The Rise of the UltraThin Notebook
Mobility is the ultimate challenge for consumer technology. Shrink technology with known challenges without making it utterly unusable. Craft into new, small, sturdy, affordable gadgets that make life better. There are mobility trends which I believe show promise while others may leave consumers disappointed. Two of my favorites are the remarkably thin and powerful UltraThin notebook and the increasingly powerful full size notebook.
At CES 2010 computing and mobility continued to converge, and a new class of notebook gained moment. It’s called an UltraThin notebook. An UltraThin notebook based on Vision Technology from AMD combines much of the performance and capability of a full sized notebook or desktop PC in a slim and portable notebook PC. At CES, Lenovo introduced the first ever commercial AMD-based Lenovo laptop, the ultra-thin ThinkPad X100e, featuring VISION Pro Technology. Lenovo joins the ranks of HP, Dell, Toshiba, MSI, Acer, and ASUS, in introducing ultra-thin notebooks based on AMD Vision technology.
UltraThin notebooks based on Vision Technology from AMD have multi-core processors based on our latest architecture for balanced performance and multi-tasking capability. They have surprisingly powerful and industry leading integrated graphics capabilities, great for vivid HD video playback on your HD monitor or screen, the stunning interface of Windows 7, and casual gaming. Many also include HDMI video ports for a completely digital flow from your notebook to your big-screen TV for playing HD movies, watching online video, or enjoying family photos and home video. They also may come with Windows 7 Home Premium or Enterprise, enabling you to have the full Windows 7 Experience. Take a look at some of the latest UltraThin notebooks from Hewlett Packard in this video where I discuss the features and capabilities of today’s UltraThin notebooks.
AMD’s Simon Solotko Outlines the Features and Capabilities of UltraThin Notebooks
At CES mobile computing was a hot topic as AMD’s CMO Nigel Desseau joined executives from Microsoft, Lenovo, Intel, and enTourage discussing “Netbooks: Here to stay or passing fancy.” Nigel asserts that form factors should not be our focus, but rather “does it solve their problems?” The emergence of smaller, portable devices came as 2009 marked rapid growth in netbook sales and major debates on their capabilities and their limitations.
UltraThin notebooks based on Vision Technology from AMD are designed to be significantly more powerful than today’s “netbooks” and I worry that netbooks which typically provide a fraction of the capability that people expect may have a limited useful life. In Nigel Dessau’s blog he points out that according to research group NPD, 60% of consumers who purchased a netbook thought it would have the same performance as a notebook. In general, netbooks lack the performance necessary to play back high definition video. They often lack the capability to have a fluid web browsing experience, unable to meet the demands of web technology such as Adobe Flash. In addition, netbooks which employ Windows 7 Basic have typically shown a lack of ability to multi-task in the way that PC users have become accustomed to.
As applications become more powerful, I want more capability and potential from notebook, not less. I want a notebook that is slimmer, faster, with a great keyboard and large, bright screen. I want to enjoy the upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate with all of their video playback and multi-tasking features and capabilities. With an UltraThin notebook, I have those capabilities in a slim, nicely designed notebook.
The award winning DirectX 11- capable models in the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series continued to turn heads at CES with the ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card selected as an Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering Award winner. At CES 2010 AMD brought similar state-of the art graphics capability to a broad range of notebooks. AMD kicked off a strong start to the year with the launch of the DirectX11-capable models in the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series of graphics chips. With the introduction of these first DirectX 11-capable mobile processors, notebooks can power vivid gaming and multi-media performance. ATI Stream technology will accelerate a new class of specifically-enabled multi-media tasks on notebooks utilizing a combination processor and graphics technology. With ATI Stream technology-enabled applications, you may edit video with accelerated video rendering with Cyberlink PowerDirector, speed web browsing with accelerate Adobe Flash, and accelerate stunning visuals with Microsoft DirectCompute.
AMD has a number of exciting innovations for mobile computing ahead, improving the performance of mobile solutions while increasing their usefulness and performance. As we bid farewell to CES 2010, we’re looking forward to continue building amazing, vivid mobile experiences in decade ahead.
Simon Solotko is a Senior Advanced Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied
Do any come with Linux? Another point: netbooks running Linux are extremely capable. Perhaps the problem you’re running into is the OS. My laptop is now an Asus EEE 901 running straight Ubuntu. The main limitation is Adobe’s Flash implementation and how much it sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Playing back 1024×600 Theora video works smoothly.
Joseph,
While I doubt we will see mainstream Vision notebooks with Linux in N.A. I think we are sure to see ODM solutions and Linux employing the same platform tech in non-US markets. Catalyst is maintained for LINUX up to the current 10.2 version. For many users buying a new notebook Windows 7 is the default path; which is fine in my view; I lean toward the bleeding edge but I have been very happy with my Windows 7 experience on VISION notebooks.
Simon.
Perhaps you could have a conversation with the Linux vendors (e.g. System76 and ZaReason); it’s hard to find AMD solutions there, for better or for worse (Intel’s video chips are good enough for non-GPU-intensive work and they Just Work on Linux, thanks to Intel hiring several core Xorg devs and letting them go to town. I understand that AMD has a few Xorg developers as well, so I hop that this situation will change! Perhaps a conversation with these Linux vendors will help me be able to get my hands on AMD hardware.
Although the Windows is clearly the “default path” for so many, due to a wide variety of reasons, it just doesn’t work for me. It’s unfortunate that AMD doesn’t have a netbook solution with Vision; AMD netbook + Vision + Linux could be a very very powerful combination.