Ultraportable laptops: Their rise and possible fall
Submitted by srlinuxx on Thu, 08/21/2008 - 04:08.
For some users, the new generation of ultraportable notebooks comes close to embodying the Holy Grail for road warriors. Their laptop-like keyboards make them more usable for typing tasks than smart phones, but they are lighter and cheaper than traditional laptops. The original Asus Eee PC, for instance, cost about $400 and weighed about two pounds when it was introduced last October.
However, while pundits and technology journalists have lavished attention on these products, skeptics have raised questions. For instance, is there anything really special about these devices, or do they just represent old technology in new packaging? Are users as enthusiastic about these tiny laptops as the pundits are? Will they fade away like so many other "next big things"? And perhaps the oddest question: What do we call these things, anyway?
"It's way too early to talk about this being a viable product category," says Avi Greengart, mobile device research director at Current Analysis Inc. "I'm not sure how much of a market there is for them, particularly with subnotebooks like MacBook Air with [larger] keyboards and displays getting thinner and lighter. And you can get some real work done on, say, an iPhone or a Nokia E-series smart phone."
Not surprisingly, vendors and other proponents strongly disagree.
Atom is based on PIII ? M core is P4 with upto 2m L2 cache ?
If you own an EEEPC, you might have some cpus with 1meg of L2 cache. Some may slip thru with the newer M cores with 2meg of L2 cache. Atom only has 47 million transistors and can only be PIII core(500 KB of L2 cache). Pentium4 has 146 million transistors, most of which makes up for more L2 cache.
It is important as we move into computer architecture which avoids ddr drams. Going directly from L2 cache to nand flash cards, will force embedded runtime codes be written in machine language. Compilers waste too much overhead codes, and bloated symlinks had to be avoided. Cisc cpu will need asic part that directly run instructions into USB devices and their firmware.
So, ultralight notebook will become netbooks; and $79 maybe a target for 7" LCD shared with DVD player production. Cellphones will come with ever increasing production quantities of cheaper ultralight components. 19" LCD may be supplied with thinner Corning Glass panels. Ultralight Netbooks may reach 150 million per year; throw away cellphones will reach 5 billion yearly.
Cost drives demands? Ultralight uses less material which drives cost. The future is the ability to get on the cloud, but first we must bridge the digital divide by lowering cost of computing?
Mini-notebooks are here to stay
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Some critics seem to think that UMPC (ultra mobile PCs) are just a fad. Wrong. They're here to stay.
In Ultraportable laptops: Their rise and possible fall, David Haskin reports that "While pundits and technology journalists have lavished attention on these products, skeptics have raised questions. For instance, is there anything really special about these devices, or do they just represent old technology in new packaging? Are users as enthusiastic about these tiny laptops as the pundits are? Will they fade away like so many other 'next big things?'"
Haskin goes on to report that Avi Greengart, mobile device research director at Current Analysis, for one, said that "It's way too early to talk about this being a viable product category."
Sorry, that's not the case.
re: Mini Notebooks
Lots of press about how Mini Notebooks are a temp solution, and will be superseded by smart phones.
For me, it's exactly opposite. Now that I have a Mini Notebook (and it easily rides in my day-to-day canvas briefcase), I'm shopping for a small, slim, light, phone-only cellphone (it justs needs to be a phone and cell modem)to replace my Blackberry.