Notebook based on AMD’s Second Generation Ultrathin Platform

It’s real easy to describe the 2nd generation ultrathin design: Take the 1st generation, give it a second CPU core and take nearly the performance of the first generation’s discrete card, shrink it and place it into the chipset decreasing energy consumption.  Oh yeah, and add sprinkles of VISION Technology.  Easy, right?  Don’t tell the engineers I said that.

Specs for MSI notebook based on AMD’s 2nd Generation Ultrathin Platform

• CPU: AMD Athlon Neo X2 Dual Core Processor L335 at 1.6 GHz.
• GPU: ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
• Display: 12″ at 1366×768 resolution with HDMI for 1080P bliss and VGA port out

• RAM/HDD/Optical: 2GB (dual channel)/160GB/None
• Memory Slot: SD/SDHC/MMC
• Networking: Bluetooth, Gig-E, and BGN wireless
• 3 USB ports
• 1.3 MP Webcam

Size Matters

The best way to do a size comparison is to compare it to something someone may be familiar with.  Below are comparisons to a BlackBerry Bold and an MSI U100 Netbook.

MSI notebook based on AMD’s 2^nd Generation Ultrathin platform next to a BlackBerry Bold

MSI U100 Netbook next to MSI notebook based on AMD’s 2nd Generation Ultrathin platform

MSI U100 Netbook on top of an MSI notebook based on AMD’s 2nd Generation Ultrathin platform

HD Video Playback-Bring It On

The MSI ripped through HD video off of the web from YouTube HD as well as Hulu HD (to my surprise).  I also played HD files from my Sony Webbie (1080P/30FPS) and Kodak ZI6 (720P/60FPS) inexpensive HD palmcorders and it didn’t even break a sweat.  I plugged an external Blu-Ray drive and two movies with Cyberlink 8, “I Am Legend” and “Speed Racer”, and I never saw CPU utilization go above 25%.  Add this to the ability to project externally at 1080P video to my HDTV along with high-fidelity audio over the HDMI port and cable and I was real happy.

Games- Not Sweating the Small Stuff

Like the AMD 1st generation ultrathin platform, the 2nd generation ultrathin platform can (of course) play mainstream games well like the Sims and Spore, but even the more hard-core games (albeit at low settings) like Left 4 Dead. I must caveat by saying that if you consider yourself a gamer, go for a system that has a higher end GPU like the higher end ATI Radeon HD 3000 or HD 4000 series.  But if you play games but don’t consider yourself a gamer, no need to worry, you get a real ATI-branded graphics capability, not a generic brand in many systems.

Web Browsing- Flash Eater

I already described how this MSI notebook tore through YouTube HD and Hulu HD so why bring up anything else?  Well, it’s called Flash and it’s the basis for a ton of web sites and it chews up inordinate amounts of power.  Try this test- open up task manager to see how much CPU is being used then go to americanidol.com and then disney.com.  If you have one of those underpowered machines, you know what happens.  If you have a notebook based on the 2nd generation ultrathin platform, you get a good experience where the CPU isn’t pegging at 100%.

Conclusion

The 2nd generation ultrathin platform turned out exactly as I would have hoped: lighter, cooler, and more powerful to enable consumers to have an even better experience than they did with the first generation.  No-compromise computing in a thin package at a good value.  As “Active” and “Resting” battery life benchies go, the lab is working on those and I will update my blog when I get them.  Until then, let me know if you have any questions.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Ultrathin laptops have been the talk of the press for about 6 months now, but the reality is that many laptops that will ship in 2009 will likely have 14″ or larger displays and not be ultrathin. Why? Many consumers prefer the full-featured nature of those notebooks with their larger displays, integrated optical drives, larger keyboards, expandability and for the most part, the ability to crank more quickly through software.  That’s where AMD’s newest full-featured platform comes in with all its entertainment goodies with VISION.  I got the chance to take a drive in a new MSI C-Series notebook based on the 2009 AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform (codename “Tigris”), and it had a few tricks in store I MUST share.

Tigris-based MSI Notebook Specs

• CPU: AMD Turion^TM II X2 Dual Core Mobile Processor M640 at 2.6 Ghz.
• GPU: ATI Radeon^TM HD 4200 Graphics
• Display: 16″ 16:9 at 1366×768 resolution
• Video out: HDMI and VGA port
• Keyboard: Full-size with full number pad
• RAM/HDD/Optical: 4GB/300GB/DVD-RW
• Memory Slot: SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro
• Networking: Bluetooth, Gig-E, and B/G/N wireless
• 1 E-SATA port/USB combo port
• 2 USB ports (3 if you count combo)
• ExpressCard 34 slot
• Webcam (1.3 MP) and microphone

Video Encoding- A Giant Leap

The most amazing and new feature of this Tigris-based notebook for me was the GPU-assisted video transcoding.  Quite simply, video transcoding is changing the format of a video to be played on another device.  One example is taking a family video on an HD camera and encoding it to play on an iPod or iPhone.

Of the 15 videos I tested, when I was using the GPU, I got nearly twice the performance or the time was nearly cut in HALF! Your mileage will vary with video type of course and I have seen published numbers of even higher scores converting to a PSP.  You can see a video of this in action here.

This is accomplished through the graphics card’s ATI Stream Technology and using the ATI Stream-enabled Cyberlink Espresso software application.

Video Playback- Reality is King

The “Tigris” platform has taken the video playback capabilities of its predecessor and placed it on steroids.  Not only do you get the HD video offload capabilities, which means lower CPU utilization and heat, but now the visual quality is greatly enhanced.  The features are described in super-geek terms like “dynamic contrast”, “flesh tone enhancement”, “HD color vibrance”, but it basically means that whites are brighter, blacks are richer, skin tones look more realistic, and the colors look better.  I noticed the differences when I connected the Tigris-based MSI notebook to my 1080P flat screen TV.

A couple of other cool video features that I thought were useful were video upscaling and Blu-ray PIP acceleration.  Video upscaling takes lower resolution videos like 400×240 and converts them to look better when shown on a larger screen (e.g.  1920×1080).  Here is a nice example here.  Blu-ray PIP acceleration allows you to watch a Blu-ray enabled movie (with PIP) with much lower CPU utilization, which results in less heat and noise.

AMD’s Ian McNaughton has done a fine job in his blog drilling down on key video features.

Games- Plow through Mainstream

Like video, the “Tigris” platform has taken the gaming capabilities of its predecessor to the next level.  While we would recommend to those who would consider themselves “gamers” a full discrete card, the ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics didn’t disappoint.  In fact it impressed me more than I thought it would.

I started off with a simple 3DMark 06 test and was surprised at the 1,800 base score I achieved, particularly with last year’s 2008 AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform (codename “Puma”)  coming in at around 1,500.  Why?  The ATI Radeon HD 4200graphics are based on the RV620 core, a step ahead of the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics based on the RV610 core.

Forget benchies a second, I wanted to try out a few games that a user would probably play on this system.  So I was forced to try some mainstream games: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Sim City Societies, Ghostbusters, Sims 3, and X-Men Origins Wolverine.  I had a good experience on all of them with decent frame rates and resolutions.  For fun I loaded Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty World at War, and Tom Clancy’s Hawx.  Sure, take down the res and some of the eye candy; just the fact that they were playable on integrated graphics is a feat in itself.

One final feature I must point out is the “Tigris” platform’s support of Direct X 10.1 from Microsoft, currently the latest graphics technology available until DirectX 11 arrives sometime next month.  It allows either better looking games or better performance.  While I didn’t personally run these FPS scores the lab did, and on higher end games with some eye candy on the ATI Radeon HD 4200 drove HAWX at 1024×768 at 25FPS, Battleforge at 1280×1024 at 24FPS, and Stalker: Clear Sky at 30 FPS, while the competition either crashed or had worse than a third the performance and experience.

Why would any consumer buy a system with generic or dated graphics?  Beats me.

Thin Is In: Tigris-based MSI Notebook  next to the MSI notebook based on AMD’s Second Generation Ultrathin Platform

Conclusion

For that full-sized, full-featured mobile experience, I was impressed with the MSI system based on the “Tigris” platform.  Like I said above, the video encoding quantum leap was amazing and just shows how powerful the combination of the GPU and CPU working together can be.  Increasing the stakes on the video playback side was a treat and fun to try out and see all those features.  Finally, with support for Direct X 10.1 technology from Microsoft and the ability to play real games and of course mainstream games, the system should keep all the mainstreamers happy and surprise even some gamers.  Now that’s VISION.  Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Observations

• 23% increase over the prior two weeks in the number of SKUs advertised with battery life.  (34 to 42 SKUs) 23 SKUs I observed advertised battery life or inference to it during the week of 8/10/09, and 19 the week of 8/17/09.   (See raw data at very end of blog.)
• 2X increase in the number of ways battery life is being advertised.
  • Four different ways observed from weeks of 7/27 and 8/3:
    • “up to X hours, Y minutes”
    • “up to X hours” (no minutes)
    • “X+ hours” (no “up to”)
    • “X cell battery for longer performance” (adds concept of battery cell)
  • Five NEW ways battery life was described or inferred to the consumer weeks of 8/10 and 8/17 in addition to those listed above:
    • “up to X hours of battery life that will last in class all day” (adds idea of all day computing)
    • “X  cell battery” (no information on what this means)
    • “X cell battery will give you up to X hours of battery life”
    • “X cell Li-ion battery” (no battery life claim and introduces battery type)
    • Graphic with icons, small description, but no data.

    

• Still in these advertisements there is still only one battery life measurement being advertised.  This is like buying a car and only seeing the “up to 52 MPG,” even though you would never realize that gas mileage in city driving.  Also, it’s like advertising battery life for a mobile phone and only listing “up to 300 hours battery life”.  (See raw data at very end of blog.)
• Apple notebooks never list battery life, only Windows-based PCs.
• Two retailers provided disclaimers for the advertised battery life information.  (See raw data at very end of blog.)

Conclusion

Net-net, more notebooks are advertising battery life or inferring it, and the different ways of describing it to the consumer has more than doubled.  Some questions:

• Do nine different ways to describe battery life help set clear battery life expectations? I will let you be the judge.
• Do disclaimers or explanations behind the metric help increase awareness? Do they deserve broader application? I will let you be the judge.
• Does one single measurement of battery life help tell the whole story? I will let you be the judge.

If you would like to read more about the battery life discussion, please find the links below:

Nigel Dessau’s blogs on battery life

Pat Moorhead’s (me) blogs on battery life

FriendFeed page with select press articles

Improving Understanding of Notebook PC Battery Life Measurements

Let me know what you think!

NOTES:

Week of 8-10-09

Week of 8-17-09

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Buyers look at many variables in making their client decision (ie brand, reputation, system quality and reliability, post-sales service and support, energy efficiency, managability), one which is software performance.  One way purchase evaluators measure the software performance of the potential systems is through benchmark packages aka “benchmarks”. These are software packages that basically measure the software performance then use the results to compare different PCs being considered.

I wanted to poll the “community” of PC purchase evaluators in business and government to see what they use.  Sure, we have quantitative information and have face-to-face meetings with key commercial end users, but the “community” never ceases to amaze me with their insight and answers.  Please don’t let me down.

Each IP address can vote only once and you only get one choice.  I’ll post a real-time summary of the aggregate results – I won’t be identifying individual voters or their choices.

Thanks for the insight and any details on “why” you chose what you chose would be apprecuated in the comments section.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Week of 7-27-2009

Week of 8-3-2009

Observations

• 14 notebook SKUs I observed advertised battery life during the week of 7/27/09, and 20 SKUs I observed advertised battery life during the week of 8/3/09.

• In these advertisements there is still only one battery life measurement being advertised.  This is like buying a car and only seeing the “up to 52 MPG,” even though you would never realize that gas mileage in city driving.  Also, it’s like advertising battery life for a mobile phone and only listing “up to 300 hours battery life”.

• Battery life as I observed it is being advertised four different ways:
  • “up to X hours, Y minutes”
  • “up to X hours” (no minutes)
  • “X+ hours” (no “up to”)
  • “X cell battery life for longer performance”

• Only two retailers out of eight I observed provided disclaimers for the advertised battery life information.

During the holiday time frame, we hope and expect this situation to change. A few retailers have unofficially indicated that they are planning to adopt a “Min and Max” (aka guardrail approach) to notebook battery life communications.  Based on the lack of consistency I observed in the circulars, I expect this will be a very welcome change for consumers.

Above is a sample graphic that AMD has proposed for this guardrail approach.

If you would like to read more about the battery life discussion, please find the links below:

Nigel Dessau’s blogs on battery life

Pat Moorhead’s (me) blogs on battery life

FriendFeed page with select press articles

Improving Understanding of Notebook PC Battery Life Measurements

Let me know what you think!

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Main iPhone Information Page

When consumers navigate to the main iPhone page, about ¾ of the page down you see a link that says, “iPhone 3GS or Iphone 3G: Compare”.

Compare iPhones Page

Click this and you go to a comparison page of the iPhone 3G versus iPhone 3GS.  About ¾ down the page, you see a battery life comparison:

These seems like intuitive figures to provide a consumer, yet Apple is already operating in rarefied air in providing this much consumer information.  But wait, what about the details on what was tested, you ask?  Apple iPhone delivers, again.  When you click on the disclaimer (3) you are brought down to a line that says, “3) All battery claims depend on network configuration and many other factors; actual results will vary. For more details of iPhone performance tests for talk time, standby time, Internet use over 3G, Internet use over Wi-Fi, video playback, and audio playback, see www.apple.com/iphone/battery.html.”

Full Battery Life Performance Testing Disclosure Page

Click on the link in the disclaimer above and you are brought to a page that contains more battery life procedure testing than I have ever seen before. These 1,173 words of technical bliss scream detail.  Sure, someone could chose to pick at the way the testing was done, but you cannot complain about the detailed disclosure.  The page meticulously goes through the tests performed, the hardware used, and how it was done.

Who Cares?

We have made it very public and clear that AMD is striving to guide the PC industry to deliver better notebook PC battery life information for consumers.  Nigel and I have articulated the challenges and provided suggestions to this.  We expect some in the industry to adopt these, but some will sit on the sidelines.  To those who choose to sit I ask, how do you feel about better battery life information being disclosed on a $99 iPhone than a $799 notebook PC?  Industry, we can do better than the cell phone industry.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

As a reminder, MobileMark 2007 is now being advertised and merchandised in retail circulars across the US. This benchmark is developed by the Business Applications Performance Corporation (BAPCO).  (More background and our suggestions for more accurate battery life metrics can be found here, here, and here.)

Applications in MMO7 compared to consumer use

In my opinion, it is not credible to construct a consumer benchmark consisting primarily of applications that business people use. To demonstrate my point, take a look at the battery life benchmark applications now being used in consumer adverts.

These benchmarked applications inside MM07 include: Microsoft Project 2003 for project management, Microsoft Excel 2003 for calculation sheets, Microsoft Outlook 2003 for email, calendar and scheduling, Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 for presentations, Microsoft Word 2003 for word processing, WinZip Computing WinZip 10.0 for archive compression, Adobe Photoshop CS2 for manipulating and compressing images, Adobe Illustrator CS2 for manipulating images and Adobe Flash 8 for vector graphics and animation.

Do these look like your most commonly used consumer PC applications to you?  Here’s my personal list of most commonly used consumer applications as a starting point:

• Web browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Chrome or Internet Explorer. And with browsers come Google, Gmail, YouTube, Hulu, ESPN.com, Disney.com, etc.
• Music apps like iTunes or Windows Media player
• Video or movie playback for DVDs, Blu-ray or iTunes movies or TV shows
• Games like Spore, Sims, and Worlds of Warcraft

Like I said, you be the judge.

Application % weightings in MM07 compared to usage patterns

Even if we pretend for a moment that consumers don’t use web browsers, listen to music, watch videos or play games, and they primarily use the listed MM07 apps. Surely someone on the planet does that, right?

BAPCO has published MM07’s “distribution of measured application task times“, or in other words the apps the tested notebook was running 5-10% of the time when it wasn’t idling or resting 95-90% of the time.

Inside MM07, The “measured application task times” for Adobe Flash Creation is 33.6%, Adobe Photoshop CS2 is 21.8%, Adobe Illustrator CS2 is 16.7%, Microsoft Excel is 16.6%, WinZip 10.0 is 7.1%, Microsoft Word is 1.1%, Microsoft PowerPoint is 1.0%, Microsoft Project is 1.2% and Microsoft Outlook is 1.0%.

I ask, when you use your notebook, do you spend 72% of your time recoding Flash videos, manipulating and compressing pictures in Photoshop and Illustrator?   I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that that is not an accurate reflection of most of our usage profiles!

MM07 Applications compared to retail notebook software loads

One final aspect I would like to examine is the software preloaded on retail notebooks compared to the MM07 load. I also looked up the potential costs associated with a consumer adopting the MM07 software load if they bought it on their own.

I took what looked like popular notebooks and those which advertised battery life and compared their software load with MM07’s software load. I looked at five notebooks advertised in major Sunday circulars last weekend and here is what I found.

Granted this is a pretty limited sample, but as you can see above, there was 0% correlation between the MM07 software load and what is installed on these notebooks. Note: SKUs #1 and #2 did have a 60 day edition of MS Office Pro⁽¹⁾.  SKUs #3, 4, and 5 came with 60 day edition of MS Office Student Edition⁽²⁾.  Close but no cigar.

I then looked at what it would cost a consumer to buy the latest and greatest MM07 updated apps.  Here is what it could cost at retail:

As you can see above, it would cost the consumer approximately $2,701 at retail to load all of the updated MM07 applications.

Conclusion

My goal was to compare MobileMark 2007 (MM07) application selection and activity distribution and compare that to a consumer’s behavior. I showed the following:

1) MM07 Productivity is utilized in consumer facing advertisements to indicate comparative notebook battery life.
2) MM07 Productivity tested applications do not contain a single web browser, music app, video playback app, or game.
3) 72% of MM07’s application usage comes from Flash video encoding and photo manipulation and compression in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
4) MM07 tested applications have a 0% correlation between what is pre-loaded on retail notebooks and are six years old on average. (Yes, I admit it was a small sample, but you get my point…)
5) If a user bought software representing the MM07 test suite, it could cost $2,701 at retail.

I ask you, do MM07 applications represent real world consumer usage behavior and purchase characteristics?  You be the judge.

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ loaded w/MS Works (word processor, spreadsheet, calendar) & 60-day trial of MS Office Pro2007 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher)

⁽²⁾ loaded w/MS Works (word processor, spreadsheet, calendar) & 60-day trial of MS Office 2007 Home & Student Edition (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote)

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

The facts about MM07 and notebook display brightness

MM07 requires the following (1): “The display brightness should be measured for a white screen while on battery and be set at the lowest possible setting, no lower than 60 nits.” One needs a nit meter and yes, we have a few of those in our labs.  :-)

So what is a nit?  Wkipedia defines a nit as a “candela per square meter.” Yes, that really helped me too.  Think of a “nit” as a unit of measure of brightness.

How does 60 nits compare to brightness of other home electronics?

I pretend to be a technically-capable business, strategy and marketing guy, which according to the engineers, makes me REAL dangerous.  You see, 95% is good enough for my trade, but for theirs, its 99.999% and I respect that.

So I wanted to know what 60 nits really related to, as I didn’t know nits from nuts.  You should have seen the look on the engineer’s faces when I asked them to borrow their nit meter. Chad, his real name J, showed me how to use the nit meter and instructed me how to use the nit meter and to make sure to have a white background on all devices.

I literally went around my house testing many of my home electronics and tested them without changing any settings outside shutting off “auto adjustment” on the phones which I am told is best practice.  I suppose I can call this my family’s “comfort setting” based on the setting my family and I actually use the devices.  So there is variation in room setting, light, etc. that dictates this.

Here are the test results:

Net-net, the lowest nit measurement I observed with my “comfort setting” was still 2.58X brighter than the MM07 brightness level of 60 nits on which notebook battery life is measured.

I then wanted to see how nits related to notebook screen brightness.  So I tested a few notebooks I had in my office to see what the “max nits” were when the screen was set to the highest setting.

As you can see from the figures above, the MM07 requirement was between 20-30% of the samples notebooks’ max screen brightness.

What notebook display brightness setting do consumers use?

Now, I know that a sample set of one doesn’t represent anything, and I’m far from normal, as my friends frequently tell me, but the results of my home survey were interesting – interesting enough to make me  real curious about what others  are doing with their screen brightness settings.

So last week I started Tweeting and Facebooking questions to real users on what is the display brightness setting on which they place their notebooks. I received qualitative and quantitative responses.  Yes, I know, this isn’t a 17-country, global discrete choice, double blind methodology survey followed by focus groups, BUT there were telling, directional  indicators.

Quantitative: I wasn’t expecting anything like the response I got from Neowin respondents.  They actually placed a poll on their community website asking the question, “What brightness level do you run your notebook?“  Over 1,100 community members voted in a few days, and according to Shane Pitman, Editor-in-Chief, “Polls require a member account, and to be logged in to said account. Provides accountability, keeps people from voting multiple times.”

The results were overwhelming in that 75% of the Neowin community member respondents kept their notebook display brightness between 61% and 100%.  Somehow, I don’t think that fits into the 60 nit range.

Qualitative: These responses were as valuable as the quantitative as they gave insight into “why” they did this.  Some comments gave insight into the folks who use their notebooks at very low display settings.  I didn’t use their Twitter names to protect the innocent. :-)

Here was the response to my question, improper grammar and all, “Research question: what display brightness do you run your notebook at? (Please RT)”.  Here is just a sampling of public tweet responses.

• “On the machines I see, normally I prefer to have them fully backlit with the slider up to around 75% or so.”
• “I run my laptop at maximum brightness unless the battery is really low, or I have an external screen. “
• “Now running MBP 15.4″ 3.1 at 75% brightness with auto adjust turned ; but was at 100% without auto adjust til you asked! “
• “90 – 100% brightness, 90% of the time. “
• “depends entirely on my battery level and surroundings. “
• “Research question: what display brightness do you run your notebook at? (Please RT). I run full bright 95+% of the time. “
• “oh sorry , 100% unless I’m running low on battery, where I bring it down to a minimum, I’m guessing 50%, but thats rare”
• “usually around 60-70%”
• “i don’t use them much, mainly desktop, but i either have brightness at full or minimum: latter at night and if battery low”
• “When running laptop on battery, i set brightness to 25-40%, when plugged in -100%.”
• “100% brightness. Left default setting (and I appreciate it that way… old eyes). “
• “slammed up to full when possible, monitor screens vary though”
• “mine is usually as bright as I can make it. I hate dim screens. “
• “max brightness notwithstanding battery impact. “
• “I lower my screen brightness to the lowest, usable level that’s comfortable. It’s all about the battery life. “
• “Agreed…I think mine is usually around 30% or so. “
• “it varies by location due to lighting levels. Usually around 30% or 40%. Never > 50% when on battery. “
• “ME: 90 to 100% on AC, about 50 % on battery when I’m watching movies and about 20 to work. “

I also received some really interesting responses related to interpretation, explanations, tools and resources on brightness after asking about 60 nits. Got to love social media.

• “not all that hard. Need 800+ nits to read screens in direct sun, 30-150 for night highway signs: http://bit.ly/cjxJB“
• “60 nits = table in an office with 300 lux illumination: http://bit.ly/FvoKe BTW sRGB calibration target = 80 nits. “
• “oh and here’s a Kodak guide on how to use a digital camera and gray card as an ad-hoc nit estimator: http://bit.ly/1IMLK3“

You be the judge

I titled this blog, “MM07, 60 Nits, One Nit-picker and you” and now I ask you, am I just nitpicking? I ask you to make that decision for yourself.  I have described a few things:

• First, MM07 test requires a 60 nit or higher display brightness. To maximize battery life benchmarks, systems are set at the minimum allowable 60 nit level. This setting is thereby integrated into this battery life benchmark that is then used in consumer advertisings.
• Secondly, worst case, the display brightness of many electronics inside my home at my family’s “comfort setting” is 2.58X more than the MM07 nit setting requirement. Based on the small set of notebooks I tested, MM07’s 60 nits equated to around 20-30% of the max notebook brightness. Your mileage will vary, maybe.
• Third, my unscientific querying last week says many classes of users crank their screen beyond 61% and many at max brightness. Yes, I said max. Some self-selected a lower brightness setting to conserve battery life.

Nuff said, you be the judge.   Agree, disagree, I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

(1) MobileMark 2007 White Paper, March 2008, Revision 1.0. 4.2.1 “Display brightness”

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

We want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to prevail because the truth is on AMD’s side. 

What if you were knee-capped?

As we said from the beginning, we do not seek special treatment from competition regulators in any way, shape or form. We crave a fair fight. If the other guy tries to injure you, preventing you from making it onto the field of play, that doesn’t strike me as fair (or legal).

I don’t recall anyone ever blaming Nancy Kerrigan for getting assaulted with a metal club by those who wanted to put an end to a level playing field in Olympic skating. Should Nancy have just accepted her clubbing as something that “goes with the territory” in an ultra-competitive endeavor, as some seem to indicate AMD should? Did Nancy demand special treatment when she went to the authorities? You know the answers already. As the victim, of course Nancy wasn’t seeking special treatment at all. She sought justice, pure and simple.

We may not have had our knees bashed in with a metal pipe, but AMD was no less injured in a business sense, and we are entitled to seek justice for that. Joe consumer was robbed of a full spectrum of marketplace choice by Intel. Sadly we cannot go back in time and undo the damage that was done to our business, and we will never know what the state of play may have been today if not for Intel’s monopoly abuses. 

Was there a cover-up?

One thing that was found by European investigators that appears to have gone under-reported is that Intel apparently went to “great lengths to cover up its anti-competitive actions“. Let me ask you this: If Intel truly believes that it has done nothing wrong why would they go out of their way to deliberately hide evidence? What’s the truth? 

Obama, the innovators and the entrepreneurs

I’ve also seen speculative pieces regarding the Obama administration’s apparent get-tough stance on antitrust, and what that may mean for Silicon Valley. I argue that any fear and loathing about what might come to pass is premature, and also misplaced. Am I an expert in this field? No. But as a technologist working for a company that innovates on the bleeding edge, do I have an informed opinion? Yes.

Only time will tell how much the Obama administration is able to help protect the economically suffering American consumer through encouraging vibrant competition. But I can say today with confidence that rather than fear or fight the change that is coming, I would encourage entrepreneurs to embrace it – because I am convinced that robust antitrust enforcement is the innovator’s best friend; perhaps the only friend they have in the dog-eat-dog world of the high tech industry.

Sane innovators and entrepreneurs will only expend the vast amounts of monetary and intellectual capital necessary to bring competitive products to the marketplace if they have a reasonable expectation of a fair return on their investment. In other words, a fair fight. 

Look at it from the other side- who in their right mind would dedicate the time, money, and everything else that goes along with a bet-the-business proposition if they knew going into it that their business’ world-beating product was most likely to be taken, boxed-up, and relegated to the top shelf in vast warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant. The answer, of course, is no one. 

My humble request

So if you really love technology and what it can do for people the way I do, I urge you to support any effort that gives innovators – both large and small – the confidence to create. Let these independent investigations into Intel’s business practices play out and let the truth speak for itself.  Japanese, Korean and now European competition investigators don’t have any skin in the AMD versus Intel technology game. They don’t care about us. They don’t prefer gaming on either an AMD rig or an Intel rig. All they care about is how the facts line up with their rule of law, in an effort to protect consumers.

And by that measure, Intel is “0 for 3″. As one prominent legal reporter so succinctly put it, “Even before this palpable pendulum shift, Intel’s legal arguments looked dicey. Now they’re beginning to look far-fetched.”

So what do you think?  Let me know and leave a comment and I will respond.

The Intel World View

“AMD needs to innovate, not litigate.” Also worded as, “When AMD has a product lead, it gains all the share it deserves.”

Here’s the way even my friend Kyle Bennett of HardOCP expressed it on Twitter:

Kyle’s primary audience who we love is the PC hardware enthusiast where small differences in performance may seem dramatic (as in, a car that goes zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds is 9 percent slower than one that does it in 5.0 seconds flat. Both are damn fast, but the discussion is focused on the 9 percent), it’s understandable that he would imply that all AMD is missing is “better processors”. But I can’t help but point out and appreciate that Kyle’s well-respected site Hard OCP has issued awards to AMD for both our AMD Phenom^TM II processor and ATI Radeon^TM HD 4000 Series graphics in the last 6 weeks alone – our hardware enthusiast products.

With others, the discussion goes like this: “Those who have the most competitive products gain share, those who don’t lose share.”   All things equal this could be true, but when there is law-breaking, and as the European Commission put it: “exclusive payments” and “pay to delay” tactics, the equation gets thrown out the window.

The Reality

This ruling from the European Union makes it clear that it doesn’t matter how much innovation AMD pours into its products. The better positioned the product, the more Intel uses its overwhelming position to illegally block or wholly shutdown customer segments and sales channels to AMD. The rewards AMD reaps from having clearly superior or differentiated products is broken into fractions of what they should be through Intel’s behavior. A healthy competitive environment should allow AMD to hone its focus and R&D spend to design and develop future innovative products and platforms, rather than distracting dollar and human resources into fighting Intel’s monopolistic practices.

But now let’s even put that aside.

Others new to this debate may ask: Even with Intel illegal behavior, does AMD have great products and technologies?

Standout Product Innovations So Far in 2009

In 2009 alone, AMD has introduced the world’s first 40nm and the world’s first 1 GHz graphics processors, created the affordable ultrathin notebook category, delivered a world-record setting desktop PC platform, and introduced the most energy-efficient quad-core server processor in our history. We feel these innovations stand tall in the industry, and have real value for their intended customer segments.

Let me provide another recent example in the notebook space where I believe AMD has earned the right to claim “most competitive product”.  Please, if you disagree, please let me know in the comments section and I will respond.

AMD creates the affordable ultrathin technology platform

If you recall, as the world fell in love with netbooks last year, we asked the question, “is this the best the industry can offer”?  Would consumers want a full PC experience with HD video, Blu-ray, larger display, and ability to play games… by spending a few more bucks?  Well, yes.  AMD’s platform technology for ultrathin notebooks codename “Yukon” was born and materialized with the award winning and game-changing HP Pavilion dv2 ultrathin notebook.  What did others say?

BusinessWeek: “The bottom line for mobility-minded buyers is that the need to choose between expensive executive ultralights and cheap but underpowered netbooks is nearly over.”

Tech Report: “Compared to the average Eee PC, the dv2 packs two thirds more
desktop area, double the hard drive capacity, four times the memory,
a faster CPU, and dramatically better graphics…and it allows the system to do things most netbooks can’t, such as play many recent games and high-definition video, including Blu-ray movies.”

If these appear cherry-picked then here are a full page of accolades on the HP dv2.

Hopefully this example in the notebook space shows that AMD has great products and others are saying it too. We’re creating product categories of unquestioned value to the consumer, Keep in mind, this is true even with Intel’s abusive monopolist practices determined by the EU.  I ask you to reject the line of thinking and spin Intel would like you to believe.  Do you agree/disagree? Let’s chat.

I believe competition is the “secret sauce” that drives innovation. That’s true in any industry, and it’s also true in life. Would the U.S. have put a man on the moon if not for Sputnik? Maybe, but there’s no question that the Space Race and attending accelerated pace of innovationwas fueled by very high stakes competition between the US and the former Soviet Union.

Goliath with brass knuckles

At AMD we live to compete and innovate, and it starts by asking questions like “What will it take to deliver the next-generation computing experience?” And while innovation with impact is our calling card, it’s more than fair to say that AMD also loves a good fight. But hopefully the world now knows that we’ve fight an enormous opponent that rigs the game to ensure AMD can never fully win fair and square.

Like Nigel said, competition investigators have for a third time (Japan, Korea, European Union) collected evidence showing that especially when AMD opens commanding product leads on Intel and we take those innovations to the marketplace, Intel uses bribery and coercive tactics to block those innovations. Whole AMD customer segments and sales channels are effectively shutdown by Intel.That’s Don Corleone type stuff, folks. That’s David versus Goliath, with Goliath packing brass knuckles on one hand and a brick-filled sock in the other.

The AMD Critic: “AMD should innovate, not litigate”

I’ve heard the Intel apologists say: “AMD should innovate instead of litigate.” If you doubt we fear an innovation fight with Intel or that  we can truly compete with Intel, remember that we have proven that we can out-innovate or remain competitive against Intel, a company with about 10x the resources. We are champing at the bit to attack an open, competitive marketplace that is no longer artificially manipulated by Goliath.

You may be sitting there saying, “OK Pat – that’s your opinion, and a biased opinion at that!” Fair enough. If that was opinion, here are 10 facts that should do some of the talking for AMD in terms of theinnovation chops we have under our roof:

Fact #1

Billions of financial transactions are conducted quickly and efficiently every day by major stock exchanges around the world on AMD-based servers.

Fact #2

All 50 Million Wii gaming consoles shipped to date run on AMD technology (ATI Hollywood GPU).

Fact #3

7 of the 10 fastest supercomputers in the world are powered by AMD processors.

Fact #4

AMD processors were trusted to power crash safety test simulations for almost 2 million new cars that hit the road in the US in 2008.

Fact #5

Realistic special effects powered by AMD technology have helped Hollywood amass more than $5.4 billion in worldwide box office revenue.

Fact #6

AMD processors in the Top500 supercomputer list account for more than 4.029 petaflops of computing power (that’s more than four thousand trillion calculations per second).

Fact #7

50% of Internet DNS traffic is efficiently and quickly routed via AMD-powered servers.

Fact #8

Musicians and producers who have collectively won 70 Grammy awards currently rely on AMD technology for their cutting edge digital music production.

Fact #9

Every month nearly 23 million travelers find their ideal trip using online travel services powered by AMD-based hardware.

Fact #10

AMD graphics and slot machine are a winning combination.  More than 75% of new slot machines in Vegas use AMD graphics to power their visually stunning imagery, and more than half of those machines also use an AMD CPU.

So to borrow from our corporate philosophy, I’m more than happy to combine these facts with our employees’ passion for innovation. And I’ve never felt better about the future of innovation than I do today.  What do you think?

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

I kindly asked the PR team to provide me with some of the reviews and headlines, and it appears that many agree with our assessments.

Here are the highlights, and I recommend visiting the sites to get the full download.  I have separated the reviews into the following segments: Blu-ray experience, HD video capabilities, gaming experience, content creation capabilities, and AMD and HP’s new category creation:

Blu-ray Experience

ComputerShopper: HP Pavilion dv2-1030us, John Delaney

• “We were also impressed with the system’s video-handling prowess; the ATI graphics did a good job of delivering smooth playback of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on Blu-ray.”

SlashGear: HP dv2 and Blu-ray preview, Steven Grady

• “The dv2 is running Vista Home Premium, and plays Blu-ray movies beautifully on the display. The dv2 has an HDMI port for making it easy to use the dv2 as your home Blu-ray player with your HDMI television…”

CrunchGear: HP’s new external Blu-ray driver is sleek as hell, Devin Coldeway

• “The Blu-ray drive that will be coming with the HP dv2 “ultra-slim” notebook is looking really nice. It’s shiny, gorgeous, and incredibly thin. I thought I better get some pictures of this sexy accessory up so you guys know how HP rolls with this new stylish line of not-netbooks-but-not-notebooks.”

HD Video Capabilities

Notebookreview.com: HP Pavilion dv2 Review, Jerry Jackson

• “If you want to connect your laptop to your HDTV and watch 1080p video, the dv2 can handle it.”

JKOntherun.com: HP dv2 on a Road Trip: First Impressions, Kevin Tofel

• “I mentioned HD video playback before. I decided to download and view some 720p content before closing out this post. Hitting up the Microsoft WMV HD Content Showcase, I downloaded the “Super Speedway” video; something I wouldn’t even bother doing with a netbook. I expected playback to be superb and the dv2 didn’t disappoint. It was a joy to watch: I couldn’t detect any stutter or dropped frames.”

JKOntherun.com: HPdv2 Battery Tests Illustrate Compromise of Power vs. Performance, Kevin Tofel

• “Of course, the intent and design of this device is to do just that: you can’t effectively enjoy high quality video on a netbook. And while you can watch high-def media on other notebooks at this price, they’ll generally weigh more and/or have a bigger footprint.”

Gaming Experience

TGDaily: The netbook-killing HP dv2, Rob Enderle

• “The product feels high quality and the graphics performance exceeds anything else short of a gaming box that I’ve had in this year.”

Notebooks.com: HP Pavilion dv2 Unboxed, First Impressions, Xavier Lanier

• “the Pavilion dv2 is the first notebook that’s based on AMD’s Yukon platform, which combines an Athlon Neo processor with ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 graphics. The result is a computer that can be used to watch high-definition video and handle some 3D games.”

SlashGear: HP dv2 and Blu-ray preview, Steven Grady

• “it has been promised to me that the dv2 will game with the best of them, thanks to the ATI graphics card. Fear 2, Call of Duty: World at War and others are said to run amazingly well on this tiny device, showing the capability of a good GPU paired with a less power-intensive processor.”

Notebooks.com: HP Pavilion dv2 Game Demo: Call of Duty World at War, Xavier Lanier

• “The HP Pavilion dv2 is an ultraportable notebook that’s affordable, but has enough graphics muscle that users can enjoy video games….”

Content Creation Capabilities

PC Magazine: HP Pavilion dv2 (1030us), Cisco Cheng

• “So how did the Neo processor fare against the Atom in actual testing? The dv2, with its Neo processor, showed its muscle in video encoding tests, outperforming the Atom-powered Asus 1000HE by 20 seconds and the Mini 12 by 1 minute, 18 seconds. It was the only one that completed Photoshop CS4 tests, finishing in 1 minute 49 seconds (the Dell 12 did not complete the test and the 1000HE’s resolution was too low to even run the test.”
• “In terms of raw horsepower, the Neo clearly has an advantage over Atom.”

Notebookreview.com: HP Pavilion dv2 Review, Jerry Jackson

• “If you want to edit high-resolution images in Photoshop while you’re on vacation, the dv2 can handle it.”

ComputerShopper: HP Pavilion dv2-1030us, John Delaney

• “Compared with other netbooks, the dv2 performed brilliantly, scoring a class-leading 1,261 on our Cinebench 10 benchmark, while the Atom-based Dell Inspiron Mini 12 and Asus N10Jc came in at 718 and 774, respectively.”

Creating the New Affordable Ultrathin Category

PC World: Netbook or Ultraportable: Which is Best for the Job?, James Martin

• “DV2 blurs the lines between netbook and ultraportable more than most portable computers. That’s just $120 more than a high-end HP Mini 2140 netbook, which can’t compare to the dv2’s more robust specs.”

TechNewsWorld: The Death and Rebirth of Silicon Valley, Rob Enderle

• “By creating a hybrid between a netbook and a notebook, the DV2 falls into an interesting product gap. It isn’t as small as a netbook, it is vastly less expensive than a small notebook, it has more performance than many notebooks have (let alone netbooks) and it still costs under US$750.”

JKOntherun.com: HP dv2 Runs the CrystalMark Benchmark Gauntlet, Kevin Tofel

• “The AMD Neo platform is squarely targeted between the netbook market and traditional notebooks. You can get traditional notebook performance in a near-netbook sized package: call it a more portable package than a standard notebook, but not as anemic as a netbook.”

ZDNet: HP Pavilion dv2: Netbook or Notebook?, Jennifer Bergen

• “If Goldilocks was in the market for a laptop, she might pick the new HP Pavilion dv2. It’s not too big, and not too small. It sits between the large and expensive notebooks, and the small-screened netbooks – it’s just right.”

TGDaily: The netbook-killing HP dv2, Rob Enderle

• “As it was designed to be, this is a product that falls within the price range of netbooks and provides capabilities that exceed many $2000 products.”

Notebookreview.com: HP Pavilion dv2 Review, Jerry Jackson

• “The HP Pavilion dv2 satisfies an important need that low-cost netbooks never could.”

Tom’s Hardware: HP Launches Pavilion dv2 Notebook for $749, Jane McEntergart

• “At $749 it’s more expensive than a netbook and more in the range of an ultra portable; a great option for those who’ve realized that a netbook won’t cut it when it comes to anything more than classes, business trips, Facebook or browsing.”

The feedback wasn’t perfect, and that’s expected, as some raised points of question about the dv2’s battery life and fan.

So, all in all, a very good showing for the HP dv2 in regards to the Blu-ray experience, HD video capability, gaming experience, and content creation capabilities; all in a new category created by AMD and HP. The affordable ultrathin. And it’s nice to know that we weren’t the only ones extolling the virtues of the dv2.  The best part about it is that AMD’s ultrathin platform roadmap only begins here, and it even gets better, in the form of the “Congo” platform planned for release in 2H09.  I will see you then!

Note: Blu-ray is optional

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Let me tell you about that.

I met up with AMD during my tenure at Compaq Computer Corp. starting in 1995. Back then, lots of PCs sold for as much as $2,000 and the idea of notebooks for consumers instead of just business people was new. AMD helped change the entire landscape on both those fronts and the market has never been the same.

I also fondly recall loving the ATI Rage^TM Pro graphics card. In fact it was at that time that Compaq actually soldered the ATI Rage Pro engine onto the motherboard [it was in fact the first motherboard-resident AGP graphics chip]. Soldering anything on a mobo back in the day was a huge commitment and vote of confidence.

In late 2000, I joined AMD and have called it home ever since.

I admire AMD for a lot of things, but three things come top of mind:

1. Integrity, the highest levels.

2. Putting customers first, sometimes seemingly at its own peril.

3. Defying the pundits and “just doing it”

#1 and #2 are reasonably self-explanatory so I will drill down into #3.  I will provide the “dialogue” as people may have heard it play-out many times before:

• 1990 Pundit: “You have the 386 mask set, but not the microcode. No way can you make a 386.”

But AMD did it.

• 1992 Pundit: “You don’t have the 486 mask set or the microcode. No way can you make a 486.”

But AMD did it.

• 1997 Pundit: “You have relied on Intel’s infrastructure this whole time so no way you can make a 7^th generation CPU with an AMD-based motherboard infrastructure. You are dead.”

But AMD did it.

• 1999 Pundit: “New and proprietary instruction sets from massive companies are the way to go. You are nuts if you think you can drive a 64-bit instruction set by yourselves. You will be dead.”

But AMD did it.

• 2003 Pundit: “No way you can get into the datacenter. You are just a consumer desktop CPU company. Get back in your box.”

But AMD did it.

• 2007 Pundit: “You’ve lost graphics technology leadership and you won’t ever get it back. The competition is too tough.”

But AMD did it.

So I hope I refreshed your memory banks on what pundits may have said, how AMD said “we can” and how AMD “just did it”.  I want to highlight that we didn’t do anything on our own without the support of our customers, their customers, and technology and infrastructure partners.

I am excited about AMD, our employees, and our future.  I am excited about what we plan to bring to our customers on cloud server computing and media-rich consumer usage models. Pundits will take shots and that’s okay, as it tends to motivate us and enhance the sweetness of our successes in the end.

Pundits laughed when Kennedy set his challenge to send a man to the moon and return him safely by the end of the 1960s. We like our moon-shots at AMD, too, and surprising the pundits again and again.

AMD, happy 40^th and I promise I will keep promoting the “we can” attitude and we’ll just do it.

Note: Nigel Dessau, CMO and SVP at AMD is also providing his unique blog perspective on the 40th anniversary here.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Can an ultrathin notebook be sophisticated, simple, and not cost an arm and a leg?  After using the new HP Pavilion dv2 for a few months, I would say, “yes”.  Since I did my first blog on it back in January I even found some new tricks with the HP dv2.  I was also amazed at how many ways the dv2 exceeded some of the specifications outlined in my “My Perfect Mini-Notebook”.  Finally, I was surprised how much more I could do with the dv2 when compared to some of the pricey $2,000 ultraportables.

HP dv2 (.9" thin) next to BlackBerry Bold

For The Record

I have a mixed family of systems from many manufacturers.  I use these to help with my day job. (No, I don’t blog or tweet for a living. J ) I also want to say that I have been immensely impressed with many of those $2,000 ultraportables on certain usage models like basic couch web surfing, writing emails, and social media sites.  Finally, I am not a mainstream user; I am a media geek and a mid-range gamer.  I do many things most non-geeks won’t do.

HD Video

• Blu-ray: My dv2 came with the optional Blu-ray drive.  It’s simple; plug the drive into one of the 3 USB ports, pop in a movie, the HP player pops up, and watch it. Some of the pricey ultraportables don’t even support Blu-ray or come at an immense price adder.

Blu-ray drive next to a Blu-ray case

• HD video off hard drive: I wrote earlier on the fun and implications of the new breed of inexpensive HD palmcorders.  Whether it’s the Kodak Zi6 or the Flip Mino HD, which capture video at 720P, or the Sony Webbie, which captures video at 1080, I can play these files back flawlessly on my dv2.*  I use Cyberlink 8 playback these files and my CPU utilization is around 35%.  In my personal experience at home with one of my ultraportables, CPU utilization sometimes ran as high as 75%.

Inexpensive HD Palmcorders at 720P or 1080P under $200

TV Connection

• Single HDMI cable: I connected my dv2 to my TV and got digital video and digital audio.  Why?  My family and I like to watch Blu-ray movies and Hulu together on a 60″ display, not 12″.  Many advanced users are doing this today and our research says more and more people are doing this.  Why?  It’s one cable and they can get content on their PC they can’t get on their TV.  Many of the current HDTV models even feature an HDMI port on the side panel to facilitate this usage model.

HP dv2's HDMI port for one cable digital video and audio

To accomplish this on some of the pricey ultraportables, a user could be required to buy additional cables and adapters, increasing cost and difficulty to setup.  Would your wife prefer one cable or five cables in the living room? 

Real Games

• ATI Radeon ^TM HD 3410 graphics: It’s generally understood that typical netbooks cannot play “real” J games well, and some say they aren’t intended to.  The dv2 can because it has discrete graphics that you might expect to find in a larger, more expensive notebook.  Not only could I play mainstream games well like WOW and Spore, but I could also play first-person-shooter PC games like Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty 4, albeit at lower settings than I could on an ATI Radeon^TM HD 4000 Series card.  The fact that I can even play these games is impressive.  Some of the pricey ultraportables have Intel integrated graphics that may struggle to effectively play real games at a level I prefer to play.   Ian McNaughton will be covering gaming and the dv2 in depth in a later blog.

3G Connectivity

• Integrated 3G: My HP dv2 came with 3G support capabilities, built-in!  All I needed to do was remove the battery, plug in my AT&T SIM card, run HP connection manager to authorize my card (one click) with AT&T, and I was surfing in my car (while my wife was driving, of course). Alternatively, with some of these pricey ultraportables, I needed to plug in a relatively large external dongle into the side USB port.

HP dv2's Built-in 3G

The alternative 3 G dongle, NOT Built-In

Memory Card Connectivity

• SD card: The dv2 has a built-in memory card slot for devices like digital cameras and video cameras.  It supports SD, MMC, MS/Pro, and xD.  I take my pictures and videos, pull out the SD card from my digital still camera or video camera, and transfer it to the dv2.  With some of the pricey ultraportables, you might need to buy an external SD card reader. By providing a built-in card reader at no extra cost, the dv2 may be able to save you time and money.

HP dv2's built-in memory reader

I like my expensive ultraportable for basic couch web surfing, writing emails, and social media sites.  For more sophisticated tasks, I prefer my HP dv2 ultrathin notebook over my expensive ultraportable.   It’s sophisticated in that it I can play HD videos and Blu-ray movies, play “real” games, and connect with 3G, yet it is simple enough to quickly connect what I want, when I want it, helping me save me time, hassle and even money.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that you may even be able to buy two HP dv2’s and some Blu-ray movies for the price of one of those expensive ultraportables?

* Standard HP dv2 screen resolution is 1280 x 800; 1080p playback is possible when connected to an external 1080p display.

I can assure you that no devious plot exists to mislead you. It really comes down to three simple factors.

#1: Measurements are best case: Like a car’s “highway miles per gallon” which gauges the best case (cruising at a sustained speed for an extended period without stop-and-go driving), notebook battery life is typically based on MobileMark® 2007. This benchmark primarily measures battery life while the notebook is doing nothing – not even wirelessly connecting to the Internet. A “city-driving” equivalent of notebook battery life doesn’t exist…yet.

#2: Different strokes for different folks: Notebook users are different; we all use notebooks differently, and therefore will see different battery durations.  Some watch HD web videos on YouTube, some may just do email, and some play more games than others. ALL which will mean varying battery life.  You can see this data from AMD here that shows the phenomenon.  This even shows that battery life under system use can even vary by component manufacturer.

#3: Battery life varies over time: The longer you own your notebook, use it, charge, and recharge, over and over again, the more the battery loses its effectiveness.  So theoretically, your longest battery life will be on the first day you crack open the packaging.  See all the people selling new batteries for old notebooks?  Some even say, battery life is variable with heat.

So what should a consumer like you do?

• Grade battery life on a “curve”, let’s say 60%. If the label says 10 hours, my guess is it’s probably only about 6 hours in real use.  (UPDATE: this isn’t always linear, so be very careful with this.)
• Ask your retailer and systems providers to provide the “city miles per gallon” or using the tried and tested cellphone analogy, “talk-time”. They all have web sites and when all else fails, you can ask them over Twitter.

I may have not added back 40% of your battery life, but hopefully you know why you only get 60% of it!

(This blog was originally published at the Technologizer web site. Updated with full blog June 8, 2009.)

It has been nearly two weeks since AMD engaged the community to ask for their feedback on how the industry should evolve notebook battery life metrics. I have received many questions on where folks can send their feedback and follow the discussion.

Below I have listed some key destinations for discussion.

AMD Blogs

• Nigel Dessau’s high-level notebook battery life blog : Objects in the Toolbar May Be Further Away Than They Seem
• Hal Speed’s detailed notebook battery life blog: There has to be a Better Way

Press and Community Discussions (sampling)

• Slashdot: AMD: ‘we’re not entirely honest’ about batteries
• Engadget: AMD proposes new laptop battery life metrics, Intel is like “whatevs”
• TweakTown: AMD wants to talk battery life with Intel
• The Inquirer: Intel: consumers not bright enough for discussion
• Chris Brogan: An Important Conversation About Conversations
• Icrontic: A Look at AMD’s daring Social media Strategy
• Hot Hardware: Why Are Notebook Batteries So Misleading?
• Wall Street Journal: AMD: Why No One Believes Estimates for Laptop Battery Life
• Tom’s Hardware: AMD: Let’s Revamp Laptop Battery Metrics
• PC Pro: AMD admits industry “not entirely honest” about battery life
• GadgetSteria: “We Lie so you’ll buy our products”
• Notebooks.com: Time for More Battery Life Metrics
• PC Authority: AMD: ‘we are not being entirely honest’ about battery life
• InformationWeek: AMD Proposes Better Battery Life Tests
• Technology Blog: AMD Wants to Revise Laptop Battery Metrics
• TechSpot: AMD calls for new battery measurement standard
• IT Pro: AMD executive admits the industry is “not entirely honest” on the subject of battery life
• Fudzilla: AMD tries to spark a “false battery-life” discussion. Intel doesn’t.
• Thinkpads: AMD Calls for new battery life standards
• The Independent: Why don’t batteries last as long as they’re supposed to?
• Uber.la: Battery Life: Does Anybody Really Care What Time It Is? – Until Their Laptop Goes Black?

Or, of course, you can use Twitter, but be sure to use the #batterylife hashtag so people can easily follow.  You can also follow the “notebook or laptop battery life” discussion on Twitter here.

In the next few weeks we will be organizing all of the inputs and will share these with you in an organized fashion. We will also be soliciting feedback from our customers. Until then, keep the conversation going! Unlike other major technology companies, we believe that blogs are good forums to have these conversations, and gauging from your responses, I think a great many of you agree.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

So if I am not the in-house “social media expert”, web guy, or IT guy, why do I care about our new blog platform the team is rolling out next week? Well, I am a strategy guy and social media has been invaluable to have real-time conversations with some real smart folks in the community. I have also used social media to create new relationships and make existing ones stronger. Plus it’s real time and productive, I love the efficiency of 140-character ideation.

So I am excited about some new features in our blogs we are rolling out for readers like you and authors like me. Here is a run-down of the feature highlights you should see next week.

For readers (You):

• Post rating - Ability to rate each post. You can tell me if you like the post or if you think it stinks.

• Polls – Tell us quickly what you think. Participating in polls helps us out, too.

• ShareThis – allows you to send a post to the social network of your choice.

• Look & feel – New look and feel that’s easier to read and navigate

I do a lot of hands-on research on smartphones. I do this for two reasons. First, I believe they are fast becoming one of the prevalent cloud clients, and second, they are fast becoming a popular device to consume video. AMD obviously is involved in building the cloud with the AMD Opteron^TM Processors but also conversion to make a video smartphone-friendly can take a tremendous amount of compute power, and ATI Radeon ^TM HD 4800 series graphics and AMD Phenom ^TM II X4 processors do those conversions quite well.

One smartphone element that needs some more discussion is the value of battery life figures that one finds at the point of purchase or research. Whether it’s the iPhone, Blackberry Bold, Blackberry Storm, or Nokia N96, there initially appears to be variability between claims, tests, and personal usage. Let’s take a look at each phone and see if that’s the case.

iPhone

Apple’s web site lists the following for the 3G iPhone:

• Talk time: up to 5 hours on 3G, 10 hours on 2G
• Standby time: up to 300 hours
• Internet use: up to 5 hours on 3G, 6 hours on WiFi
• Video playback: Up to 7 hours
• Audio playback: Up to 24 hours

The birdseed print states that the testing was done with pre-production handsets back in June, 2008. I also found the methodology interesting in that different features were sometimes toggled on/off during the tests: WiFi association, WiFi “ask to join networks”, call forwarding, and auto-brightness.

Anandtech did their own testing and reported the following battery life for the 3G iPhone:

• Talk time: 4 hours 44 mins (284 mins) on 3G; 6 hours 4 mins (364 mins) on EDGE
• Web browsing: 3 hours 17 mins (197 minutes) on 3G; 6 hours, 40 mins (400 minutes) on WiFi; 4 hours and 3 mins (243 minutes) on EDGE

Anandtech’s number confirmed and disputed some of the numbers listed by Apple, but then again they may not have tested exactly the same way. I am impressed by Apple’s depth and transparency of information as you will soon see why…

Blackberry Bold

RIM’s web site lists the following for the Bold:

• Talk time: 4 hours, 30 mins
• Standby time: 324 hours (13.5 days)

I found it interesting that there were no disclaimers evident anywhere on the web site and there were no battery life scores for internet, video or audio.

I looked long and hard and found some testing reviews by Boy Genius and Asian One that listed what I would describe as good “compilation battery remarks”, but couldn’t find as detailed a review as Anandtech had for the iPhone.

BoyGenius commented that their testing had included:

• 300-500 emails a day,
• one hour of web surfing over 3G,
• Wi-Fi usually turned on, Bluetooth turned off,
• JiveTalk connected, and around one hour of phone calling (although they admitted that they didn’t normally use the BlackBerry as a phone), and that their test phone’s battery lasted from 9AM until 4:30AM (or 7 ½ hours).

The talk time figure is around what I get, but I would like to see more granularity by usage model with more details around specific usages around internet use and video playback.

Blackberry Storm

RIM’s web site lists the following for the Storm:

• Talk time: 6 hours
• Standby time: 356 hours (15 days)

As with the Bold, I also found it interesting on the Storm that there were no disclaimers evident anywhere and again there were no battery life scores for internet, video or audio.

CNet reported the following test results for the Storm:

• Talk time: 7 hours
• Music: 14 hours, 45 mins

As with the Bold, the Storm’s talk time figure is around what I get, but I would like to see more granularity by usage model with more details around specific usages around internet use and video playback.

Nokia N96

Nokia’s web site lists the following for the Nokia N96:

• Talk time: up to 150 / 220 minutes (WCDMA / GSM)
• Stand-by time: up to 8 / 9 days (WCDMA / GSM)
• Video playback: up to 5 hours (offline mode)
• Music playback: up to 14 hours (offline mode)

There is an asterisk that disclaims that “Operation times may vary depending on radio access technology, used operator network configuration and usage.”

All About Symbian reported the following activities they could complete in 16.5 hours on the N96 on one charge:

• YouTube Videos: approx 1 Hour playing using the S60 browser through 3.5G
• General Web Surfing: approx 1 Hour using both WiFi and 3.5G
• Mucking about with settings and navigating menus, etc.: approx 1 hour
• Setup Profimail and synced my IMAP account, 3,200 Emails, approx 400MB using WiFi, 3.5G and GPRS
• Downloaded the AAS Podcast, approx 20MB directly on the N96, and played the file using a stereo Bluetooth headset

End users may even find this test methodology the most valuable in that it shows a “day in a life” given a particular charge. This data is impossible to compare against Nokia’s corporate website, but it was nice that Nokia would, like Apple, provide video and music playback numbers. I would like to see Nokia commit to an internet battery life figure.

Conclusions

So what can we take away from this mash-up of smartphone battery life figures? First, there are some significant variances from vendor to vendor in the terminology and the information depth and transparency provided. Secondly, when a third-party review was conducted, it could sometimes be compared to the manufacturer’s specs, sometimes not. In some cases, the third-party review supported the claim, sometimes not. But that could be attributed to a difference in methodology. Net-net, not a whole lot of consistency exists with audio, video and internet battery life scoring.

My single biggest positive takeaway was the consistency with almost everyone on the usage and application of “talk time” and “standby time.” While not as cool as “internet battery” life, if you believe that talking is the primary use for your smartphone, this is good for the consumer.

What do you think about smartphone battery life marks? How is their accuracy and value?

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Technorati Profile.

At CES 2009, AMD demonstrated playing through a smartphone web browser, EA’s latest Mercenaries 2: World in FlamesTM. We also demonstrated watching through a smartphone browser a Hancock Blu-ray movie with the full menuing system. Both of these were streamed by the AMD Fusion Render Cloud reference design. So the browser matters.

This makes me naturally quick to try the latest browser or major revision of one. I spent 24 hours with the Apple Safari 4 Beta and wanted to share my experiences. 24 hours on beta software isn’t the complete picture but I can get maybe 85% of my perspective in that time frame.

I want to do some level setting up front- this is a beta and therefore should have bugs, that’s natural and I thank Apple for doing a public beta. Secondly, browser choices are driven by personal needs and preferences like simplicity, speed, familiarity, add-on features, and even enterprise-mandated browser standards for full compatibility. But many people are oblivious and simply use the browser that was installed on their PC bought from a local retailer.

So these are MY views based on my history and usage patterns. I am primarily a PC user but also have two Macs. I primarily use Firefox but use Internet Explorer as the corporate front-end to SAP applications. I use Chrome also. I obviously use Safari on my iPod Touch (no choice) and prefer the integrated browser on my Bold, Storm, and G1 Android versus mobile Opera.

I did my 24 hours of testing on three systems:

• Hand-built desktop with Windows Vista Business Edition 32-bit, AMD Phenom TM 9850 processor, ATI Radeon TM HD 4870 graphics
• HP Pavilion dv5 with Windows Vista Premium 64-bit, AMD Turion TM ZM-80 processor, ATI Radeon TM HD 3200 graphics
• Fujitsu Lifebook 2110 with Windows XP Pro 32-bit, AMD Turion TM 64 X2 TL-58 processor, ATI Radeon TM Xpress 1150 graphics

Plusses

• Easy to install, no error messages. Apple must supercharge this download through a big-time caching service because it was FAST.
• Imported my Internet Explorer and Firefox bookmarks without issues into legible folders.
• Not a single lock up on 100’s of pages from many different sites.
• Full functionality on the many sites I visited with the exception of the two important sites listed below.

Too Early To Tell

• Meaningful speed. Reportedly faster than Chrome and that means real fast. I cannot tell the difference between the speed of Chrome and Safari 4, but folks I follow are citing tests that show it is. CNet UK says it is faster than Chrome while PC Magazine says that it still trailed Chrome on some key tests. But they both say it’s faster than Firefox but yet I cannot tell ANY real experiential difference.
• iTunes-like scroll bar (picture below). This is under Bookmarks. I may end up loving this but right now I just don’t know.

Improvements I Would Like To See

• Add-ons. This is just more of an issue with Safari in general, not Safari 4. Safari has add-ons too, but in my opinion, don’t have the depth or breadth I want. Every cool tool I run across, it seems like Firefox has an add-on immediately.
• Multi-tab Startup. I want to pre-load 10 tabs whenever I open the browser. I use my browser for real work and pong from tab to tab like a day-trader, but I am trading information. I cannot figure out how to do that yet with Safari 4, maybe I cannot.

• Forced application close: On Windows 64 install, shut down Tweetdeck and other browsers without prompting.
• A few bugs: Hey it’s called beta for a reason, to ring out some of the last issues.  Blogger: comment validation error with perpetual “loading” message. WordPress: Perpetual loading of a few assets. Its a beta, live with it!

• Forward/Next page drop downs. This is truly personal and out of habit, but I want drop downs, not holding down the mouse button. See the difference below. I miss that.

Firefox

Internet Explorer

Safari

Conclusion

Safari 4 is an elegant and speedy browser and I am certain that Mac lovers will use it in droves — and maybe even a few iPhone/PC users if they see sufficient value in integration. I may fall in love with some of the more visual features at some point, but for right now, Firefox is fast enough for me, is easier for me to open my multiple tabbed workspace, and finally, for the kind of work I do, you can’t beat the Firefox add-ons.  What are your thoughts on Safari 4 Beta?

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

(As seen at Notebooks.com and Dell’s Digital Nomads)

Cloud computing is rising in interest even during these uncertain world economic times and AMD is taking an important leadership role in the creation of the cloud. And in opinion, smartphones are increasingly becoming one of the most important cloud clients. What makes smartphones cloud-unique is their portability and versatility. One minute a phone, the next a web browser, the next a video broadcast client. After blogging on the Android G1 and the BlackBerry Storm, and as co-owner of an iPhone (wife’s), people asked me why I didn’t blog on my personal workhorse, the BlackBerry Bold. Well, I aim to please and here it is.

(L to R: iPod touch, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold, Android G1)

Net-net, the Blackberry Bold is my preferred device for work and also serves many good consumer functions as well. At work, I live off of email messaging, then the web, then phone functionality, and the Bold hits high marks on all fronts.

What I Like

• Email Messaging: If you have Blackberry Enterprise Server, the Bold becomes the Godzilla of messaging. Many times I will get email on my Blackberry before it even hits my desktop. Spooky. You can also easily configure accounts from Yahoo Mail, GMail and Outlook. Fast and reliable, for work.

• Upgradeable storage and replaceable battery: Android G1, Storm, and Bold all have upgradable memory and replaceable battery. It’s kind of a pet peeve I have with the iPhone. Call me conservative, but I don’t like the thought of being on a long business trip and not have a spare battery. I carry a 16GB microSD in an externally accessible memory slot. No need to remove batteries, just a side door. It fits my documents, videos, and music quite well and theoretically limitless with every added card.

MicroSD door closed

MicroSD door open

• MS Office File Support: Built-in and free, you can download, save, view, and even edit the latest PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files. Excel wasn’t that useful given column width issues, but Word and especially PowerPoint was impressive. For an added fee, you can even create these documents.

• Rock solid: The Storm was solid physically, but the Bold is rock-solid. I have dropped it on every axis, 25x with no issues. Whenever I dropped my Pearl, I would get a SIM card error or the battery would pop out. Drop the Bold… pick it up where you left off. I suspect my Bold could easily survive a 5′ drop onto its screen. Would you say that for your iPhone?

From an application stability standpoint, I only get lockups or issues on some of the more sophisticated video streaming apps like Qik, but for the other 99.9% of the time, rock solid.

• Multitasking & Copy Paste: Unlike some phones, the Bold can multitask. If you are anything like me, you are bouncing between the phone, Google maps, the browser, email, address book, and want to go back at the stage where you left off, not start the app over again.

I can copy and paste literally between EVERY application on the Bold and its add-on apps. Very impressive and a huge time-saver.

• Screen: This display is 480×320 pixels and strikingly crisp. It’s only about half the size of an iPhone, but then again it’s 100% screen, and doesn’t share it with a keyboard. The only situation I want more screen is for videos, some web sites, and maybe some PowerPoint.

On web surfing, Bold makes up for the screen size with a very ingenious toggle. If you are on a web page that is wider than the page or the text too small, just press the “z” key and the browser reorients into column mode and you can see the web site much, much better. Press “z” again and it pops into page view mode. The trackball also lets you navigate web pages in 360 degree movement and magnify the area by clicking on it.

• Standard mini-USB port: Bold uses a standard mini-USB port and cable to charge and transfer data. I have a lot of gadgets and don’t have time for proprietary USB implementations. I can handle USB, mini-USB, and micro-USB, but have no time for Palm Centro’s or iPhone proprietary connectors.

• Digital camera: The Bold takes decent pictures at 2MP with 1600×1200 max resolution. The built-in flash is very bright, and I always get comments from envious iPhone owners wishing they had a flash. The Bold supports geo-tagging which uses the GPS capability to log the long/lat data to use with supported photo packages.

• Music player: Same as the Storm. I easily synched my iTunes playlists and all my non-DRM’d songs played. The album art also transferred which was a nice “extra” I didn’t expect. The speaker volume was unexpectedly loud, but not louder than the Storm.

• Video player and recorder: I am very impressed with the breadth of video formats supported; unlike other popular phones…. uh iPhone. The Bold supports DivX 4, DivX 5/6 is partially supported, XviD is partially supported, H.263, H.264, and WMV3 are supported. For me, it did play non-DRM’d video from my iPod and Nano with no alterations, very convenient. You can reconvert loads of video which can take advantage of four processor cores. I used an AMD Phenom TM X4 9950 quad core processor overclocked to 3.2Ghz (using AMD Fusion for Gaming utility) and was appreciating all four of those wonderful cores.¹

The video recorder function is awesome, but only in medium or high lighting. It records in .3gp format in low density quality, fine for streaming real-time to the internet or even emailing. I use Qik to real-time stream video to the internet.

Improvements I would like to See

• Faster web Java-script: Like the Storm, web surfing was fast on most sites until I hit java-script-laden sites, then the browser appeared to slow down. The default browser setting is “off” and if a site really needs Java-script to accomplish a major task, it asks you. My point of reference here is the iPhone and the Touch which has fast browsing with or without Java-script turned on.

• Improved popular applications: I can live without iPhone “Fart” or G1’s “Level” app, but not without a better functioning FaceBook and Twitter application. What a faux pas when compared to the iPhone. It has been months and would expect more from RIM. If iPhone ever got a physical keyboard and multitasking, I could be swayed. With that said, BlackBerry has some very good and differentiated applications like Qik for real-time video streaming, Flickr for photo uploads, SlingPlayer TV, YouVersion Bible and E*Trade Mobile Pro.

Summary

Today I prefer the Bold as my cloud workhorse to the alternatives (iPhone, Storm, Android G1) and has enough good consumer features to keep me happy and interested for the time being. RIM will need to improve web Java-script execution time and up the ante on the popular applications if they want folks to continue to cheer them on. With talk of iPhone’s improved multitasking, copy-paste, and video recorder functionality, I hope this will provide impetus for some improvements. If not, maybe the Palm Pre’.

I would love to hear from your experiences with the BlackBerry Bold.

¹ AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VUA AMD SOFTWARE. THE AMD FUSION FOR GAMING UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

]]> http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/02/17/blackberry-bold-my-mobile-cloud-workhorse/feed/ 1 http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/23/why-spore-may-look-so-poor-on-your-new-notebook/ http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/23/why-spore-may-look-so-poor-on-your-new-notebook/#comments Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:26:00 +0000 Patrick Moorhead /patmoorhead/archive/2009/01/23/spore-game-quality-settings-notebook-netbook.aspx (Originally published at Notebooks.com)

Spore, the popular “casual” game from EA, has received as much sales and fanfare as it has controversy from its DRM policies. Spore sold 1M copies and 25M creations were created in its first 2 weeks so no one questions its popularity. But, does anyone question the quality of the visual experience between different notebook technologies? They should, as there are big differences that could really impact their enjoyment. One would expect that today on modern notebooks these differences wouldn’t exist but they definitely do.

Brian Henry, a software engineer in our Performance and Experience Lab, provided me with some data that I thought was interesting. He showed me a visual comparative analysis of Spore on two HP Pavilion dv5 notebooks, both with integrated graphics. One system was an AMD-based (“Puma”) and the other an Intel-based (Montevina). Interestingly, the Intel-based system demonstrated significant difference in Spore quality.

Here are the comparative screen-shots on “high” settings. You don’t need to have 20/20 vision to see there is a huge disparity.

Here is the Intel Centrino 2 (Montevina) system with Core 2 Duo CPU and GMA 4500MHD graphics (1):

Here is the AMD (“Puma”) system with a Turion™ X2 Ultra CPU and ATI Radeon™ 3200 graphics (2) :

Compare the water quality, shadows off the creatures, the grassy field dimensionality and the background fog elements (or lack thereof) between the two images.

The Intel game graphics performance and visual experience shown here on Spore is very consistent with what AMD, Nvidia and others in the tech press have been confirming for a years. And, just to list a few:

• Business Week: “Is Your PC a Graphics Wimp?”
• InformationWeek: “Intel Cites Graphics Problems In Centrino 2 Delay”
• Notebooks.com: “AMD vs. Intel Integrated Graphics Video”
• The Inquirer: “Intel’s G965 embedded graphics stink – official”
• NVIDIA video: “GeForce 7 series Motherboard GPU”
• AMD video: “AMD Phenom X3 + AMD 780 Gaming Demo”

Ironically, this is a phenomenon that has everything to do with the balance of the total platform (CPU-GPU-Chipset) versus the performance of one specific component. Let me explain in a little more detail. The Puma platform combined the new code-name “Griffin” CPU with the new integrated AMD M780G chipset that included the integrated ATI Radeon 3200 graphics. The M780G chipset’s graphics is a 55nm shrink of a full desktop Radeon 2000 Series graphics, which to me explains the awesome performance and quality. It also provides DX10, native DVI, HDMI and HDCP. The chipset and CPU and graphics are married together and provide sophisticated power management capabilities with ATI PowerPlay, ^TM, AMD Cool ‘n ‘ Quiet ^TM Technology, and Display Cache. In my opinion, the combined performance, quality, display, and power management capabilities are a requirement for a good mobile casual gaming experience.

Net-net, even when it comes to casual games like Spore, The Sims, or even Sim City, buyer beware: there can be major differences in the experience with these games on a notebook–differences not changed by a cutesy TV jingle. The industry (of which I am a part) has thus far failed to develop, deliver, and educate end-users on these differences. To me, playing Spore at high-quality would be the low bar game experience for a notebook you just plowed $699 to $1,599 into.

If you play casual games on notebooks, I recommend looking for notebooks with ATI Radeon ^TM branded graphics numbered 3200 and above and with AMD Turion ™ processors.

If you “beg to differ” or have your own casual game nightmare I would like to hear from you.

Note: This blog was originally published on notebooks.com here.

1) AMD notebook specs: HP Pavilion dv5z, BIOS F.05 – 6/18/2008, AMD Turion Ultra ZM-82, DDR2-800 2GB (2 X 1GB) RAM, ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics , 7.1.1.747 VBIOS, Seagate ST9100824AS hard drive, high Spore settings.

2) Intel notebook spec: HP Pavilion dv5z (CORR:dv5t), BIOS F.05 – 6/8/2008, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU P8400, DDR2-800 2GB (2 X 1GB) RAM, Mobile Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, 7.15.10.1502 VBIOS, Seagate- ST9100824AS hard drive, high Spore settings..

Note: No sponsorship with EA is implied in this blog.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

Low-priced, 720P HD pocket camcorders (palmcorders) are gaining market momentum and I believe consumers are drawn to the value proposition of low cost, high quality, portable, and convenient video capture and playback. As these devices proliferate, it leaves me contemplating how consumers will respond when they discover just how many of these notebooks or netbooks can’t effectively play back that content. Whether or not low end notebooks or netbooks were designed to do this isn’t relevant, as a recent NPD blog posting (citing new research) may suggest.

The Cameras

Let’s start with the cameras. I evaluated three different models, Flip MinoHD ($179), Kodak Zi6 ($148), and the Aiptek 1080 ($159). These cameras capture HD video at 720P resolution and 30-60 fps at around 10-12Mbps, which I consider mid-level HD video. Compare this to your typical Blu-ray movie peaking between 20 to 40 Mbps.

Compared to higher end HD camcorders priced into the $1,000s, many features have been removed like branded lenses, large magnification, optical image stabilization, night vision and auto-focus, just to name a few.  In comparing between HD pocket camcorders, the differences are found in battery life, image capture quality, external display size, memory upgradability, and physical size.

Pervasiveness

To quickly gauge pervasiveness in the U.S., I sometimes use Best Buy shelving as a proxy indicator. In my last trip to my local Best Buy, these new class of cameras had 7 slots of shelf space, which is significant. Some models that use the lowest-cost clamshell packaging are even sold at Wal-Mart and Target next to $20 JPEG picture key chains and USB flash drives. In addition, many influential bloggers are picking up on these new HD cameras, which is sometimes a good indicator of future popularity. Amazon.com is an “OK” indicator and these new HD palmcorders are relatively high in sales rank.

The Problem

As I see it, the problem is simple…. videos from these new cheap cameras won’t play well on many of the new inexpensive net/notebooks. If new research from the NPD blog is a future indicator, most consumers won’t know the capability tradeoffs between netbooks, low end notebooks and full capability (HD capable) notebooks. This could spell some real disappointment for users who may expect decent playback. In my testing on a typical netbook or real low end notebook, I get around 7 fps – close to a slide show. Think of it this way – the HD palmcorder is smaller and cheaper than any netbook. Is it logical to assume the consumer will know that the video from the palmcorder can’t play on the bigger, more expensive netbook?

Different Solution Approaches

I suggest there are a few different ways that OEMs can solve these problems. They can:

1)    Provide greater CPU power to decode the 720P HD video.  This may also increase the heat, the fan noise and lower the battery life as well. (High end dual core CPU)

2)    Provide an effective graphics solution that efficiently decodes, filters, and color corrects the image. (i.e: AMD 780G, ATI Mobility Radeon™3000, and competing solutions)

3)    Provide a special decode chip that’s expensive and bounded to specific software. (i.e: discrete accelerator)

AMD’s Approach

Our approach is simple: apply the most efficient silicon to the challenge.  In this usage scenario, the most efficient way is to decode the HD video with the GPU. Inside the GPU are special silicon blocks and special quality filters that are optimized for this function. We call this our UVD or Unified Video Decoder. It accelerates decoding of VC-1, H.264, and MPEG2 video and offloads the CPU for other tasks. UVD also applies quality filters against the video to make it look better, when using a supported player like Cyberlink 8. The result is amazing.  Very low CPU utilization, keeping the system cool and very high quality image thanks to the filters provided by ATI Avivo™ technology.

Implications

If you accept that users will increase their consumption of HD video on their notebooks, disappointment for many will follow with low, ~7 fps HD experience or apply an appropriate GPU to execute the task. Another alternative is to invest resources educating consumers on the difference in capabilities between netbooks, low end notebooks, and fully capable notebooks. With the economy and budgets the way they are, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Real-World Efficiency in Action

I want to highlight my favorite example. The new HP dv2 notebook (based on AMD’s “Yukon” platform technology for ultrathin notebooks) uses a superscalar AMD Athlon Neo ™ processor paired with ATI Radeon™ X1250 integrated graphics and optional ATI Radeon ™ HD 3410 discrete graphics to deliver not only full frame-rate HD video from these new HD palmcorders, but also higher end Blu-ray movies.

Conclusion

AMD has already anticipated the importance of HD video in multiple forms: low cost HD pocket camcorders discussed above, Blu-ray movie capabilities, and of course, some downloaded content.  And we have responded with technologies that are in-market today.  Big question remains: where does that leave netbook owners who expected their netbook to work with their even-smaller and less expensive HD palmcorder, even if that was “never the design intent”? It leaves them stranded on a non-HD island. Hopefully they have a second HD-capable PC at home, but if the NPD data is an indicator, they may not….

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

]]> http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/22/the-significance-of-hd-palmcorders-to-netbook-and-notebook-design/feed/ 4 http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/20/recession-tips-from-a-two-time-veteran/ http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/20/recession-tips-from-a-two-time-veteran/#comments Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:53:00 +0000 Patrick Moorhead /patmoorhead/archive/2009/01/20/recession-tips-from-a-two-time-veteran.aspx I have spent a lot of time lately talking some folks out of a tree as it relates to this latest recession.  I empathize as recessions have real impact on real friends and families.  As I found myself talking to more and more of them, I thought it might be valuable to share with you what I shared with them.  While it wasn’t easy, since graduating from college, I survived two recessions.  These aren’t tips on how to save money and hunker down, but more how to cope.

Stay calm, don’t panic

Since 1854, the U.S. has had 32 cycles of expansions, with an average of 17 months of contraction and 38 months of expansion.¹ This recession is sounding bad, but as history shows, it will blow over in due time.  If six generations of your family can hack it since 1854, you can, too.  Panicking by quickly changing circumstances many times results in jumping from one frying pan to another.

Stay close to friends, family, confidants

Recession-time is stressful, especially when your way of living can be on the line.  Don’t hold it in… open up to your trusted advisors.  Sure, adjust the message depending on the audience and don’t be a whiner, but “gutting” through it alone usually results in an explosion of emotion at some point.  Your advisors may not have all the answers, but just getting it off your chest helps.  Odds are, they will have many of the same concerns and you can help each other out just by leaning on each other.

Do a personal inventory

Prioritize the things in life which bring you the most joy and happiness.  What many people find is that their “joy list” is mostly unaffected by these temporary recessionary times.  Amazing how little control a recession has on the joy you can get from your faith, spouse, children, friends, parents, a sunset, a walk in the park, an ice cream cone…… you get the idea.

Stay positive

Positive attitudes are key during these times.  As attitudes are contagious, those around you can benefit or be damaged by them.  A positive attitude almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in the house and at work.  I am not advocating sticking your head in the sand and ignoring realities, but rather realizing that you have the power to change what you control, and not to spend time/cycles worrying about the things you don’t.

Become indispensable at work

Now is the time to put the pedal to the metal and accelerate.  Your company needs you now more than ever.  You may think that the right thing to do is duck for cover and hide… it’s not.  Take that measured risk that can make the big difference at the company… you know the thing that you have been recommending for so long to cut costs or improve revenue!!  Forget the fact that no one may have listened before, they will now.  Become a better team player if you aren’t now, because good leaders know that teams, not individuals get big things executed.  Where there is chaos there is opportunity, and at the corporate level, seismic shifts are where the new winners and losers strain out, and recession is a big shift.  Go for it, take the shot, and become the employee that would be hard to do without.

Good luck to all of you who weathering the storm, and for those whose ship has capsized, I will pray for you and your family for strength, patience and perseverance.  The sun will come out again as it has for millions of years before you were even on this planet.

1) Wikipedia’s History of Recession

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

]]> http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/20/recession-tips-from-a-two-time-veteran/feed/ 3 http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/15/breaking-records-with-dragons-and-helium-in-the-las-vegas-desert/ http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/15/breaking-records-with-dragons-and-helium-in-the-las-vegas-desert/#comments Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:55:00 +0000 Patrick Moorhead /patmoorhead/archive/2009/01/15/breaking-record-dragon-helium-las-vegas-desert-Phenom-overclock-CES-2009.aspx

How do I describe what happened in a tent on the edge of the Desert in Las Vegas on the last night of CES? Completely over the top…. I can say that it was a story that included dragons and helium at temperatures near the point where atoms and molecules cease to move. While I wasn’t at the event, I had droves of people come to me within and hours to tell an account of what happened. After researching the night’s activities, I wanted to bring it to you.

“The Experiment” was held on the edge of Las Vegas with the goal to push AMD Phenom ^TM II X4 processors to the absolute limits¹ using the most extreme techniques and methods available. The testing was done on AMD Dragon platform technology complete with dual ATI Radeon ^TM HD 4870 X2 and motherboards based on the AMD 790FX chipset.

Overclockers Macci, Hardman, Sampsa and SF3D were given 500 liters of liquid helium and an arsenal of motherboards from DFI and Gigabyte. I am an absolute neophyte when it comes to overclocking and have lots of fun with it, but when you add the pros and put great gear in their hands, the results are stunning. This proved quite true on this special night in the Vegas desert.

A world record score of 45,474 on 3D Mark 05 capped off the evening with all four processor cores at 6301MHz, the memory controller running at 3843MHz, and memory at DDR2-1100MHz. A pair of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards using ATI CrossFireX™ technology were air-cooled at 800/950MHz.

The team was reinstalling drivers and cold booting on what the meter read as -242C but at that point the meters are only an approximation….amazing stability at temperatures on the verge of absolute zero (-273C at which atomic motion ceases). The team even got a run with one core operating at 6.8 GHz.

Remember, almost all of this stuff is certain to void your hardware warranties and could cause serious damage to your PC hardware. We burn through motherboards, processors and graphics cards at an alarming rate doing it. And liquid helium is incredibly dangerous in untrained hands. Only the most experienced, safe and methodical overclockers should every even think of attempting something this extreme.

There is some great initial posts out there, check it out.

English

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3570593&postcount=432

Event Thread (English)

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211726&page=18

German

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,672730/News/AMD_Phenom_II_mit_fluessigem_Helium_uebertaktet_PCGH_vor_Ort/

Finnish

http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/3dmark05n-maailmanennatys-suomeen

YouTube Video of The Event

The team would like to break that record as they refine their techniques and the community goes beyond. We appreciate the support from the OC community that AMD has had over the years and hope that our Black Edition processors continue to raise the level of fun and competition. I am hearing that Dragon technology is proving to be a compelling platform for overclockers and we hope that the community enjoys it.

1) AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VIA AMD SOFTWARE.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.

]]> http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/15/breaking-records-with-dragons-and-helium-in-the-las-vegas-desert/feed/ 9 http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/06/the-magical-amd-yukon-based-hp-pavilion-dv2-ultrathin-notebook/ http://blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead/2009/01/06/the-magical-amd-yukon-based-hp-pavilion-dv2-ultrathin-notebook/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:49:00 +0000 Patrick Moorhead /patmoorhead/archive/2009/01/06/amd-yukon-hp-pavilion-dv2-ultrathin-notebook-netbook-neo.aspx There has been a considerable amount of interest and debate surrounding mini-notebooks (aka “netbooks”), ultraportable notebooks and standard, full-size notebooks. Netbooks sure have come a long way since I first blogged on my experiences back in May. My first configuration had a 7” display at 840×480, 8GB storage, a tiny keyboard, Linux and was priced at $499. Netbooks have changed considerably since then and I think it is safe to say that “more” is what consumers demanded. It is commonplace now to find 10” display at 1024×600, 160GB storage, larger keyboard, Windows XP and priced from $389 to a whopping $789. I have tested now 9 netbooks and clearly see their plusses and minuses, and yes there are plusses. :>

In the background of all the netbook debate, AMD quietly announced the “Yukon” platform for ultrathin notebooks. We wanted to provide something different, something more. We wanted to provide a rich entertainment experience at an affordable price.

So when I got the chance to play with a real, live Yukon-based, HP Pavilion dv2 Entertainment ultrathin notebook, of course I jumped on it, and wanted to share those experiences with you. Because the unit is a prototype sample and isn’t expected to be released until March, I won’t be able to share everything with you, but I will share as much as I can.

The Basic Specs

• AMD Athlon ^TM Neo processor
• ATI Mobility Radeon ^TM HD 3410 discrete graphics with 1080P HD video capability and HDMI-out
• 12.1” LED BrightView display
• Optional external Blu-ray drive
• Integrated webcam
• Nearly full-size keyboard

UPDATE 3/26:

• 0 .93in thin and 3.8lb, varies by confuguration
• Hard drives up to 500GB

Beauty Shots

The HP dv2 looks great and feels like a real notebook. The attention to detail was obvious, in opposition to me who couldn’t get his head out of the way of the picture above.

Front

Back

Left





Right

I cannot share the exact size or weight specifications at this time, but I can show you proportionally how it compares size-wise to objects I am sure you are familiar with.

HP dv2 and U.S. dime

HP dv2 and a BlackBerry Bold

HP dv2 and 10" Notebook

HP dv2 and Mac Air

I had a very enjoyable web experience with the HP dv2 due to many reasons, but three really stand out: the 12.1 display at a nice resolution, a large trackpad with large buttons, and the large keyboard.

On displays, the higher the resolution, the more information you can fit on a screen. The larger the screen, the better you can actually see it. The dv2 combines a large 12.1 screen with 1280×800 resolution. When compared to netbooks, the viewable image area is 45% larger (versus 10”) or 80% larger (versus 8.9”).¹ Not only is the viewable image area larger, you can pack 67% more information on the screen.² That’s a big difference. The best way to describe it is to show the difference. I did a Google search on “AMD Turion”, went into “Shopping” and then into “Show grid view”.

12.1" HP dv2

10" Netbook

8.9" Netbook ; 10" Netbook ; 12.1" HB dv2

HD Movies and Video

High definition video is where the HP dv2 absolutely shines, as I not only did I play 1080P Blu-Ray movies with ease and quality, but also played HD video files from the new generation of pocket HD camcorders.

You can get an external Blu-ray drive as an option that’s about the same size as a Blu-ray case. I really liked the drive as it was very compact, matched the design and size of the notebook, and was powered by only one USB connector, unlike many others you can get in the after-market.

I also successfully played HD video files at full speed from three of the latest pocket HD camcorders. You can buy these cameras from multiple sources for as little as $119 and I see them slowly taking shelf space at retail. This usually is a proxy for real sales and popularity. I tested video files from the Kodak Zi6 (720/60), the Aiptek HD (1080/30), and the Flip MinoHD (720/30) using Cyberlink PowerDVD 8. The dv2 played 720 and 1080 video without a hitch, AND with low CPU utilization. As a comparison, the netbooks played the Zi6 720 HD video at approximately 7 frames per second, according to QuickTime’s Movie Inspector.

The final video clincher for me is the external HDMI port. Forget about 12.1”……. try 52” or 120”, just connect on HDMI cable and you have HD video and audio pumping into your compatible TV or receiver.

Gaming Experience

You would expect the dv2 with the ATI Radeon Mobility 3410 discrete graphics to chew through all the “casual” games like Sims 2, Lego Indiana Jones, and Spore at high settings…. and it did. Also, I tested higher end games like Fallout 3 and even Left 4 Dead. While I would recommend to a hard core gamer an ATI Radeon™ 4000 Series graphics and even multiple ATI Radeon graphics cards using ATI CrossFireX^TM technology for these intense games, I could play them relatively well at 1200×800 resolution at lower quality settings. I was really surprised how playable Left 4 Dead’s first scene was.³ Oh and watch out for the exploding bile man, he is a killer.

Summary

I cannot wait for the HP dv2 to be available in March of this year. It adds most of my personal must-have features in my “ideal ultrathin entertainment notebook”. Features like the 12.1” display, HD video playback, ability to play real games, HDMI out, and a larger keyboard. This supports all my ultrathin notebook needs for casual games, Blu-ray movies, HD video and of course, the web. Is this what you want to see in a Yukon-based ultrathin notebook? I would like to know.

Notes:

1) Resolution: 1280×800 pixels= 1,024,000 pixels; 1024×600 pixels= 614,400

2) Viewable image area: 16:9 (1.78:1) native mode. 12.1”= 61.95 sq in; 10”= 42.63 sq in.; 8.9”= 34.32 sq in.

3) Left 4 Dead at “low” settings.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing 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.