Comprising the ‘system on chip’ known as Lincroft and the comms chip known as Langwell, the next-generation MID platform from Intel, known as Moorestown, promises to provide smaller sizes and smaller power consumption. At IDF in Taipei today, Intel demonstrated the first working version.
Chandrasekher said that Moorestown will be a catalyst for exciting and innovative developments that will extend the full Internet experience into the smartphone space with the Communication MID. He indicated that Moorestown platforms will support a range of wireless technologies including 3G, WiMAX, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and mobile TV. Additionally, Chandrasekher announced a collaboration with Ericsson* for HSPA data modules optimized for the Moorestown platform. He also announced that Option* is extending its collaboration for HSPA modules to the Moorestown platform. These 3G modules come in 25x30x2.x mm small size, are optimized for Moorestown power requirements and will help provide MID users with more powerful, always connected Internet-based experiences. [press release]
Don’t expect too much information about Moorestown this week though as Intel have already stated that the next announcements are to come at the Spring IDF in 2009. In fact, if Menlow is anything to go by, the timeframe between first demonstrations and product availability will be about 18 months. We’ll keep an eye out for videos and details about Moorestown though.
Looking at the MID display from the technology showcase, I don’t see anything new there either. Keep any eye on the IDF photo stream at Flickr. Maybe something will turn up.
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.
Aving has just posted a report from the Asus World 2008 conference about the Asus N10 netbook/laptop we covered earlier. The N10 looks simply wonderful and there is no mistaking that this is a high-end piece of equipment. What is probably the best thing about this device is that it has an Nvidia GeForce 9300GS graphics card. Try finding that on another netbook! Other previously unknown specifications include a 320GB harddrive, 2GB of RAM, LED backlit 10″ screen and an Intel N270 (Atom) processor. Add this to the previously known features (HDMI, Altec Lansing speakers, fingerprint reader) and you have one powerful machine. And it looks great too..my new favorite netbook. Let’s just hope the battery life is good. More pictures over at Aving.net.
Chippy writes: Techticker reports that it will be officially announced on the 13th (Sat?) and will have a price of $1140 and a 6-cell battery good enough for 6+hours. This is Atom breaking out of its cage and Intel and notebook manufacturers definitely won’t be happy to see it but its definately going to happen. Users are realising that they prefer good-value, small form-factor and long battery life more than anything. It really wont suprise me to see the average size on notebooks come right down with users being happy with 10-12″ models with long battery life as a result of the netbook craze. If Atom is good enough for that then Intel and traditional laptop sales will suffer.
Here’s another one of those ‘we can beat Atom’ tests where the fine detail of the result is irrelevant. The important thing here is that, like the VIA Nano comparison test, significant, market-changing progress has been made.
I’ve been talking about ARM’s Cortex A8 for a while now and keeping an eye on it in terms of its suitability for Mobile Internet Devices. Its a powerful computing core and people like Ti are using it to build very small, power-efficient media and Internet-capable platforms. Apart from Pandora, we’ve seen it being promoted for use in OHA Android phones and even for netbooks.
But how fast is the Cortex A8? How fast would Firefox 3 run on a Cortex-based Android smartphone? And how accurate would it be? Intel keep pusing the ‘real internet’ and about how many errors you’ll find with smartphone browsers but when you’re running Firefox 3 on both platforms, the difference disappears. Intel also talking about speeds but when the processing power is the same on both hardware, that difference disappears too. ARM’s partners have already fought back against the Intel Atom machine a few times in the past (Nvidia here and here) but this video strikes right at the heart of Atom/Moblin. It shows Firefox 3 running at impressive speeds. Forget the normalised comparison at the end of the video, any browser that can average under 10 seconds per page as shown in this demo is going to be good enough for almost everyone. Its twice as fast as previous ARM-based devices and completely removes the 9-second disadvantage that I’ve talked about before. [see video below]
IDF, the Intel Developer Forum was held a few weeks ago and through the generosity of readers I was able to attend, listen, contribute and learn from the experience. Here’s the report that went out to my sponsors last week. Slightly abridged but containing all the important info.
If I was asked to summarise IDF from the ultra mobile angle I would probably say just one thing – software. Intel’s ultra mobility group have been working hard to bring in a number of important ISVs and IDF was the place they wanted to show it all off. Gypsii (A GPS-enabled social networking and POI network), Fring (Single client IM and social networking interface) Adobe (Flash 10 beta I assume they are working to get hardware video decoding in there) and Move networks (intelligent multi-protocol video streaming solution with H.264 hardware decoding support) were at the fore and Intel say that now have 60 ISV’s working with them. The software ecosystem was highlighted in both ultra mobility keynotes and appeared to take precedence over hardware announcements. The other feeling I got was that things are taking off in Asia. This shouldn’t be a surprise to us considering past success of small mobile computing devices. Intel may be taking advantage of this by responding to Asian demands and I heard a number of people say that big hardware announcements would be made at IDF in Asia next spring. [Report continues below]
By my research and calculations I see 33 design wins for the Intel Menlow MID platform. We’ve seen a lot from the likes of Benq, Willcom and Gigabyte in the last 6 months but there are a number of MIDs out there that have been very quiet and aren’t in the database yet. Here’s a list with as much detail as I know at this stage. Information comes from various sources. They are all based on Silverthorne and Poulsbo. (Menlow platform)
TriGem Averatec (TriGem is the new parent company) MID – 512MB, 30GB, 4.8″ 1026×600. DMB, Wibro. Looks like its Asia-focused but Averatec are a global brand so maybe we’ll see this outside Asia.
Note the new KJS/Inventec ones (although they could be variants of these Inventec devices) and the Averatec MID. We’ll keep them on the watchlist and let you know if we hear anything.
33 design wins is amazing for a CPU that launched only a few months ago and I’m not even including the 10-15 development and industrial boards that are out there based on Menlow!
An OQO playing world of warcraft, flash 10 on an MID, an image manipulation application, a floating GUI and a very cheesy intro video! Higher quality version here. (WMV) Full Ultra Mobility keynote video and slides available at the Intel IDF site.
With a slick design, 8+hrs battery life and a swivel touchscreen, this isn’t your average UMPC! It’s not exactly a netbook either. Viliv have taken the U5 design they demonstrated at CES, slightly modified the screen, dropped an Intel Atom inside (up to 1.8Ghz) and made what I think is a very stylish piece.
Key features there are the 3G/4G module capability, 9 hours movie playback capability, GPS and the capability to take up to a 1.8Ghz CPU. (Silverthorne) The S7 is in final design stages (what you see is the final casing design) and is planned for launch in Q1 2009. There are no details about price or per-country availability at the moment. More details and video after the specs….
Don’t expect too much information about Moorestown this week though as Intel have already stated that the next announcements are to come at the Spring IDF in 2009. In fact, if Menlow is anything to go by, the timeframe between first demonstrations and product availability will be about 18 months. We’ll keep an eye out for videos and details about Moorestown though.
Aving has just posted a report from the Asus World 2008 conference about the Asus N10 netbook/laptop we covered earlier. The N10 looks simply wonderful and there is no mistaking that this is a high-end piece of equipment. What is probably the best thing about this device is that it has an Nvidia GeForce 9300GS graphics card. Try finding that on another netbook! Other previously unknown specifications include a 320GB harddrive, 2GB of RAM, LED backlit 10″ screen and an Intel N270 (Atom) processor. Add this to the previously known features (HDMI, Altec Lansing speakers, fingerprint reader) and you have one powerful machine. And it looks great too..my new favorite netbook. Let’s just hope the battery life is good. More pictures over at 
