Archive for the category Everything
Test Driving AMD’s 2nd Generation Ultrathin Notebook Platform
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 10:47 PM
(21 votes, average: 4.10 out of 5)
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Back in April of this year, HP introduced the world’s first value ultrathin notebook, the HP Pavilion dv2. It was chock full of AMD technologies like the new AMD AthlonTM Neo processor and even had an ATI RadeonTM discrete graphics card, all in a slim and affordable package. The press noticed. Could it get better? Let me give you my first impressions on the AMD 2nd generation ultrathin platform, introduced today along with our new “Vision Technology from AMD” campaign designed to de-mystify the PC buying experience. This time, I got to test out an MSI X-Series notebook and it impressed.
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 2nd 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.
Codename Tigris, Surprises Found Test Driving the New AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 10:45 PM
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 TurionTM II X2 Dual Core Mobile Processor M640 at 2.6 Ghz.
- GPU: ATI RadeonTM 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.
Battery Life Advertising Getting More Confusing and Pervasive
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 2:19 PM
Last week I wrote a blog covering the different ways notebook battery life is being advertised in North America for the back-to-school season in what are called the “Sunday Circulars”. I dug into the last two weeks and found some interesting changes that occurred. Specifically there were changes and additions to battery life verbiage I think you will find interesting. Let’s start with the key observations.
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.
- Four different ways observed from weeks of 7/27 and 8/3:
- 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
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs)with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
7 SKUs-” up to X hours, mins” 2 SKUs-“up to X hours” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X cell battery” | None |
|
D |
No |
None | None |
|
E |
Yes |
6 SKU-”up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
F |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X cell battery for longer performance” | None |
|
G |
No |
None | None |
|
H |
Yes |
5 SKUs-“up to X hours”1 SKU- “X cell battery will give you up to X hours” | None |
|
I |
No |
None | None |
Week of 8-17-09
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs)with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
7 SKUs-” up to X hours, mins”1 SKU-“up to X hours” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “x-cell battery”1 SKU- “x-cell Li-ion battery” | None |
|
D |
Yes |
4 SKUs-”up to X hours, mins”1 SKU-”up to X hours” | “Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
E |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X-cell battery for longer performance” | None |
|
F |
Yes |
3 SKUs-“up to X hours” | None |
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.
Commercial PC Buyers, How Do You Evaluate Client Software Performance?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 8:43 AM
Even though the prices for desktops and notebooks continue to decline year after year, acquisition cost still isn’t insignificant. While in most circumstances software and services outweigh acquisition cost, buyers still want to make the best decision to save their small, medium, large business or government IT shop money. This has been amplified by the overall economy which has led to many reduced IT budgets.
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.
Loading ...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.
Back To School Battery Life Follies
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 11:08 AM
For the last 15 years, I have routinely browsed the aisles of electronics stores and their circulars looking for cool technology, and to see how devices are marketed and merchandised. I was away from the office the last few weeks and got a chance to dig deep into North American back-to-school “Sunday Circulars,” where each retailer lists deals and special offers of the week. I took a close look how notebook battery life was explained in the circulars. What I found was interesting……
Week of 7-27-2009
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs) with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
7 SKUs- “up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
No |
None | None |
|
D |
No |
None | None |
|
E |
Yes |
5 SKUs- “up to X hours, mins” | None |
|
F |
Inferred |
1 SKU- “X cell battery for longer performance” | None |
|
G |
Inferred |
1 SKU-“X cell lithium ion battery” | None |
Week of 8-3-2009
|
Retailer |
Notebook Battery Life Listed? |
# Models (SKUs)with Battery Life Listed and Verbiage |
Battery Life Disclaimer |
|
A |
Yes |
8 SKUs-” up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life tested using MobileMark 2007. Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
B |
No |
None | None |
|
C |
Yes |
1 SKU-”X+ hours battery life” | None |
|
D |
Yes |
5 SKU-“up to X hours, mins” | “Battery life will vary depending on the product configuration, product model, applications loaded on the product; power management setting of the product, and the product features used by the customer. As with all batteries, the maximum capacity of this battery will decrease with time and usage.” |
|
E |
Yes |
1 SKU-”up to X hours” | None |
|
F |
No |
None | None |
|
G |
Yes |
4 SKUs-“up to X hours” | None |
|
H |
Yes |
1 SKU-”X+ hours on one battery charge” | None |
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.
Kudos to iPhone 3GS on Battery Life Disclosure
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 2:02 PM
The new iPhone 3GS is capturing the attention of press, bloggers, and most importantly, consumers. While I get my work jollies from my BlackBerry Bold and portable PMP fun from my iPod Touch, I also must give the iPhone 3GS credit in one dimension that’s not getting a lot of attention: consumer battery life information. I have thought for a while that cellphones and smartphones are marketed with better battery life information than notebook computers, despite the price premium notebooks command, and the iPhone 3GS demonstrates this once again.
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:
|
iPhone 3GS |
iPhone 3G |
|
|
Talk time: |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
|
up to 12 hours on 2G |
up to 10 hours on 2G |
|
|
Standby time: |
Up to 300 hours |
Up to 300 hours |
|
Internet use: |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
|
up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi |
up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi |
|
|
Audio playback: |
Up to 30 hours |
Up to 24 hours |
|
Video playback: |
Up to 10 hours |
Up to 7 hours |
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.
MobileMark 2007, the Apps, and your Notebook
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 11:08 AM
Last week I presented you with some facts, thoughts and opinions about notebook screen brightness settings required in the industry’s de-facto standard battery life benchmark, MobileMark 2007 (MM07). Now I would like to explore how closely MM07’s application selection and activity distribution reflects consumer usage and purchase patterns. Like that last blog, I will provide you the facts and let you decide.
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.
|
SKU #1 |
SKU #2 |
SKU #3 |
SKU #4 |
SKU #5 |
|
|
Price |
$399.99 |
$549.99 |
$649.99 |
$799.99 |
$599.99 |
|
MS Project 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Excel 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Outlook 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Powerpoint 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
MS Word 2003 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Winzip Pro 10.1 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Photoshop CS2 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Illustrator CS2 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Adobe Flash 8 |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
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:
|
$419.99 |
|
|
MS Professional 2007 |
$363.99 |
|
$657.49 |
|
|
$533.49 |
|
|
$669.99 |
|
|
$56.99 |
|
|
$2,701 |
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.
MobileMark 2007, 60 nits, One Nit-Picker and You
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:19 PM
As we have already discussed here, here, and here, the current de-facto standard to measure notebook battery life in consumer marketing materials is MobileMark ® 2007 (MMO7). One thing I want to help educate on are the basic facts behind the notebook brightness settings recommended by MM07 and compare that to my home electronics and what settings others are using for their notebook displays.
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.
Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 9:46 AM
Craning my head to peer over the giant wave of debate and dialogue washing across the tech landscape with last week’s antitrust ruling against Intel in Europe, I thought it might be helpful to reiterate what AMD seeks in the wake of this third straight antitrust ruling against Intel. Simply stated:
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.
Are You Being Duped by the Intel Innovation Spin?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 9:29 AM
The EU ruling against Intel was an exciting day for consumers and the entire technology ecosystem. For my part, I spent the day giving press interviews and interacting with the Community over Facebook, Twitter and various tech site boards. Based on all these conversations, there was one common thread I feel I must address and examine. Unfortunately but understandably, it’s based on an argument that serves Intel’s world view.
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 PhenomTM II processor and ATI RadeonTM 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.