Cheaper Ultra-Thin Notebooks on the Horizon

Intel announced new Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage (CULV) processors for its latest generation i-Series processor line-up. This is a significant move for Intel in that it also announced that the pricing for these consumer processors will be lower as compared to previous generations of ULV's.


The shift is seen by tech journalists to be in-line with recent trends in the market reeling from the popularity of netbooks. Though netbooks are seen as under-powered when compared to mainstream notebooks, the low price point has induced tremendous growth in adoption by consumers. It has also caused notebook manufacturers to rethink how they market ultra-thin notebooks, formerly known as ultra-portables, because of the close similarities in form factor.


Think about it. Five years ago ultra-thin notebooks were considered premium notebooks, priced well above mainstream notebooks. Just take a look at PC World or PC Magazine for reviews of ultra-portables released around 5 years ago and you'll see what I mean. With the creation of a new niche for netbooks, with screen size ranging from 7-11", ultra-thin notebooks with 12-13" LCD's were on the verge of gathering dust in store shelves and stock rooms. To a prospective buyer, they'd rather have a smaller screen if it means they can tote it around and not pay a premium for it. They would have fewer qualms about it being slower if it's a whole lot cheaper.


Because of that, manufacturers have of late been repositioning the ultra-thin notebooks in a performance and price niche slightly above netbooks but with less power than mainstream notebooks. Their main selling points have been maintained though - low-power consumption that extends battery life and small form factor that makes it light and very portable. Screen sizes are still 12-13", which snugly fits the niche between netbooks and mainstream laptops. To give you a sense of what your money can fetch for you, you can get an Intel CULV-powered MSI x400 for $390 now. An AMD Neo-powered MSI U210 sells for about $407. Both definitely have more powerful processors than the Atom on netbooks. Both have lithe frames, slightly better video and slightly larger LCD's than netbooks. Battery performance is better on netbooks with smaller screens, but CULV laptops still have it better than mainstream notebooks. If you've got the money, you can go a more powerful Core 2 Duo SU7300 CULV processor like the one they packed on the MSI X350. It costs $890, still in the mainstream notebook price range, but as portable as any 13" laptop you'll find. There's also the 11" Alienware m11x for those who cannot do without World of Warcraft on the road. The Alienware m11x will set you back $799 for the base model.


Intel's announcement of cheaper, more power-efficient CULV processors to beef up it latest generation will make for cheaper ultra-thin notebooks. There are also several laptops powered by the latest generation of AMD Neo processor (take for example MSI's U230) that will compete with Intel's CULV offerings. This will make for more products choices should you want to get something with a little more processing heft than a netbook. Bottom line, more choice is always better for us consumers.

SSD's - Speed vs Cost

The speed of your computer depends a lot on the parts that you put into it. Most focus on the processor, video card and RAM. True, these components do improve performance dramatically should you choose to buy the fastest of the lot. But often the hard drive is taken for granted. A performance boost can definitely be had when upgrading to your hard drive the fastest available in the market. Right now, the fastest are the Solid-State Drives (SSD).

SSD's offer speeds at par with your system memory or RAM. To give you a sense of how fast that is in practical terms, say you installed Windows on an SSD. If you click on an icon to launch your browser, it will launch in 1-2 seconds. Compare that to 3-5 seconds when your Windows is installed on a regular spindle drive. That's one heck of a performance boost, wouldn't you say? It also consumes less power, owing to the fact that it does not have any moving parts. That makes it ideal for stretching battery life in between charges in notebooks.

SSD's are not without cons. Owing to the process of how the data is made persistent in SSD's (remember, RAM looses the data when the computer's turned off, SSD don't), they actually wear out with repeated use. That's why it was necessary to incorporate technology to level out the wear. Data on SSD's aren't written in the same manner as spindle drives. An extra chip on SSD's monitors how many times a certain bit is written to and assigns new data to other parts to spread the wear out to different bits. In traditional spindle drives, data is written in sequence. When data is deleted, that skipped over portion (because it used to have data) is written over with new data. That's why you need to defragment spindle drives to re-arrange related data nearer to each other.

SSD's are also expensive at this time. Take for example the Intel X25-V is priced at US$125, or US$3.12 per GB. The OCZ Onyx, touted as one of the first sub-$100 SSD, is currently priced at US$90 for a 32GB model. That's roughly US$3 per GB. Kingston's SSD Now V Series, touted as an X25-V with a different controller by Anandtech, costs US$90 for a 32GB model and US$115 for a 40GB model. The cheapest still goes for about US$3 per GB, roughly Php126 and change per GB. At that price point, the money you'll shell out for a 40GB SSD will fetch you a 1.5 TB desktop drive in comparison. The prices have been coming down in the last few months as manufacturing costs are brought down by new advancements. However, don't expect them to be as affordable as spindle drives any time soon.

I've been mulling over buying one for the past months. I have an Atom desktop that I chose to build precisely because of it's thrifty use of power. Adding an SSD to my rig would increase the power savings and lower the temperature inside the case. Using an SSD as a boot drive, the Seagate 500GB drive I currently have would make a great secondary drive for data. For these tough times though, value for money is still the priority. Speed will have to wait, at least for now.

Dusting Off

This morning, I had a little spare time to clean the computer. I hadn't opened it since I had the motherboard replaced some 2 months back. I was quite surprised by the amount of dust that had collected inside the case. It was probably because I bought an additional high-RPM exhaust fan that increased the airflow inside the case. I bought a Deepcool XFan 5 that mounts in place of a PCI card slot. It barely fits inside the case, a TomMade TC800 micro-ATX case. I installed the XFan5 because I needed to make sure that temperatures inside the case won't go up if the chipset fan on my Intel Atom 330 board failed on me again. If you look around forums for D945GCLF2 and D945GCLF2D, you'll see most complaints are from the fan failing or its whiny noise. That's probably the reason why Intel opted to go fanless with the Intel D510MO  Mount Olive platform

I had my board replaced under warranty, but since the 1 year lapsed this March, I won't be getting any  replacement for the board that I have now. Using the XFan 5 actually lowered the temperature of the processor by about 8 degrees. The hard drive temp also went down by about 2 degrees. That's saying something, because Intel Atom boards have passive cooling on the processor and a tiny little fan on the chipset heatsink. The hard drive on my system is mounted away from any other fan. With the XFan 5 mounted some 2 inches away, the airflow is at least helping cool down the drive.

Running the fan caused dust to accumulate at the mounting brackets nearest the side panel vent holes. Dust was also starting to carpet the lower panel of the case. I busted out the cush-grip Stanley mini-screwdrivers, popped open the side panel and took the computer outside. I took out the mounting bracket and dusted the insides with a clean old paintbrush. I couldn't get to the chipset heatsink though I managed to clean the fan on it. One of those mini-vacuums would have been usefull in those tight places.

I did try to connect the XFan 5 to the extra fan connector on the motherboard. The XFan 5 has both a molex and 3-pin connector. Using the 3-pin connector lets the motherboard control the speed of the fan. Alas, the connector wouldn't go in because a small capacitor was right beside the connector on the board. Talk about being at the wrong place. Oh,well. Maybe full throttle on the XFan 5 isn't so bad. It isn't noisy or anything, after all. After I finished dusting it off, I re-routed some of the cabling and put it back together again.

It'll be at least another month or two before I get cleaning it again. Since there aren't any new upgrades I can squeeze in, I won't have a reason to open the case and discover horrific dust bunnies being born. I'm running out of disk space, though. that's been gnawing at me for a few weeks now. I want to get a 1TB drive, but with the XFan 5 in there there isn't space for a 2nd hard drive. Add to that, the D945GCLF2D only has 2 SATA ports. So it's a hard drive upgrade or a mini-vacuums in the next few months - LOL.

Via And NVidia Launch Mini-ITX 2.0

As was previously announced, Via and Nvidia officially came out and formally presented their partnership to produce the most affordable Vista-capaable platform. PC Perspective ran a story with in-depth information on the expected performance of the upcoming platform. They even posted a picture of a sample board, with an 8600GT strapped on to the PCI Express slot. Digitimes also ran a story on the announcement, highlighting the two's support of Mini-ITX 2.0. Intel's entry to the Mini-ITX niche has been observed as "limiting", having a very basic graphics subsystem and no provisions for upgrades. Seeting up an official spec for Mini-ITX 2.0 is seen by analysts as Via's play to keep its dominance over it's Mini-ITX turf while attracting more of the mainstream market.

Mini-ITX 2.0 seeks to up the ante by allowing consumers more mainstream expansion choices while maintaining the 17 x 17 cm form factor. In more detail, 2.0 will require the following feature set on boards:

• Processor: High-performance, power efficient x86 processor, such as the VIA Nano processor;
• Memory: Support for minimum 2GB DDR2 SDRAM;
• Graphics: DirectX 9.0 integrated (IGP); DirectX 10 through an add-in card;
• Display: 1 VGA port for LCD display; 1 HDMI port on add-in card;
• HD Audio: 3 Audio jacks for up to 6-channel surround sound;
• Broadband Connectivity: 1 Gigabit Enthernet port;
• Storage: 2 Serial ATA II slots + 1 IDE (PATA) slot;
• Peripheral Connectivity: Minimum 4 USB2.0 ports;
• Expansion: 1 PCI Express 16-lane slot;
• Size: 17cm x 17cm;
• O/S Support: Microsoft Windows Vista; Microsoft Windows Vista Premium (through an add-in graphics card); Microsoft Windows XP, and major Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Suse Linux and gOS;

When compared to the current Mini-ITX offerings of Intel, these specifications are a boon for anyone seeking a low-cost solution for multimedia and gaming on the Vista platform. Clearly this strategy can open up a niche for Via in the mainstream market, opposite Intel's pushing the Atom platform (and their other Mini-ITX offerings) in the low-power niche that Via traditionally dominated. Now, only the market will say who's strategy will eventually pay off. Who gains more is will eventually be dictated by the consumers. I'm hedging my bets on Via gaining a bit on the mainstream market.

Eee Box - Asus' Eee PC Comes to Desktops

I read about the Eee Box from three articles several days ago. CNET, ZDNet and HotHardware all had articles pointing to emerging details about the Eee Box. Even Gizmodo had a few words to say about it. I must say it reminds me of the HP Blackbird, but that is altogether a different kind of machine.

Anandtech had a much more exhaustive feature on it. They benchmarked a demo unit. The article established the price point and corresponding configurations. The Anandtech article mentioned that all three units will b powered by an Intel Atom processor clocked at 1.6GHz. There will be a $269 base unit that will come with 1GB of RAM, an 80GB 2.5" laptop hard drive and Linux pre-installed. A Windows XP unit with the same spec will retail for $299. A third variant with Linux pre-installed will have the same $299 price tag as the XP unit but will have double the RAM and hard disk space. Goes to show how much you're really saving when you go for Linux ;-)

No fresh news is forthcoming, though. But I'll be watching.

Intel Atom on the Desktop

Word spread of the desktop implementation of the Atom platform when Engadget broke the news about the D945GCLF. It was followed by a post on Ars Technica and a blog post about the board being available in the UK. This will be the first desktop motherboard to support the Intel Atom. As I had posted a few months back, I knew that an Atom-based solution for desktops was very possible. Intel positioned itself well in the ultra-low power PC segment with it's introduction of the Intel D201GLY late last year and the Intel 201GLY2A earlier this year. It was only natural that it would tout its initial success with another low-power solution based off its newer technology.

The D945GCLF is already available for sale from TranquilPC for US$82. Complete systems based on the board can also be purchased from Tranquil PC and range from the US$358 T7 to the US$558 T2e.

Below are 3 videos that'll get you acquainted with the D945GCLF :









Update: The boards are starting to show up for sale online. Saw a listing on eBay for one. This one is being sold for $79.95

MSI Wind Pricing Pits it Against HP Mini-Note

It may seem a little late to link to this post on Laptop Mag about the MSI Wind. But hey, I happen to think that this is an exciting product that deserves a place on this blog. Laptop Mag shares details of its interview with Andy Tung, MSI’s Director of US Sales. Tung shares some of his insight on how the Wind will compete in a market currently dominated by the Asus Eee PC.

I think they actually recognize the lead that Asus has, impacting MSI's decision to launch only the 10-inch version of the Wind in the US. I'm also of the opinion that it doesn't compete with the ASUS Eee PC 20G (8.9" Screen, 900 MHz Intel Mobile CPU, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB Solid State Drive) directly, but rather with pricier HP Mini-Note. The specs tell the story, and Laptop Mag supplies the MSI Winds specs on this page.

The Wind has a zippier 1.6 GHz Atom processor than the ASUS Eee PC's 900 MHz Celeron. It also supplies an 80GB hard drive that's plenty when compared to the ASUS' 20GB. So it really does aim to shoot at the HP Mini-Note. Versus the HP Mini-Note, the Wind trades you a faster Intel processor for less storage (the HP Mini-Note has a 120GB drive). MSI also knocked a few dollars off by bundling Suse Linux' enterprise version with the unit.

In the Philippines, the MSI Wind lists for price of Php 21,999.00 on one local shop's online pricelist. I'm actully waiting for an unboxing event from @adelgabot any day now.

Isaiah, Where Art Thou?

A lot of news recently about Via's other products(most recently, its latest Pico-ITX board), but nary one about Isaiah-based products. Most of articles about the Isaiah have to do with conjecture at this point. No product announcements of any sort. That's opposed to Intel's Atom, with a few final products already announced and waiting to be launched. One of them, MSI's Wind was already launched in some countries, AFAIK. No announcements have been made of any Isaiah-powered product that will launch in the next few weeks.

When will they launch an updated Zonbu Mini Desktop with Isaiah in it? Any products that will compete with say the likes of the MSI Wind? Or at least a Via Artigo powered by the Isaiah chip? I'm waiting, still.

Via Isaiah, Intel Atom Benchmarked

Engadget linked to a translated German site showing that the Via Isaiah edged out Intel's Atom in benchmarks they performed. Now, these results may seem slanted towards making Isaiah look good, but bear in mind that these tests performed were limited to ALU and FPU benchmarks. One CPU is bound to get an edge over the other depending on how the internal instructions of the chips handle math and so forth. I guess every geek out there who has staked an interest in these low-power processors is waiting for a more conclusive set of benchmarking, but that'll come in time. These chips aren't as widely available as we'd like, after all. Most of the samples (for both) have been sent to manufacturers, OEM's and ODM's. As the market churns out UMPCs, mobile phones and sub-notebooks using these 2 processors, more extensive benchmarks can be performed. I eagerly await for that to come.

Here's a screenshot of the result from the benchmarking they performed: