirley, in a phone interview.
"In nearly all MP3 players today it's almost exclusively 'raw' NAND. And at some point we anticipate moving more to a managed NAND," Shirley said. NAND is the type of flash memory chip used in all flash cards and solid-state drives.
Managed NAND falls somewhere between very basic flash drives--such as Secure Digital, or SD, cards--and pricey solid-state drives (SSDs) used in laptops and servers. "It's something in between the raw NAND that we've been talking about for cell phones and MP3 players and the full-blown SSD space," Shirley said.
"We believe this will be fairly busy (market) space in 2010," he added.
Solid-state drives used in laptops like the Apple MacBook Air and Dell Adamo get their performance from highly-developed, sophisticated controller chips and firmware, which manage how the data is read and recorded. Though managed NAND wouldn't necessarily reach this level of sophistication, it would begin to approach it.
The iPhone uses raw NAND with a separate controller, according to Gregory Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights, which does research on flash memory technology.
"They like to have control over the flash and the controller so they can boost performance," he said. "They're very cognizant of differentiating their products. The user experience is what is important to them. Whether it means you can download your music or video very quickly, whether it means you can find the data very quickly--that ties in to how they manage the NAND," he said.
But even Apple is looking for better performance as it looks to continue its very successful strategy of making its products different, according to Wong.
And future Netbooks may also use this kind of flash memory. Netbooks today using Intel Atom processors and the Windows operating system use, almost exclusively, hard disk drives. But a new category of Netbooks dubbed smartbooks--devices that are always on, always connected, and boast all-day battery life--are expected to come to market in 2010 packing flash drives. These small laptops may be candidates for managed NAND.
Updated at 9:10 a.m. PDT: adding analyst comments.
On Tuesday, Intel and Micron Technology announced the development of high-data-capacity flash memory technology for flash cards and USB drives.
Intel-Micron chip will enable high-capacity USB drives
(Credit: Lexar)And in a related announcement, Intel said Monday that it has validated a fix for its new 34-nanometer X25-M solid-state drive, which is based on similar flash memory technology. The bug affects users who set a BIOS drive password. That update is available here.
The two chipmakers, which partner in the manufacture of flash memory chips, said Tuesday that they have developed NAND flash memory capable of 3 bits per cell based on 34-nanometer technology. This allows greater data density than the standard 2-bits-per-cell technology and will result in high-capacity USB flash drives, according to Micron.
While packing more bits into a cell provides greater data densities, it is not as reliable as flash memory based on more standard technology, according to Kevin Kilbuck, director of NAND marketing at Micron. Therefore, the 3-bits-per-cell chips will be limited initially to flash drives, which don't require the data storage reliability of a solid-state drive, which is used as the primary storage device in laptops and servers.
"The chip is not for all markets," according to Jim Handy of semiconductor market researcher Objective Analysis, writing in a research note published Tuesday about the technology. "The companies explained that they need more experience in production volumes before they will be confident to position it as a chip suitable for the high-write environment of the SSD," he said. Handy is referring to the fact that users of solid-state drives typically record data at a much greater frequency than consumers who, for example, buy flash drives for digital cameras.
But Handy added that he expects the Intel-Micron chip by 2010 to "cause snags for the other vendors in the market: Samsung, and Hynix/Numonyx" and potentially be more profitable than the competition.
Micron is currently sampling the chips and will be in mass production in the fourth quarter.
SanDisk and Toshiba disclosed in February that they had developed 4-bit-per-cell technology, which the two companies said was the highest-capacity flash memory technology in the industry.
Toshiba has begun volume shipments of solid-state drives ranging up to 512GB in size, as these hyper-fast storage options bulk up on capacity.
Drives are also offered in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities and are built on a 43-nanometer manufacturing process using multi-level cell (MLC) technology. MLC technology allows drive makers to increase capacity while keeping production costs under control.
All drives come in either a 1.8-inch enclosure, typically used in ultraportable laptops, or a 2.5-inch housing, the standard size for mainstream laptops.
Toshiba said in December that it would begin shipments of a 512GB drive this year. And this drive became available exclusively on Toshiba laptops in May.
SSDs typically offer higher performance--often much higher performance--than hard-disk drives and are more durable since they have no moving parts.
But SSDs are still hobbled by a distinct price disadvantage. Toshiba's own Web site offers vivid proof. A Toshiba Portege R600 laptop is priced at $2,099 with a 160GB hard disk drive. Adding a lower-capacity 128GB SSD hikes the price to $2,499. Add the 512GB option and this goes to $3,499.
Back in December of last year, Toshiba said sample quantities ranged from $220 for the 64GB drive to $1,652 for the 512GB drive--though these prices have likely come down, as the drives are now shipping commercially.
For businesses up-front pricing may be less important. Over the lifespan of an SSD total cost of ownership may be lower, according to Gregory Wong, president, Forward Insights. Potential savings are particularly relevant to business laptop users, said Wong. And Intel recently did some in-house testing that showed that failure rates of SSDs are lower than hard disk drives.
On the performance front, Toshiba said it is using an advanced controller chip that enables a maximum sequential read speed of 230 megabytes per second and maximum sequential write speed of 180 megabytes per second. These read-write speeds are typically many times that of a hard disk drive. Toshiba did not specify random read and write speeds, which are also critical benchmarks for everyday data access.
Intel has recently begun shipping a 160GB solid-state drive that offers improved random write performance. The chipmaker was able to get up to a 2.5X improvement over previous versions of its SSDs.
Toshiba is not alone in announcing commercial shipments of large-capacity SSDs. Micron Technology's Crucial Technology unit has begun selling 256GB drives listed at $599, which beats Toshiba pricing at that capacity.
Note: Intel has found a bug in the new SSDs cited above that affects users who set a BIOS drive password. When disabling or changing the password followed by powering off/on the computer, the SSD becomes inoperable. The root cause has been identified and a fix is under validation. Intel expects to post an end-user firmware update to fix this bug in the coming weeks.
Windows 7 will be more than just a better interface. Under-the-hood changes will allow chips from Intel, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices to ratchet up Windows 7 performance above previous Microsoft operating systems.
Microsoft on Wednesday said it has finalized the code for Windows 7, set to ship with new PCs starting October 22. Improvements will include how Windows handles multitasking, graphics acceleration, and solid-state drives.
Windows 7 will enable better performance for multitasking, graphics acceleration, and solid-state drives.
(Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft is working closely with Intel, whose chips will power the vast majority of PCs running Windows 7. A July 22 post from Intel's Joakim Lialias, Alliance Manager responsible for Microsoft, described how Microsoft and Intel "saw unique opportunities to optimize Windows 7 for Intel processor technology" in the areas of performance, power management, and graphics.
In his blog, Lialias focused on improvements to multitasking based on "SMT Parking," which provides additional support to the Windows 7 scheduler for Intel Hyper-threading Technology. With Hyper-threading, the operating system sees a single processor core as two cores. For example, a quad-core system would be seen as having eight cores, thus potentially improving multitasking--or doing tasks (threads) simultaneously.
Hyper-threading is back in vogue at Intel after being pulled from Intel Core 2 chips (it debuted in the Pentium 4 processor). Nehalem Core "i" series processors use Hyper-threading, as do Atom chips. Intel, in fact, now includes Hyper-threading as part of a chip's core specifications. The Core i7-975 processor, for example, is listed as "4 Cores, 8 Threads."
Lialias also mentioned enhancements to boot and shutdown times. "Our mutual goal was to provide the most responsive compute experience possible." (Lialias' blog was cited in a PC World article.)
Windows 7 will also do more than previous operating systems with graphics--and here, DirectX 11 stands out as the most highly anticipated technology. A recent AMD blog describes a "beast called the tessellator...which enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games." The blog discusses how DirectX has been redesigned "to ensure that it is much more efficient" at using multicore processors, such as the AMD Opteron chip.
Beyond games, Windows 7 has the potential to turn a graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD or Nvidia into a general-purpose compute engine, used to accelerate everyday computing tasks like a CPU. Specifically, "the compute shader" can be used to speed up more common computing tasks. The buzz word used to describe this technology is a mouthful: GPGPU or general-purpose graphics processing unit.
In an April interview, Sumit Gupta, product manager for Nvidia's Tesla products, described GPGPU in some detail. "What that essentially means to consumers is, if your laptop has an Nvidia GPU or ATI GPU, it will run the operating system faster because the operating system will essentially see two processors in the system. For the first time, the operating system is going to see the GPU both as a graphics chip and as a compute engine," he said.
Gupta gave an example of launching an application. "For example, when you launch (Google) Picasa, that is completely run on the CPU. (But) the minute you choose an image and apply a filter, that filter should run on the GPU," he said.
Another beneficiary of improved Windows 7 technology: solid-state drives, which are typically faster than hard-disk drives and gaining ground in niche markets such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers.
SSDs will be able to take advantage of Windows 7 technology called the Trim Command. In a recent interview, Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, explained the significance of the Windows 7 Trim Command, which clears up free area on a solid-state drive.
Even when blocks of data get deleted on a solid-state drive, the drive still looks like it's full, according to Winslow. "Trim allows you to release those blocks for reuse and maintain the performance. Every drive will degrade somewhat over time. With Trim, you're able to stay more in that the virgin state," he said.
Intel is introducing new solid-state drives with increased performance as these devices find a more welcome home in Windows 7.
Intel said Tuesday it is moving to a more advanced 34-nanometer manufacturing process for its X series of solid-state drives (SSDs). To date, Intel has built drives on a 50-nanometer process. The more advanced process allows for higher data densities, enabling Intel to pack more data onto the same number of flash chips and reduce cost.
Solid-state drives typically offer better performance--in some cases, dramatically better performance--than hard disk drives. But SSDs cost more per gigabyte than hard drives, limiting their use to performance-sensitive applications such as high-end laptops, gaming PCs, and servers.
(Credit:
Intel)
The new price for the 80GB version of the X25-M drive is $225 for quantities up to 1,000 units, a 60 percent reduction from the introduction price of $595 a year ago, Intel said. The 160GB version of the Intel X25-M drive is now $440, down from $945 at introduction.
However, the actual price drop in the market will be lower, Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, said in a phone interview. Intel had already announced an interim price reduction in January, below the original $595 and $945 price tags, he said.
"In the marketplace it will be around a $100 drop on the 80GB drive and almost a $200 drop on the 160GB drive," he said. The X25-M comes in a standard 2.5-inch form factor, which is the size of most hard drives used in laptops.
Winslow also addressed rumors circulating on Monday about higher-capacity drives. Intel will not introduce a 320GB SSD this year, he said. "What we decided to do is split 34-nanometer into a two-step process," he said. The first step will be to cost-reduce existing 80GB and 160GB drives. "And what we'll do later--and it's not even going to be this year but first half of next year--we will introduce, also on 34 nanometer, a performance enhancement and a doubling of the capacity," Winslow said, meaning that larger capacity drives, such as those over 300GB, won't appear until next year.
... Read moreUpdated at 3:45 p.m. PDT with additional information throughout.
Intel released a fix for its solid-state drives Monday, addressing an issue first reported back in February.
"We are releasing an end-user firmware update for our X-25M and X-18M SSD drives today," Intel said Monday.
Intel said this addresses a problem first introduced by technology Web site PC Perspective in February. "This update implements several continuous improvements and optimizations to the drive algorithms including a resolution for a performance issue first reported by the PC Perspective," Intel said.
The PC Perspective review, titled "Long-term performance analysis of Intel Mainstream SSDs," claimed, among other things, that the Intel X25-M solid-state drive would degrade in performance as a result of "internal fragmentation."
"Keep in mind that the risk of a typical PC user experiencing this issue is very low," Intel said Monday. "We are offering this firmware download to our OEM customers and any consumers who have purchased the drives. Consumers with questions can contact their PC maker or visit Intel support for more information."
A Monday post by PC Perspective said that "the Intel guys were surprisingly down to earth and receptive to our input" and that Intel "replicated our findings in their lab. An added bonus was they...passed us a new firmware and were asking for our feedback."
Intel did not recognize the problem initially, saying in February: "Our labs currently have not been able to duplicate these results."
Fusion-io, the company that boasts Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as its chief scientist, says it has achieved extremely high data transfer speeds on servers from Hewlett-Packard.
Fusion-io ioDrive Duo
(Credit: Fusion-io)Solid-state drives are generally faster than hard-disk drives, particularly at reading data, and have no moving parts, unlike hard disk drives.
Working together in HP's ProLiant engineering labs in Houston, HP and Fusion-io built a system using five 320GB ioDrive Duos (see photo) and six 160GB ioDrives in a single HP ProLiant DL785 G5 server, running with four Quad-Core Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices, Fusion-io said.
This configuration allowed the engineers to achieve about 1 million IOPS, or input/output operations per second. By comparison, hard disk drives typically don't excel at IOPS, achieving only a fraction of this level of data transfer speed, which makes solid-state drives appealing to large customers such as CitiBank and Bank of America. These kinds of companies need lots of IOPS for their financial transactions.
HP offers solid-state drive arrays as part of HP's BladeSystem. The HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator is a flash-based storage adapter based on Fusion's ioMemory technology. Each IO Accelerator card achieves more than 100,000 IOPS. A single HP BladeSystem server can accommodate two or three IO Accelerator cards.
"The ioDrive and ioDrive Duo are able to supply the extreme storage performance (for data centers) at a fraction of the power, cooling, and per unit-of-processing-power price compared to traditional solutions," said David Flynn, chief technology officer of Fusion-io, in a statement.
These drives are especially valuable for database and data mining, virtual machine deployments, and financial transactions, according to Flynn.
Samsung expects solid-state drives to reach price parity with hard-disk drives within the next few years amid steep annual price declines in flash memory chips.
Solid-state drives, which use flash memory chips as the storage medium, typically offer much better performance than hard-disk drives. But they cost more. Currently, opting for an SSD instead of a hard-disk drive will add anywhere between $100 and $600 to the cost of a laptop, depending on the capacity of the SSD.
Dell's Alienware Area-51 laptop (above) and Dell's Studio XPS 16 come with a 256GB solid-state drive option
(Credit: Dell)In a phone interview, Brian Beard, flash marketing manager for Samsung Semiconductor, said reaching price parity with hard-disk drives is just a matter of time. "Flash memory in the last five years has come down 40, 50, 60 percent per year," he said. "Flash on a dollar-per-gigabyte basis will reach price parity, at some point, with hard disk drives in the next few years." Samsung makes both SSDs and HDDs.
Beard explained why a cost gap persists between solid-state drives and hard-disk drives. "The difference in cost is fundamentally very different. A hard drive has a fixed cost of $40 or $50 for the spindle, the motors, the PCB (printed circuit board), the cables," he said. "To make the hard drive spin faster (increase speed) or to add capacity doesn't really add a lot of incremental cost to the drive." (The price for most laptop-class hard-disk drives on the market is between $60 and $100 at retail, Beard said.)
"When you contrast this with SSDs, they also have a fixed cost for the PCB and the case and the controller, which is lower than the fixed cost of a hard drive," according to Beard. "But as you scale the capacity of the SSD up, the cost scales linearly. For example, if the spot price of the flash chip itself is $2, a 64GB drive is going to cost $128 just for the flash and then you would add the fixed cost of the PCB and the case, he said. So, the cost will double as you double the capacity, according to Beard.
This argument, however, works in favor of lower solid-state drive pricing too--as flash memory prices drop and densities and capacities increase. And Beard added that "there's a lot of pressure for OEMs (PC makers) to match the price to the traditional pricing in the hard-drive industry." Samsung is also a PC maker and faces the same pressures.
And what will happen to the price of SSDs this year? "The rest of the year is quite unpredictable. Because the SSD price is directly tied to the price of flash, no one knows. Everyone is just giving their best guess as to what will happen in the flash market," he said. To date, flash memory prices have dropped so much that chipmakers can't make money.
"Every major flash manufacturer posted major losses in Q4. So flash and SSD manufacturers are under a lot of pressure to make a profit," Beard said.
Where is the price-per-gigabyte sweet spot for solid-state drives going to be later this year? "On the business side, the sweet spot is 64(GB) moving to 128. On the consumer side it's definitely 128 moving to 256," he said.
Samsung SSDs with a capacity of 256GB have been shipping since January. Dell offers these drives in some laptop models already. 256GB drives are just now "rolling out into mass production," Beard said. "We'll start shipping it to some of our smaller customers about right now."
Note: Currently, on a Dell Studio XPS 16, opting for a 128GB SSD instead of a 7200rpm 320GB HDD adds $200 to the price of the system. Opting for a 256GB SSD adds $400.
