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HP Eyes the Ultralight Business Notebook Market

Paul Lilly — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:56:53 -0500

What weighs 4 pounds and measures 12.1 inches? The answer has nothing to do with John Holmes and everything to do with Hewlett-Packard's updated "ultralight" business notebook line built around Intel's Centrino 2 platform.

Cost of entry for the HP-Compaq 2230 series will start at $999 and include an Intel Core 2 Duo T5670 (1.80GHz) processor, 1GB of DDR2-800 RAM, a 120GB 5400RPM hard disk, 802.11n wireless, a LightScribe DVD burner, and Intel's GMA 4500MHD graphics. For $1,649, users looking for a bit more power can move up to an Intel T9400 (2.53GHz) processor, 3GB DDR2-800 RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. Several other configurations fill in the pricing gap, and all of them will come equipped with three USB ports, an HDMI port, and a 4-cell lithium-ion battery.

Centrino 2 notebooks have been slow to trickle into the market, but HP is accepting orders now for its 2230 series.

Image Credit: HP

Fast Forward: VIA's new Isaiah Processor

Tom Halfhill — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:22:10 -0500

These are exciting times for mobile PCs. A new category of sub-$500 subnotebook computers is emerging, inspired by last year’s Asus Eee PC (see March column) and the Everex Cloudbook. By the end of this year, you’ll find a dozen or more different models of teeny-weeny PCs in stores. Some prices will fall below $300.

As I wrote last month, Intel and VIA Technologies are introducing new low-power x86 processors for these systems. In affluent markets, Intel and VIA hope their OEM customers will sell these new PCs to people who already own a regular desktop PC and perhaps a regular notebook as well. In developing markets, the targets are first-time buyers. Intel nicknamed the subnotebook computers “netbooks,” emphasizing their built-in wireless Internet connectivity. Even smaller are handheld computers called MIDs (mobile Internet devices).

VIA’s Isaiah processor is definitely a contender in this game. It’s a completely new x86 design from VIA’s Texas-based Centaur subsidiary. To some degree—although VIA doesn’t welcome the comparison—Isaiah will compete with Intel’s new Silverthorne processor, recently named Atom, which I’ll talk about next month.

In recent weeks, I have carefully analyzed Isaiah. Unlike VIA’s Centaur C7 series, Isaiah is a full-featured 64-bit x86 processor with three-way superscalar pipelines, out-of-order instruction processing, speculative execution, the latest virtualization extensions, strong multimedia performance, and a fast FPU. Isaiah can deliver two to four times more throughput than the C7-M when running at the same clock frequency.

Although Isaiah still isn’t as fast as Intel’s Core 2 processors, it consumes much less power. Remarkably, Isaiah holds the line on power, relative to the C7-M. Initially, Isaiah will draw only about 3.5W at 1GHz or 6W at 1.5GHz. Those specs are worst-case thermal design power (TDP)—typical power consumption is lower. The initial version of Isaiah can reach 2GHz, but power rises to 16W. Ultralow-voltage versions will consume only about 5W TDP at 1.2GHz.

Isaiah is more power-hungry than Intel’s Atom, but early benchmarks suggest it’s faster. Both chips should thrive in subnotebooks. Soon we’ll have our choice of affordable PCs small and light enough to fit comfortably in a backpack or airline carry-on bag without displacing other stuff—and with longer battery life, too.

Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.

Fast Forward: Teeny-Weeny PCs

Tom Halfhill — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:19:32 -0600

For years I’ve envied the tiny subnotebook PCs that are popular in Japan but usually unavailable elsewhere. Every traveling Japanese businessman seems to have one of these little critters. They run desktop apps, but they’re small enough to toss into a carry-on bag—unlike most other notebooks, whose carrying cases and accessories make them a separate piece of luggage.

Now a Taiwanese company has scored an unexpected hit with an affordable subnotebook computer that was introduced late last year. Despite humble specifications, the Asus Eee PC is selling faster than beer at a NASCAR race. It’s about the size and weight of a small book, costs $300 to $400, and has a “solid-state storage drive” (2GB to 4GB of flash memory) instead of a hard disk. The flash drive is preloaded with Linux and desktop apps, including OpenOffice and Mozilla Firefox. A custom GUI hides the Linux command line. In addition, the Eee PC has wireless networking (Wi-Fi 802.11b/g), a memory-card slot, USB ports, Ethernet, a 7-inch LCD, and a cramped but usable QWERTY keyboard.

Ironically, the Eee PC ignores the much-hyped ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) specification. Since 2006, Intel and Microsoft have led a lavish marketing campaign to promote UMPCs, which are tablet computers with touch screens and (usually) a tweaked version of Windows XP or Vista. Although some people like UMPCs, they’re much costlier than the Eee PC and aren’t generating the same buzz among users.

Frankly, for the money, the Eee PC isn’t impressive. Its 800x480-pixel screen makes web browsing clumsy. Its 900MHz Celeron-M processor is underclocked to 630MHz. And because Asus downsized the battery to save weight, the Eee PC runs for only a few hours on a charge—no better than other notebooks. For about the same price, you can buy a conventional notebook with a faster processor, roomier hard drive, more RAM, bigger screen, and better keyboard.

So why is the Eee PC so popular? It’s smaller, lighter, and customizable. It inspires tinkering and has spawned online communities of hardware and software modders. Encouraged by the Eee PC’s early success, Asus plans to introduce several new models, including some with larger screens and Windows instead of Linux. Asus is clearly onto something here. I expect other companies will soon join the bandwagon with their own teeny-weeny PCs.

Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.