My current laptop is a netbook. I’ve been using it as my portable computer for well over a year and I’m very happy with it. I’m using XP, it’s got a 2GB RAM upgrade and a fast SSD and a great built-in 3G module. The only issue with it is that any other netbook out there is a downgrade for me because switching to Windows 7 on a standard netbook is noticeably slower.

That all changed today when I took on the Acer D255 as a loaner for the Intel Developer Forum I’m attending this week. [Thanks to Intel They paid for the trip over here] It’s truly the first netbook I’ve used that gives me a smooth and reliable Windows 7 experience and having already tested battery drain, 720p playback, Crystalmark and video rendering performance, I can say that it really does well, It’s light and Sascha (Netbooknews) tells me it only costs 350 Euros. That’s a stunning price for 6-8hrs of dual-core action.

Here’s a little look-round on the device. See below for some early benchmark results.

I’ve done three benchmarking tests on the device. The first is a battery drain test and I’m pleased to see that Acer appear to be getting the best possible out of the platform. With screen brightness at minimum and Wifi off I was able to get a figure of just 4W. With Wifi on, that went up to 4.6W. Average drain for web browsing is around the 7-8W mark which means that the 49Wh battery is going to give a good 6hrs of action. Rendering a video with all cores and at 100% i was 11W of drain. For a device that weighs 1250 grams thats pretty good. A better quality 6-cell battery could yield even better results.

I terms of CrystalMark, I’m seeing results that will make anyone happy. 35K is not a figure we see often in the mobile computing world. The hard disk is impressive to.

My final benchmark was a video rendering test. It looks like I’m going to save 25-30% in terms of time on rendering and that’s well worth the 50-euro premium that a dual-core Atom netbook is costing.

If you’re in the Berlin area for IFA and you want to learn more about Intel’s Atom platform, MeeGo operating system, Atom Developer Program and AppUp app-store, this one is for you.

On the 3rd Sept there will be a tweetup that is sponsored by Intel and will be attended by a number of people presenting on the main event on Saturday the 4th.  On the 4th you can attend a training day which includes key people from the Intel software groups and a lot of information. Sascha (netbooknews) and myself will be there and we’ll be available to chat independently about Intel hardware and software.

There’s a very good chance to win some swag too and I’m not talking about pens and USB sticks. There are three netbooks and a WeTab up for grabs!

Tweetup Details:

Sept 3rd

Starts at 19.00h at St. Oberholz, Rosenthaler Str. 72, (Tel. +49 30 24085586)

U Bahn Station: Rosenthaler Platz, U8;

http://www.qype.com/place/492-Sankt-Oberholz-Berlin

Main Event Details:

Sept 4th (Sat)

Event Webpage:  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144065815611069&ref=mf
Address: HomeBase Lounge
Köthener Strasse 44
10963 Berlin
Tel: +49 30 257 938 56
U-Bahn/S-Bahn Station: Potsdamer Platz

Agenda:
10.00 12.00h        Intel presenters and bloggers arrive, please
12.30 13.00h        Registration and small fingerfood lunch
13.00 14.00h       Technical Training Part 1
14.00 14.15h        Break
14.15 16.15h         Technical Training Part 2

16.30h 17.00h    Registration (repeat) starts
17.00h 17.10h    Welcome by Beatrice Frädrich
17.10h 18.00h    4 presentations 10min. Each

• Vipul Chopra – Validation
• Jens Weller apps porting QT
• 4iitoo application examples with WeTab
• Stefan Englet AppUP/IADP
• Moderated by Chippy and Sascha

18.00 18.30h       Wind-down
20.00            Announcement of raffle winners
18.30 22.00h        Buffet dinner/drinks/networking

One of the events I’ll be attending around the IFA consumer show is the Intel Software event at the Homebase Lounge. It runs throughout the 4th September and focuses on netbooks, tablets, related Intel platforms and software including MeeGo and AppUp. There will be presentations throughout the days and experts and community members around to talk to. I’m not 100% sure but I think Sascha and I might do a MeetMobility podcast there too so if you’re in the area for IFA or just want to come along for day of developer-focused Atom and MeeGo-related information and discussion (along with a few drinks and some food!) check out the event Facebook page. It’s in German but Google’s translation works well.

Oh, one other thing, apparently there’s going to be a surprise device there for hands-on. I have no idea what it is but I bet it will be something that is launched at IFA which probably means a Moorestown or Oaktrail-based tablet running MeeGo. I’ll also be bringing a bunch of Atom devices too so there will be some more chances for hands-on.

I must admit, I was disappointed when I heard news that HP had cancelled the Windows 7 slate that we had famously seen Steve Ballmer demo during in his keynote at CES this year. Just as we thought all we had to look forward to from HP was a WebOS tablet, this little nugget of information pops up in a well hidden page on HP’s site.

Specifications are slim but what we do know are as follows;

• Windows 7 Home Premium
• Intel Atom 1.6Ghz
• 1GB RAM
• 8.9 inch screen
• Two cameras (still & video)

The XB830PA or HP Slate 500 will have the typical Intel Atom 1.6Ghz and 1GB of memory internals, although which chipset is still anybodies guess at this point.

The HP Slate 500 has also landed on Energy stars certified products list which confirms some of the specifications but no official word on pricing or availability.

It there is one thing we know about JKK of JKKmobile, it’s his uncanny ability to cover huge amounts of distance at technology shows and exhibitions to produce first-look videos, by the bucket load so when he posts the following about Amtek prepping not 1 or 2 tablets but an incredible 5, we know we are in for a interesting Computex;

Firstly there is the iTablet Speed-Lite (AE03), packing a Nvidia Tegra 2 1Ghz, 1GB RAM, 2MP camera, 10.1 inch multi touch display and WiFi. Then there is the iTablet Ex-Lite II (AE04), wielding a Freescale 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 2MP camera, 10.1 inch multi touch display and WiFi also. Both of these come with a choice of either WindowsCE 6.0R3/7.0, Android 2.0 or Linux and have options for bluetooth, 3G connectivity and GPS.

To add to these is the iTablet Lite (TZ10), sporting an Intel® Atom Menlow-XL Z530 1.6GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, 10.1 inch multi touch display, 2MP camera, WiFi, 4200mAh battery, Windows 7 and a choice of either a 1.8 inch IDE HDD or a 64GB SSD.

Then the icing on the tablet cake in the form of T23A CULV tablet PC and the T23x CULV Series. All of which have Core 2 Duo 743 1.30GHz Intel Montevina Platform CPU’s, 2GB of RAM, 1.3MP cameras, 2.5 inch SATA HDD’s from 160GB to 320GB and coming with a choice of either a 12.1 inch XGA digitizer, touch or digitizer and touch screens.

If that doesn’t get your tablet juices going then head over to JKKmobile for the full specifications and pictures.

In press events on Tuesday, Intel launched Moorestown and gave journalists their full marketing package on the smartphone and tablet-focused platform.  The key highlight was ‘performance’ and one element I want to focus on is Web browsing.

In tests I’ve been doing with many devices over the last 6 months using the SunSpider javascript benchmark, the Atom CPU, running at 1.3Ghz, whips the A4 CPU into the ground with a >3X speed advantage. Moorestown, with its 1.5Ghz clock looks to improve that to a 4x speed advantage according to the slide below. That’s a huge win for web-based applications implemented in AJAX.

Of course, javascript is only a component of the total time needed to fetch and render the average web page so I decided to do a real world test.

To simulate how Moorestown would perform under web-browsing conditions I took the Intel Atom-based Viliv X70, a 7 inch tablet with a 1024×600 7 inch touchscreen running Windows XP Home, installed the latest Google Chrome, locked the CPU to 800Mhz and did some random web browsing tests. Remember that the Menlow platform used in the X70 is very close to the architecture used on Moorestown. The CPU are GPU are architecturally almost exactly the same. I side-by-sided it with an iPad which is, according to my tests with the Archos 5, X10 and HTC Desire (all running high-end ARM V7 architecture cores) the fastest ARM-based browser solution out there.

The video below shows that the browsing speed with the Viliv at 800Mhz is almost neck and neck. An 800Mhz Atom on a multi-tasking OS matches a 1Ghz A4 on a single-tasting OS. Ignore the UI and product, this is just a test of web page loading speed.

In the second part of the video I boosted the Atom CPU up to 1.3Ghz, the maximum on this platform, to simulate what would happen when a Moorestown smartphone ran at the highest clock-rate of 1.5Ghz. Remember the CPU and GPU architectures in Menlow and Moorestown are the same although Moorestown has a 200Mhz advantage here, can support faster memory and has a faster GPU clock.

The difference is very noticeable with the X70 rendering pages much more quickly, even with Flash enabled. Move to Firefox and disable flash and the difference is even bigger.

I see real-world advantages here. Faster, full Internet experience and a huge advantage for web-based applications and compressed or encoded content although it has to be said that in this high CPU-load scenario, battery drain on the Moorestown platform is likely to be slightly (although not considerably) more.

Remember, we’re ONLY comparing CPU platforms here and in this simulation, the Moorestown platform is showing great potential. It can deliver web pages, process script, decrypt HTTPS, GZIP and images much faster than the best ARM-based solution out there. It also adds multitasking and large memory support too. As a platform, if it delivers on the battery life claims, Moorestown is going to be a great, high-performance smartphone, tablet and even netbook option.

Recommended reading – Why social netbooks have a ‘lock-in’ opportunity. In this article I talk about key features of a smartbook. Many of these apply to a Moorestown/MeeGo-based product.

Recommended reading Anandtech on Moorestown. Detailed with good background research and knowledge.

Completing the modular picture of the Moorestown platform for us today is the news about the GPU/video processing engine that will be used. It’s been a long time coming.

Intel GMA600 Graphics Integrated power-optimizes 2-D/3-D graphics with up to 400Mhz graphics core clock frequency, support for OpenGL ES2.0, Open GL 2.1 and Open VG 1.1 and hardware-accelerated HD video decode (MPEG4 part 2, H.264, WMV and VC1) and encode (MPEG4 part 2, H.264) Supports internal display up to 1366×768 LVDS or 1024×600 MIPI

The details are given in the Moorestown fact-sheet that was published today (PDF) as part of the Moorestown official launch.

In general I think we can safely say that this is a GMA500 with 2Xclock (400Mhz compared to 200Mhz on Menlow) and video encode.

From time to time I like to gather my thoughts and knowledge on CPU’s, GPUs and processing platforms in the ultra mobile market and re-base my knowledge. My last report was on ARM platforms and is available here and after Computex in June I want to do the same for al X86 platforms but in the meantime, I’ve been gathering information on Intel’s Queensbay which is going to be presented at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing on April 14th. Although Queensbay is a product intended for the embedded market, its worth taking a closer look at it is likely to be a follow-on solution for MIDs

Details haven’t been made public yet but I’ve researched as much as I can. Intel presentation materials should appear on the IDF content catalogue after the event.

Intel IDF Session Details SPCS002 Tunnel Creek. (Indirect link – look for SPCS002 on the list o presentations)

We tend to think of Embedded Systems as products doing a single task like traffic lights or a washing machine but it’s fair to also regard them as single, highly integrated and focused computing devices. Many of today’s UMPCs and MIDs and even some netbooks are built on the Menlow platform which is also targeted at embedded solutions. There’s an interesting crossover that occurs when you get to highly integrated computing platforms.

Queensbay is the name of a new platform with an Atom-based CPU called Tunnel Creek (as the Atom-based Pineview would be on the Pinetrail netbook platform.)  Tunnel Creek comes in 600Mhz, 1Ghz and 1.3Ghz variants which all offer hyperthreading and Intels ‘VT’ virtualisation technology. Beside the CPU sits the memory controller (max 1GB) and coupled on the same ‘Tunnel Creek’ silicon is the graphics subsystem, GMA500/PowerVR, known as ‘Topcliff.  The separate I/O chip, known as IOH is connected via a PCIe bus. The architecture is very similar to that of Pinetrail although the interconnecting bus is a standard PCIe bus instead of the Intel’s DMI.

From Intel on Tunnel Creek:

A low power integrated processor with PCIe as the interface to the I/O hub (IOH).  Utilizing PCIe will enable multiple market-specific IOHs from multiple vendors to be used to scale into a large variety of embedded market segments.  Details to be discussed at IDF Beijing, Spring 2010.

(Ref)

Note that this is a different architecture to Menlow. On Menlow, the GPU and memory controller is contained within the System Controler Hub (SCH) and connected via the Front Side Bus at 400 or 533Mhz. Clearly, putting the memory controller and GPU next to the CPU improves the  performance.

There are some other interesting points to note about the architecture.

• The IOH is connected via PCIe bus which leaves it open for third party chipset solutions. (E.g. Nvidia ION- ref)
• The GPU in Topcliff (again a GMA 500/PowerVR core) is clocked at twice the speed (400Mhz)  than on Menlow. (see some performance results here)
• The CPU seems to be a little more powerful, per-clock, than before (based on information from the same article)
• SATA is now available on the IOH. Previously, Menlow only offered a PATA interface.
• 10/100/1000 LAN controller is integrated into the IOH
• Memory bus supports DDR2 at 667 and 800 speeds which is faster than Menlow.

It’s not known whether Topcliff has video decoding engines in it but we would imagine it would for set-top-box and digital signage solutions.

TDP for the platform is 5W, similar to existing Menlow solutions (but obviously providing much improved performance through HT and improved GPU performance and therefore, lower average power figures.)

Quensbay will be manufactured using a 45nm process (as are Menlow and Moorestown)

Queensbay appears to be the follow-on from Menlow and move to a similar SOC architecture as with Pinetrail and Moorestown (although without power-gating required for smartphone usage scenarios.) The architecture looks to be Windows-capable (with 1.3Ghz. DDR2-800 and SATA it could run Windows 7 although the 1GB memory limit needs to be taken into consideration) and if Moorestown is initially going to launch as a MeeGo-only product (Morestown-Windows comes later) Queensbay would be the natural choice for MIDs and UMPCs running Windows or Linux. Fingers crossed that the MeeGo project includes support for this platform as it could make a powerful and flexible consumer internet device platform.

My only question at this stage would be: ‘Why Queensbay AND Moorestown?’ Is it a pricing issue? With no power-gating, turbo-boost (unconfirmed) integrated H.264 encoding, camera interface, audio, maybe Queensbay is the natural choice for simple, low-cost MIDs.

Oh. and one more question: Does Menlow continue too? With 1.3-2.0Ghz solutions, I guess so.

Watch out for more news from IDF Beijingover the coming days.

References:

Computerbase.de – Details zu Queensbay, Tunnel Creek und Topcliff August 2009