We were expecting (a beta release of) Moblin 2.1 for handhelds before end of 2009 but it didn’t turn up. In a search this morning, however, found this. It’s a month old but it’s a build of Moblin for the Poulsbo chipset. Specifically for the Congatec In-Vehicle Infotainment board based on the Z530/Poulsbo. This could be useful for those looking for a slim Linux build for Menlow-based devices.

Sure enough, on my Kohjinsha SK3 it booted but it ended up with a messed up screen resolution. I’m heading out of the door for DevMob 2010 now so don’t have time to test on other devices so if any of you out there have time, let us know how it goes for your Menlow-based device.

The article mentions a full release in early Q1. So right about NOW then!

Any Moblin team members out there care to update us on final release details?

2.1 IVI FC release | moblin.org.

Many of you are aware that the graphics performance on the GMA500 GPU included in the Pouslbo chipset, part of the Menlow platform used in most UMPCs, Intel MIDs and even some netbooks like the ASUS T91, is not a great graphics workhorse. 3G graphics performance (from the PowerVR architecture) is extremely poor and under Windows XP, the hardware accelerated video playback capability is left unused by most programs.

Intel have just relased production version 3.0.2.32 (6.14.11.1012) of the GMA500 driver to developers and as you’d expect, many people are hoping it will unleash some hidden potential. I’m one of those people and when I heard the news I immediately grabbed the Viliv X70 and downloaded the drivers.

Yes, there’s some improvement. A measured 5x improvement in DirectDraw 2D graphics performance on the Viliv X70

Old and New GMA500 drivers. Note the D2D scores.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really translate to anything interesting for your daily UMPC usage as far as I can tell. I’ve done side by side tests with standard apps and YouTube and can’t see any differences. Full-screen HQ is, in most cases, not as smooth as it should be. I couldn’t see any differences with Google Earth either (DirectX mode.)  The release notes list a lot of fixes and I certainly can’t see any down-side to installing the drivers so go ahead, do some testing and let us know what you think.

Intel GMA500 driver download page.

Somehow, somewhere, there seems to be a problem getting quality Linux drivers out for Poulsbo’s GPU. First we hear about the delays with Moblin V2 on MIDs  and now we get this story from an experienced Linux contributor. Adam’s article explains problems with the source code and how difficult it is to get working in a new distribution. Clearly the work on the Poulsbo drivers for Linux is delayed.

Building your own distro is exactly what Moblin is all about. 12 linux distributors have signed up to use Moblin  but if they can’t work with the Poulsbo chipset there’s little hope for any Linux distro on MIDs and Z-series netbooks in the near future. Let’s hope that Intel are working hard behind the scenes and that clean, usable GMA500 drivers will be available soon

AdamW on Linux and more » Intel GMA 500 (Poulsbo) graphics on Linux: a precise and comprehensive summary as to why you’re screwed.

Ben reported on the new MSI netbooks recently [Not your standard cookie-cutter specs] and highlighted that MSI will use the Z530 and Poulsbo chipset, the Menlow platform, originally designed for MIDs, and not the existing netbook platform. They aren’t the first netbook devices we’ve heard about that will use this platform as the Dell Mini 12 is already out there using it but it could be that we see a lot more of these as it offers an interesting marketing possibility at a time when netbook manufacturers are trying to make their products stand out from the crowd.

LaptopMag recently interviewed MSI and asked about their decision to use the Menlow platform. The answer gives us some clues.

Why would MSI use Menlow? Part of the answer comes from MSI in the LaptopMag interview:

“Now we are going to come out with the U110 and the U115. These are similar to the past systems in size and will look like the original Wind but they utilize the Intel Atom “Menlow” processor – the Atom Z530.

The U110 and the U115 will be out in late January.  The biggest difference between these two models is their battery life. With the U110, we will deliver 8 hours of computing time; and 10 hours with the U115. Both will use a 6-cell battery.”

So it looks like the 1.6Ghz Menlow platform is attractive because of battery life. Not surprising as it offers a lower idle power and lower in-use power. Battery life is a very important differentiator. Menlow’s hardware video decoding (1080p using H.264) can be used to differentiate too but here’s something that is more interesting and you probably won’t hear any product manager talk about it in these terms. The Menlow platform goes up to 1.8Ghz and CPU speed is about the best differentiator a marketing group could hope for. In netbook quantities, I wouldn’t expect any noticeable difference in the price either. $20 at the till maybe. When your average netbook customer is standing with a Saturday sales rep. in the local electronics store and has a choice between a a Samsung NC10 at 1.6Ghz and an MSI Wind at 1.8ghz, for the same price, which one is the customer more likely to go for?

If this process works, if sales figures indicate a preference for 1.8Ghz, expect either a clock boost on the N270 CPU (which is likely of course) or, for the higher-end of the netbook market and the ultra portable notebook market, a lot more action with Menlow in 2009. From where we are sitting, it looks like Menlow could eat into even more of the traditional laptop market but if it’s a net gain for Intel, they won’t complain!

Check out the interesting interview and watch out for comments about Linux, touchscreens and a temporary HDD set-up.

I try to stear clear of the many unconfirmed or uncited reports that come through Digitimes but this is one that you might want to keep an eye on. Apparently, Intel will be introducing updates to the Z-series (Silverthorne) CPUs in 2009. The CPUs will have higher clocks and there will be a new chipset say Digitimes. One assumes that the manufacturing process on the CPUs is getting better and higher quality (overclockable) parts are now coming off the production line. Digitimes mentions two chipsets in its brief report. The UP15W and the UL11L. The UP15W variant is new and the UL11L is the low power variant with the video decoding hardware removed (apparently found in the Aigo MID but I haven’t confirmed this yet.)

Current SCH (Poulsbo) chipset variants. (From this Intel PDF document.)

Three problems with the, otherwise very interesting, Aigo MID.  1) Its not available without import (although it seems DFJ are doing a good job exporting it around the world.) 2) It hasn’t got 3G built-in. 3) The software is a little bit….mmm…beta?

Problem 3 can be solved by hacking the existing OS (see this huge ‘Hacking the Aigo’ thread in the forum) or by installing XP. I’m hearing from a number of sources that XP drivers are starting to filter through and that a release could be available as early as next week. This video was posted on YouTube yesterday.

I had a quick chat with JKK before posting this and found out that he’s working on this too. Keep a look out on his site for a video His video is up now. My Aigo has been held up in customs but is due to arrive on Tuesday next week.

Thanks for the video tip, Brook.

Following up on the previous story I did about the 12" Dell Mini, it looks like it really is going to happen.

The size and form factor is of no interest to most readers but what’s going on underneath is very interesting.

Up until now, the performance of Z-series-based PCs running XP or Vista has been less than exciting. Video playback and 3D performance is almost non-existent in devices like the Kohjinsha SC3 and way below what people are seeing on the cheap Atom-based netbooks. In theory, it should be a lot better. Many people have been waiting for fresh drivers for the system controller hub (SCH, Aka Poulsbo) chipset under Vista and for XP-lovers, there’s absolutely nothing out there except rumours. Intel have no choice now but to ship good quality drivers otherwise they will have a big customer problem.

So why are Dell using the Z-series Atom processors? Battery life. Atom Silverthorne and the SCH offer much higher power efficiency so it gives Dell’s engineers the best possible chance to produce an 8hr device. The SCH also has the video decoding hardware built-in so we could be looking at a great long-haul video playback device here.

For those looking for Silverthorne/Poulsbo drivers, keep an eye on the Dell 1210 driver download page.

Source: CSM Report.

I’m in the middle of writing an article about the T-Mobile / ASUS 901Go (the free 3G-enabled netbook) and am looking at an unboxing video wondering who would buy the Aigo MID, the Mobile Internet Device that doesn’t include mobile Internet due to lack of a 3G module. I’m also asking myself, ‘Where’s the damn Gigabyte M528 that does have the 3G!’

After I’ve finished the 901 article and posted some more customer challenge responses, I’ll watch the 12-minute video and join JKK for a live session tonight. Hopefully we can work out how Midinux performs and see if the Coolfox browser and video playback work. Is it better than an Archos 5 for Internet browsing?

Something strange is happening in the world of ASUS. In a back office, somewhere behind Eee-Towers, a product manager is battling to get the R50a out on the streets and the story that is coming through is about as clear as mud! Or should I say FUD?

Apart from the normal show appearances, we’ve seen the R50a hit the FCC (July 29th, USA) get an official press release (August 29th, Taiwan) appear in online stores in Portugal (Asus R50A-DV002C, 1019 Euro, 13th Sept, Portugal) and now, via JKKMobile, we hear that its been previewed in Germany by Toms Hardware. [translation link]

As JKK said, Vista on a 1.3Ghz Atom processor is not a great combination but if that SSD is fast, it might be acceptable. I’m still using Vista on the SC3 in certain situations and that has a relatively low-end HDD.  Remember that this had a hard-touch screen when we tested it at CeBIT and with the fingerprint reader, GPS, DVB-T (Germany) and 3G, the quoted price of 799 makes it an attractive pro-level mobile tablet. If the video codecs worked, I’d say that this would also make a nice video player but I see no evidence of any hardware decoding support out of the box (based on the Kohjinsha SC3 video playback problems) which takes away a big reason to have this device for many people. As it is, it remains targeted at pro-mobile users wanting natural input but even these users are going to have to wait for reall battery life figures before they make a purchase.

More links and details in the R50a info page.

Photo credit: Cnet Asia

Back in April, I published my thoughts on how MIDs could raise the bar for high-end PMPs. I wrote the article after I saw some interesting notes on the video hardware that was going to be included in Poulsbo (now called the System Controller Hub, the chipset that accompanies Z-series Atom CPUs.) When I got the Kohjinsha SC3 a few weeks ago it was the first chance I’d had to test a Menlow based device (Atom Z-series + SCH) so one of the first things I did was to download a high-end WMV file and play it in media player. I also downloaded Quicktime and the Klite Pack to get some H.264 support. What I saw was less than impressive.

At the same time, Jenn at Pocketables.net was doing similar tests with her SC3 and to cut a long story short, between us and the feedback of forum members and readers, we’ve ended up in a position where we’ve only found one commercial software package that will enable just one of the built-in hardware decoding features. H.264 [See Jenns article about 1080p on The Willcom D4.] On one hand its a poor result and a major disappointment. There’s no single player available that can support playback of all HQ content and if your content is wrapped up in DRM (iTunes films for example) there’s no support at all. It all sounds like quite a sad story. On the other hand the H.264 part of the story is good (no, excellent – 15mbps H.264 anyone?) and it looks like there’s more to come if Poulsbo can be unlocked further with the right software.  (article continues…)

Read the full story

UMPCFever continue their hands-on with the Aigo MID and have been playing with the device running under Windows. While they were there they did a CrystalMark test which gives us the first ever look at how various parts of a Silverthorne-based MID might perform. However, I would take these results with a large pinch of salt as they appear to be on the low side. The memory speed and disk speed figures look especially low so there could be some driver issues. Certainly the graphics figures should be ignored at this stage.

I’d advise to wait for real-life browsing and video figures from the system while running the Atom-optimised Moblin build rather than a vanilla XP build that has never heard of Poulsbo or Silverthorne!

On the image at the top right, from the top are the total score, the ALU test score, the FPU test score the MEM, HDD, GDI, D2D and OGL scores from the Crystalmark test. For a list of UMPC crystalmark scores, see Ctitanics table of results from various sources.

UMPCFever Aigo MID CrystalMark test video.

Update: A more detailed discussion is continuing on Atom performance details in the forum here.