Intel have launched their 4GB and 8GB SSD modules (these aren’t drop-in drive replacements) at 1000-piece prices of $25 and $45 respectively. Although the read-speed is a usable 35MB/s, with a write speed of just 7MB/s, they’re not ideal for the pro user.
Sandisk’s offering seems to be slightly better with a ‘streaming’ write speed of 17MB/s
TDK also introduced a new SSD drive. Fantastic capacity and performance but huge cost.
I’ll stick to my CF card mod for the time being.
From Engadget China, this is an interesting image.
It’s a line-up of netbooks and includes new devices from Amtek (top-middle,) Haier and others. Engadget China have the details.
Lately it has seemed like a new netbook is announced weekly. With so many players hoping to turn a profit in this now hot computing sector, it’s no wonder that the demand for Intel’s Atom CPU is high. Sean Maloney, Intel’s executive vice-president commented in an interview with the Financial Times saying that Intel had received more orders for Atom than the company had expected.
We’re ramping it strongly and are still catching up with the demand. I’m not expecting the shortage to last long.
The chief exec of Asus had forecasted back in April that there would be a shortage of Atom chips until the third quarter. Interesting to know now that the Atom based Eee 901 is going to be on the market soon. The shortage could make the Eee 901 harder to buy for some time.
I’m rather surprised that they are having supply issues, Intel seemed rather affluent in their Atom advertising, maybe they weren’t expecting so many OEMs to jump on the netbook bandwagon so soon.
[FT.com]
News just breaking from the Google IO keynote is that Google have completed a very impressive demo of Android on an unknown mobile device. Engadget thinks its the ‘Dream’ but i’m not sure where they got that info from.
Check out some great images at Android Community
At the moment its looking like an iPhone-class device but remember, Android would easily scale to bigger devices and different CPU architechtures. The HTC MID could be pretty interesting but will it be Android or Moblin based? I still think that Intel could push Moblin in as the core OS for Android on X86 devices.
The pricing game in the cheap notebook category getting rather silly. I’m seeing a lot of ‘tricks’ being used that will make it very difficult for consumers to sort the wheat from the chaff. The low-end Alpha 400 from Bestlink, a RISC-based Eee-a-like is another example. I’m not going to spend any time reporting details of the device (see LinuxDevices for that) or discuss whether it’s a good choice or not but I will report exactly what came into my mind when I read the news about it. Devices like these are nothing much more than smartphones running Linux and placed in notebook casings. I sound very negative when saying that but it shouldn’t be taken that way because while current solutions don’t provide enough oomph to give most users a serious alternative to a full notebook PC, they do show that we are moving to a point where the smartphone could be the only processing device you need. The idea of a smartphone running inside a notebook form factor really is a trick that needs to be observed. [Analysis after the break.]
Two more items to tick off the list on the 800Mhz Atom MID’s:
– YouTube appears to play flawlessly.
– The CoolImage application does indeed look cool.
Both videos (linked above) are from UMPCFever in HongKong. Keep an eye out for more!
I want to see WMV and H264 at HD though. In theory, it works! Also on my list:
And much more!
Worth highlighting from the PMP perspective is the news that Intel Atom along with the Poulsbo will enable a full HD playback experience. While reviewers have yet to see this in action, Intel are talking about 1080p playback performance [PDF] and have also announced that Real Networks will produce an optimised (chipset and finger friendly) player and codec-set for the platform. [News]
I’m an Archos 605Wifi owner and it handles most content well but I certainly cant feed high bitrate or high resolution H.264 into it. As for the Internet aspect, it’s what I’d call ‘entry-level.’
Add the following features to the video playback capabilities and I think you’ll have something that raises the bar for high-end PMP’s so high that Archos and Cowon will have to introduce new models based on new hardware platforms in order to benefit from this growing portable Internet and media player (PIMP?) market. My prediction is that we’ll see Archos release an Intel-based MID within the next year. Anyway, here’s the list of features that needs to be considered.
Take the Gigabyte M528 for example. When (not if) I buy one I’m going to be getting a device that is essentially a Nokia N810 and Archos 605 Wifi on steroids. Both of those devices have value on their own but if you add the two together and throw in a 3G modem, you get far more than the sum of the parts. It moves the PMP into the realms of social media networking, one of the fastest growing segments in the Internet today. Yes, the price will be high on day one but the features, as far as I’m concerned are worth shelling out some beans for. HD playback, 3mbp auto focus camera, GPS, 3 hours battery life, 3G, keyboard, hi-res touchscreen and a Firefox 3 browser. Oh come on, this is just portable gadget heaven isn’t it?
If you’re a PMP fan, maybe an Archos or Cowon owner, I’d love to hear your opinion. What aspects of the current PMPs will MIDs have a problem with. Community? Price? Battery life? UI?
In a week where we’ve been bombarded by news (or Pyrotechnics as Richard Brown of VIA, calls it) from the Intel IDF, it’s important to remember the other side of the fence. Over in smartphone, pmp and pocketPC land, things are happening just as quickly. The PR machine isn’t as big but the products could be just as capable.
GigaOm interviewed Qualcomm’s Dr. Sanjay Jha , COO and president of its CDMA technologies division last week and put a few interesting Ultra Mobile related questions his way.
Stacey Higginbbotham asked the following:
When will these [snapdragon-based] devices come out, and how does this compete with Intel’s Atom processors for ultra-mobile PCs?
Sanjay replies: Devices using Snapdragon will come out in the second half of this year, before or after Christmas. And I wouldn’t say we’re competing with Intel because we want to focus on a pocket-sized device that you can carry with you. Intel’s specifications for Atom are focused on a device with a 7-inch to 9-inch display.
I think Sanjay needs to do a little bit more research. 20 manufacturers are licensed (as ARM might say!) to produce MIDs and all should produce devices before Christmas. Nearly all of the devices will fall smack-bang into the pocket-sized market so Qualcomm, you DO have competition.
ARM-based MIDS will come and i’m sure we’ll see them with longer battery life and smaller designs than with Atom but will they be powerful enough to handle the a full browser and all the media that a user can throw at them?
Via ElectronRun
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
| |||
 |
|