Pat Moorhead » netbook

Does only AMD love the HP Pavilion dv2?

Patrick Moorhead — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:43:02 +0000

AMD is excited about the HP Pavilion dv2 powered by AMD “Yukon” platform, as evidenced by many of our communications. Obviously HP is excited, as it’s their baby. On the blog front, Nigel, Casey, and I have written accounts of our personal HP dv2 experiences. But, is this just an AMD love affair with its own stuff, or do others share the enthusiasm?

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.

HP dv2: Can you Really Combine Sophistication, Simplicity and Value in an Ultrathin?

Patrick Moorhead — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:15:58 +0000

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.

Why Your Notebook Battery Life Never Quite Seems Equal to the Claims

Patrick Moorhead — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:52:46 +0000

Do you ever feel like the actual battery life on your notebook never quite equals the information that appears in promotional material? For example, you may see “up to five hours,” but actually get about half that. Well, you aren’t alone. I hear it all the time, and if you do a quick Twitter search on the topic, you’ll see lots of discussion.

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.)

Where Can You Go To Engage In The Notebook Battery Life Discussion?

Patrick Moorhead — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:35:41 +0000

So how can you provide your input into the controversial “battery life metric” discussion?

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.

Why Spore May Look So Poor on Your New Notebook

Patrick Moorhead — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:26:00 +0000

(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.

The Significance of HD Palmcorders to Netbook and Notebook Design

Patrick Moorhead — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:12:00 +0000

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….

The Magical AMD Yukon-based HP Pavilion dv2 Ultrathin Notebook

Patrick Moorhead — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:49:00 +0000

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

The Size

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

Web Experience

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

As you can see (pardon the blurry picture above), you can fit twice as many notebook images on the 12.1 display as the netbook with 10” or 8.9” display. That translates to less scrolling with your trackpad or mouse and less scroll downs with the arrow keys.

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^TMtechnology 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 scenewas.³Oh 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.

Notebooks.com: “Poor Spore Performance on Your New Notebook”

Patrick Moorhead — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:23:00 +0000

I have been doing more guest-blogging over at Notebooks.com, this time on the quality differences users can get playing the popular game Spore on different-brand notebook platforms.

Here is a preview:

“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.”

You can find the entire blog over at Notebooks.com by clicking here.

The Netbook Web Spectacle

Patrick Moorhead — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:01:00 +0000

You would think that with the volume of controversy on the web last week that there was some juicy new development with Britney Spears instead of not-so-innocent little netbooks (aka mini-notebooks). But netbooks were indeed the controversy of the week following comments reportedly made by Intel executive Stu Pann (with whom I worked in the mid-90s) at the Raymond James IT Supply Chain Conference.

Like reports of Spears latest performance, the net burst open with opinion, conjecture, and even a bit of paranoia. Folks took sides and even attacked each other over these devices that are not a smartphone, not yet a notebook.

According to Brooke Crothers at CNET.com, who broke the story on Nov. 28, Stu reportedly said,

“We originally thought Netbooks would be for emerging markets and younger kids, and there is some of that. It turns out the bulk of the Netbooks sold today are Western Europe, North America, and for people who just want to grab and go with a notebook.”
“We view the Netbook as mostly incremental to our total available market.”
“If you’ve ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size–it’s fine for an hour. It’s not something you’re going to use day in and day out.”

What ensued was a web melee as charged as a Chris Rocker YouTube video. Is it time to “Leave Netbooks Alone!”? Here’s a sample:

“Three Reasons Why Netbooks Just Aren’t Good Enough”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/29/three-reasons-why-netbooks-just-arent-good-enough/all-comments

“Ten Reasons to Hate Netbooks”

http://www.t3.com/news/ten-reasons-to-hate-netbooks?=37421

“Why Netbooks Aren’t There Yet”

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/mowi/article.php/3787471/Why+Netbooks+Arent+There+Yet.htm

“Are Netbooks Headed the Way of the Dodo Bird?”

http://www.inquisitr.com/10131/are-netbooks-headed-the-way-of-the-dodo-bird/

“Sony claims Growing Netbook Market is ʽConfusingʼ ”

http://www.pcretailmag.com/news/30831/Sony-claims-growing-netbook-market-is-confusing

“Can Apple Save the Netbook?”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802449.html

“The Time is Ripe for a Rip by Netbook PC“

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/28/BU3E14BCHU.DTL

“Intel: netbooks are OK for an hour or so, that’s all”

http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/11/intel-netbooks.html

The interesting thing about the headlines is that when you actually read the full spectrum of articles, there were some very positive stories on netbooks that sat along with the negative ones. I have been on the receiving end of “less than accurate” headlines, so I can empathize.

The comments are as entertaining as the articles. A poster actually insinuates that one tech blogger has business ties to a competitive platform. Posters go back and forth describing why they love or hate netbooks. Others draw the iPhone/Touch into the debate saying netbooks AND notebooks stink and that Apple has the only true solution that meets everyone’s needs.

Whatever happens with Britney this week, I’m sure we’ll read of it ad nauseam in the entertainment pages. In the high-tech arena, netbooks are supplying all the drama. Does anyone outside the tech bubble really care? I don’t know, but would love to hear your comments on this “unfolding drama.”

My Perfect Mini-Notebook

Patrick Moorhead — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:02:00 +0000

One great thing about blogs is that it is anyone and everyone’s chance to express their opinions, and I definitely have opinions. :> However, attacking one’s personal experiences is a bit like questioning free speech or democracy, but that’s exactly what makes Web 2.0 so exciting, everyone does it. So even when I get misquoted (never called it “useless”) in news stories based on what I said in a video concerning netbooks (should be hard to get wrong, I know), it generates discussion on the pros, cons, and on-the-road experiences of various netbook and mini-notebook designs. And after talking with various sources, it has already impacted future thinking, which is ultimately good for consumers, channels, OEMs, and ODM’s.

After testing seven netbooks (1) over the last five months, I now know what I want to see in future designs. This may not be the same for all 6,699,999,999 people on earth, but perhaps for a handful or two of likeminded people.

One caveat: I don’t expect a single mini-notebook design to be able to meet both my usage models:

One inside the home focused on entertainment
One outside the home focused on portability

My ideal at-home mini-notebook

I would like to carry my mini-notebook from room-to-room, plugging it in via HDMI to the next best available flat panel TV in the home. It would also be great to wirelessly stream 1080i video content off the web or my home server, which would benefit from HD graphics decode capability, wireless-N, and the capability to externally project at 1920×1080i resolutions. A simple, Gyration-style wireless remote should come standard to easily navigate content from 10’.

For web surfing, I would like the peace of mind that my system could support the next-generation of Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight technology, so it doesn’t become a paperweight in 6 months. This means the processor and native panel screen size must be up to par. Kids’ sites like Webkinz, the “World of Warcraft for kids,” today requires at least 1024×768 (tomorrow, maybe 1280×1024) internal panel sizes, and I need at least enough CPU performance to prevent pauses in the action. Try running Hulu HD, an Apple HD trailer, or iTunes HD TV shows on a netbook and you will know what I am talking about. A 13” panel would really optimize the viewing experience when not connected to an external display.

Battery life isn’t that important at home, but a couple hours would be reasonable, along with a retractable power cord. Weight isn’t as important unless you have difficulty carrying a few pounds room to room. If that’s the case, I would recommend a lifetime membership to Gold’s Gym. Hard drive size isn’t as important because I can leverage the hard drive space on my home server, but I still want at least 160GB for applications or DRM-based content loads in case I need to take it on a family trip.

On games, While I don’t expect to play Crysis on highest quality settings, I would expect to be able to play a game like Spore and the Sims 2 at 30 fps (frames per second) and decent quality settings.

My ideal away-from-home mini-notebook

Outside the home is all about portability features and much less about entertainment. Battery life, size and weight become absolutely paramount in defining an “acceptable” bar level of performance.

Like the “at home” netbook, I still want my version to be able to effectively run today’s and at least one future generation of web applications at resolutions no less than 1024×768. I don’t think that is asking too much, is it? Also, I could live with less than a 10” display.

Eight to nine hours battery life (which we know really means five to six browsing hours) would be optimal, as I probably wouldn’t even need to bring a power cord for the day. If I don’t need to bring my power cord with me every time I go outside the house, then having a larger, possibly less expensive and faster charging power brick would be OK. This only makes sense if it saves money on the BOM cost because those tiny power adapters are cool.

As I said, if I’m going to need to lug this everywhere, weight is a huge factor and at 1.5 to 2 lbs, this seems plenty light enough. Also, the closed height cannot exceed ¾”, which would make it thicker than a Mac Air, but thinner than the Asus Eee PC Surf 4G, allowing for easy storage in a glove box or even in my bedroom drawer.

On the WAN communications side, I want to insert my SIM chip into my mini-notebook from my BlackBerry and get the same speedy, instant-on communications features I have had for years. Sure, I could tether, but if you are redesigning something, why settle for “good enough?” I don’t want to wait for 4G to do something useful or fun and could live with 3G or even, gasp, EDGE. Why should I have to pay for service twice? I know Pat, grow up, this is business… :>

Hard drive storage is a bit more important with this design because I wouldn’t have speedy access to large amounts of quick storage on my home server. Sure, I could use one of those “in-the-cloud” services, but until someone invents a more reliable synchronization tool, I will keep my documents and iTunes and Movielink content on my system, snugly fit on a 320GB hard drive. I have been keeping my “life” on MyYahoo for years, including my contacts, notes, calendar, and email, but documents and content are different.

As I would want to use this in my car, GPS and high bandwidth Bluetooth must be standard. The GPS is obvious, as I could use it as a mapping tool. I would like to use the higher bandwidth Bluetooth to gain access to my car speaker system and also pump audible navigational signals as well. Of course, if this thing serves as the nerve center for my car, I need some type of standard docking mechanism that delivers power with ease of attachment so I can take it in the house when I am home from work. I know, I am asking a lot.

So that is what I want in my mini-notebook. A bit different I know, but did you expect anything less? And if you are wondering why I didn’t call it a “netbook”, well I want to more than just the “net.”

With that, I would like to hear your thoughts on what your dream mini-notebook would look like.

1) Asus Eee PC 4G, Asus Eee PC 900, MSI U100, Dell Inspiron 910, HP 2133, Geode reference design, Asus Eee PC 1000H.

Five Disappointing Days on the Road with a Cheap Mini-Notebook

Patrick Moorhead — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:30:00 +0000

Over the last 6 months, I have heard a lot of industry insiders vehemently defending the cheap mini notebook (aka netbook) as a great device to travel with given its cost, size weight and applicability to task. I don’t have anything against these new cheap mini notebooks, but I think it is VERY important that consumers are educated to their weaknesses as well as their strengths, and all I see talked about are the strengths, a disservice to consumers in my opinion. I have used five of the cheap mini-notebooks over the last 6 months and yes, there are strengths and more weaknesses compared to an inexpensive full-sized notebook at the same price. I had written a lot in previous blogs on my personal interaction with these inside the home, so I decided to put it to the test outside the home, a contrast to what I had done and written about in a previous blog.

I needed to travel to Florida last week to look for a new show horse for my wife. She is a “hunter/jumper” and competes at the local, state, and national level along with my two young girls. Buying a horse is a very personal activity, and you have very little time to ride and test many horses. It is important to videotape, take still images and be able to share the videos and pictures with the other horse professionals back home in Texas over on-line services like YouTube and Flickr.

I technologically armed myself with the following:

Aiptek HD video camera ($179) for capturing 720P and 1080P high definition video to view high quality off-line videos
FlipVideo camera ($159) for capturing lower-resolution, easy to upload to YouTube and will also convert to the new “watch in high quality mode”
Kodak V1253 ($175) digital camera to capture high quality 12MP 16:9 stills
MSI Wind U100 ($579) mini-notebook with no mods
AT&T 3G USBConnect 881 ($149) modem to connect to the internet remotely

Blackberry Pearl 8100 ($99) for email and mobile web

Holux GPSlim Bluetooth GPS ($75) receiver for BlackBerry traffic directions

The daily regimen consisted of driving a half hour to the horse barn and trying out a bunch of horses by riding them, videotaping and photographing them while taking notes on the pros and cons. At about mid-day, we would load all the content onto the MSI Wind to view and/or upload the content while still at the horse barn. We would do this in the car and on the way home. That’s when some of the challenges started hitting.

1) Extremely Short Battery Life
I only would get 1.5 hours battery life per charge so I was either not able to load the content in the car, view the content I had loaded in the car or had to wait until I reached the hotel to load, view and upload. I suppose I could have bought another $25-50 car adapter, but hey, these are supposed to be cheap mini notebooks, not the expensive, full featured ones, right? Additionally, because I preferred not to upload 15 separate files and preferred one, I used Windows Movie Maker to stitch together all the SD (standard-def) Flip videos, which of course wouldn’t last an entire charge and could only be done back at the hotel. Even basic usages like surfing the web at the pool was useless given the low battery life. By the time you would get to the pool, you might get an hour to read the news, get caught up on current events, etc. After that hour, its right back up to the hotel room to plug the unit back in. Forget it, easier to use the BlackBerry.

2) Choppy, Unplayable 720P Video Playback
I like slide shows, but not when myself, our trainer, and I are trying to evaluate a horses timing, skill, personality and potential problems with health and price. I estimate that the 720p video playback on the Wind was operating at 15 frames per second, a slide show. This was MOV files read from VLC player and of course QuickTime. Completely useless 720P video playback with the cheap mini-notebook. I didn’t even kid myself into thinking it was a good idea to stitch the HD files together. Encode would have been painful.

3) Choppy NBCOlympics.com Internet Video and Compromised UI
During the downtime, we wanted to watch some of the events on NBCOlympics.com, you know, with the Microsoft SilverLight experience… I then discovered a new challenge with the netbook’s 1024×600 screen resolution and maybe even with the Silverlight performance on these new notebooks. This may seem like a nit, but a couple big issues surfaced. When I clicked on the left icon “Olympic Sports” many sports icons were cut off at the top. Not real useful or intuitive and not a big deal to everyone, but new netbook and new website, it should work.

On the “Most Watched” icon on the left rail, once clicked, you cannot read the white text at the top of the screen. Annoying.

The worst part was the “As Seen on TV”, where if clicked, you get a bunch of cool videos selected by day. The big problem was that the days were covered by the browsers at the top. See that yellow half moon at the top right? That’s supposed to be a day. You can theoretically pick previous days if you could actually see them……… but you can’t.

I can’t blame the browser, I need to blame the display and controller for not being able to display those vital 168 (768-600) missing pixels. When I could actually get the videos to play, they were hit and miss, most being choppy and pixilated, some very good. The CPU varied between 75-100% depending on the content.

Hopefully others can learn from my latest science experiment….. when in doubt in my opinion, if you want to do ANYTHING other than surfing basic, light websites AT HOME without the bells and whistles, go for the full-size notebook, not one of these cheap mini-notebooks. With any form of decent video playback or any video recoding, even with Microsoft , I wouldn’t, couldn’t recommend these cheap mini-notebooks in their current state and configuration.

I would love to hear your feedback on this or of your experiences have been any different.

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.

Day 3 @Computex: The Innovation Cycle Continues

Patrick Moorhead — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:45:00 +0000

Day three at Computex comprised of more 1:1 regional press interviews and spending more time, maybe too much time, on the show floor given security booted us out of the facility.

Although I had spent a good part of time interviewing some of our technology partners, it was now our turn to give interviews. The first one was with Bloomberg, and while they would have liked to dig deep into AMD’s financial matters, we confined our discussion to AMD’s products and competitiveness. We also talked with IDG on a variety of corporate areas. I have been meeting with Sumner for years and it’s so nice to catch up with familiar faces.

We also hosted a Japanese press contingent that freelanced for publications including PC Watch and MYCOM Journal The discussion focused on our “Puma” platform, the rationalization behind our AMD GAME!™ and AMD LIVE! ™ programs, and the benefits we believe they provide to different sets of customers. I personally like to think of AMD LIVE! and AMD GAME! as guiding posts to deliver a superior technology platform for mainstream gamers and media mavens. Some may disagree and call it just a sticker program or marketing ploy, but if it can help simplify a confusing buying decision, it’s easy to see the benefit. Again, we in the PC industry tend to lose perspective on the ocean that separates enthusiasts and mainstream customers in how each of them approach a solid buying decision. AMD LIVE! and GAME! fill a void in information availability and help save time and effort for the consumer looking for a great all-around digital media and gaming PC.

The final interview was with Hardware Zone out of Singapore. We chatted a lot about the future, or in my opinion, the questionable future for UMPCs and a lot about the mini-notebook spin and hype at this year’s show. As you know, I spent 30 days at home with a lot of different mini-notebooks, comparing full sized notebooks at the same price point, and blogged about my results here. I just hope that consumers get full disclosure when deciding between a mini-notebook and full-sized notebook at the same price point.

After our 1:1 interviews we met up with GearLive for a chat. These guys are awesome in that they sift right through the spin (B.S.) to get to the heart of the technology and the benefit it provides the end user. I absolutely LOVE that approach and wish more folks would adopt this. You can check out our interview with GearLive here:

…as we discuss the next generation notebook platform.

Jake Ludington from GearLive has great insights on the entire Computex show and he shares these insights on his blog here.

Finally, we met up with AMD’s Jacky Wong to talk about ATI XGP™ technology. This is AMD’s new external PCI Express® (PCIe) 2.0 graphics platform, designed to deliver enthusiast-class desktop graphic performance and true multimedia upgradeability to notebooks. The concept is real simple: If you have a notebook with an ATI XGP Technology external PCIe connector and you want some real incredible gaming performance, plug your notebook into an independently powered and cooled graphics “booster unit”, and you are on your way to gaming heaven. Jacky talks more about it here:

…and shows us a notebook connected to three additional monitors playing some cool games.

As we were giving our final GearLive interview of the show, the lights turned down and security entered our realm, a pretty good sign that it was time to leave. Matt Davis, my AMD compadre of the show, just flipped on the camera and we just started walking and talking, trying to summarize what we saw during the show. You can catch that conversation here.

What a Computex 2008 show…… Puma has been let off the leash and the industry’s cycle of innovation rules over anything else. It rules over spin and the giant blue hype machine… the truth always comes out in the end, or that’s what my grandfather the milkman and Christmas tree farmer told me when I was a mere four foot tall…….

Day 1 @Computex: In The Beginning….

Patrick Moorhead — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:17:00 +0000

As I said in my previous blog, we are planning to bring you some of the insights from Computex 2008. We wanted to bring it to you in a more multimedia fashion, and it’s just beginning now.

Day 1 was uneventful, with the exception that I somehow managed to lock myself into my bathroom. Some people may have said, “Someone doesn’t want me going to Computex” and stopped while they were ahead, but I am a man on a mission and cannot be deterred. I am no longer in the bathroom, in case you wondered. Thank goodness for bathroom phones. :>

The Computex show floor didn’t open until 9:30 am and Day 1 for me was mostly about show planning and press interviews. I met with Bloomberg, CNET Asia, Hong Kong Economic Journal, Ming Pao Daily News, and the Hong Kong Economic Times for about an hour each. We talked about a variety of items, but one item that we continually discussed was the present and future of mobility. There was a lot of interest in the AMD platform codename “Puma”, but since it isn’t scheduled to launch until June 4^th, I couldn’t divulge too much so we could save something for the grand announcement.

We talked about the concept of these expensive mini-notebooks a lot. It’s so interesting how, in my opinion, every trade show needs to have the “shiny new red wagon”. The irony is that many never gain market traction and either die or are reformed as something else. I was around for the first tablets released on Windows in the early 90’s and someone reminded me about diskless and wireless web tablets (Miro). For this show I am witnessing the feeding frenzy around inexpensive, low performing (versus full size) mini-notebooks. See my comments on those here. Last year at Computex, the big new thing was UMPCs…… and it was very hard for me to find many of them on the show floor this year.

So I did get the chance to walk the show floor for a few hours and it was interesting. It’s like system builder heaven…… chassis, motherboards, cooling solutions, memory, new storage…….. running out of breath just thinking about it.

At this year’s show, among many things, we are bringing out our new AMD LIVE!™ Home Cinema, which in simple words, is a cool reference design for a living room home theater PC. The specific configuration we’re demonstrating at Computex has a couple of cool features, specifically a digital audio amplifier from D2Audio (which hits what some would call audiophile specs) and a new liquid cooling solution we worked on with NoiseLimit Inc. We’re showing how the digital amp and a quad core AMD Phenom™ processor can all live like a happy family together in a VCR-sized chassis. Check out the interview here on the overall specs and benefits. We also were pleased to have NoiseLimit swing by the booth to tell us how they have innovated for the AMD LIVE! Home Cinema program. You can check that out here.

Finally, I took a look around another booth. I will leave it to your imagination as to who’s booth it was. What I saw there was a demo of Second Life and HD running on their new integrated chipset which was too jittery for me to enjoy. I was yearning for an AMD 780G chipset system with a quad or triple core AMD Phenom™ processor around that time. At my house at least I can run full Blu-ray movies with no hiccups at 1080P splendor and play some really good games like HL2 at decent frame rates.

Doing all this on a mobile platform could be even better…..and that’s what tomorrow is about…. i.e.: our next generation “Puma” platform. I will keep you posted…..and as I requested last time and you came through, let me know what you would like to see and I will try to get it on film.

Thirty days with a small & inexpensive mini-notebook: The MINUSES

Patrick Moorhead — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:17:00 +0000

In my last blog I wrote about my experiences with a $499 Asus Eee PC 8G mini-note and a $499 HP Compaq Presario F756NR full-note and showed some of the strengths the mini-note has versus the full-note at the same price.

Those mini-note advantages come at a fairly major expense, which I will highlight in terms of few very basic usage areas:

Basic web: The mini-note’s 7” screen size at 800×480 resolution scores high on portability, but unfortunately for basic web surfing, you don’t get a full web page and are forced to scroll to the “right” and “down” to see the relevant web content in most cases. Also, I encountered performance problems when I hit pages that were heavy with Flash, like Disney DXD, a big issue for my household. The full-note’s Flash web pages loaded much faster and the web video appeared a lot clearer. The Presario’s 15.4” wide-screen display at 1280×800 resolution fully displayed any web page I came across, no matter how wide. For comparison, I took some pictures of some popular web sites so you could get an idea of just how much more you can see on the full-note.

FoxNews.com

Disney.com

Community web: Because many MySpace and FaceBook pages are so Flash-heavy, I didn’t have a good experience with the mini-note on “spaces” that were heavy with embedded videos. In my opinion, videos and responsiveness were sluggish when compared to the Presario.
Media storage: With a “PC”, most users would expect to be able to save most of their photos, music, and videos. The Presario had approximately 100GB free while the mini-note had around 6GB free, a 16X difference. So what can one store with the additional 94 GB (96,256 MB)? This could store around 25 iTunes movies, 10,000 pictures, and 9,800 songs. (1)
Basic Music: The Presario has a DVD-RW drive, which means you can rip and burn music CDs. The mini-note doesn’t have an optical drive. If you are an iTunes fan, you are out of luck with the mini-note. Because the mini-note runs Linux, it doesn’t run iTunes or its content-protected music you may have purchased from Apple. If you really wanted, you could buy Windows XP and an external USB DVD-ROM and load it onto the mini-note, but if you did, I would recommend buying more RAM and solid state storage. The Presario with Windows Vista obviously runs iTunes and Windows Media Player and plays it through integrated Altec Lansing speakers.
Basic movies: Because the Presario has a DVD drive, it could obviously play DVD movies. If you are an iTunes fan, you can also use their download service and watch and store movies. Unfortunately, the mini-note can do neither. I could get some videos on a memory stick and get them to play, but wouldn’t expect a “mainstream” user to be able to figure that out.
Basic photos: There were major storage challenges as I outlined above for the mini-note. I could basically view photos on both machines but it was much easier to edit on the Presario, like basic red-eye and brightness changes. If you want to look at pictures on a big and bright screen, the Presario wins, if you want to view pictures in an extremely cramped space on a smaller screen, the mini-note wins.
Basic games: Both notebooks come with basic games like Solitaire, so would be fine for some of the most basic game players. The close comparison ends there. With the mini-note, I experienced jerkiness with kids Flash-based games available on sites like Nickjr.com, Lego.com, and Disney.com. The Presario rolled through the entire sites well. Moving up the gaming ladder, only the Presario can play mainstream Windows-based games like The Sims 2 because it has Windows and a DVD drive to load it.
Home productivity: If you are comfortable doing your finances through web sites like Turbotax.com, the mini-note is fine. If you want to load Windows-based applications like Quicken and need a wide screen to be productive with multi-column spreadsheets, the Presario is probably better for you. Both mini-notes came with a productivity suite, the mini-note offering OpenOffice, the Presario providing Microsoft Works and a 60 day trial of Microsoft Office Student Edition. Finally, the full-sized Presario keyboard was much more comfortable than the mini-note’s mini-keyboard when writing anything over a page long.

As you can see, users have a lot to think about today when deciding how to spend their $499 on a mini-notebook like the Asus Eee PC 8G or on a full-sized notebook like the HP Compaq Presario F756NR. I believe the mini-note and full-note will both increase in functionality over time and the content will get richer, so this challenge won’t be going away anytime soon. Adding WWAN, a more powerful CPU, better graphics, and better battery life to the mini-note will make it much more compelling choice in the future, but for now the full-sized notebook sure is compelling. New models came out yesterday with larger screens and higher prices and I have a new one on order to kick the tires.

Let me know what you think.

(1) Assumptions: 2 MB per photo, 2.5 MB per song, 2 GB per iTunes movie..

Thirty days with a small & inexpensive mini-notebook: The PLUSSES

Patrick Moorhead — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:22:00 +0000

There has been a lot of excitement around some of the small, inexpensive mini-notebooks out there. One in particular that is getting a lot of attention is the Asus EeePC, with models currently priced from $299 to $499.

The Eee PC sports a 7” screen, is very small and light with a small and fast solid state drive with pre-installed Linux and basic applications. The industry certainly needs some excitement these days, but after using one of these for a few months, I wonder if consumers really understand the trade-offs versus a full-sized notebook at the same price.

I wanted to compare what $499 could get me between a mini-notebook (mini-note) and a full sized notebook (full-note) so I bought a Asus Eee PC 8G mini-note and an HP Compaq Presario F756NR full-note and have been using both for a while.

The mini-note has some strengths versus the full-note at the same price:

Size and weight: The mini-note is less than half the weight (5.68 lbs vs. 2.02 lbs), less than half the size and fits on any airline tray table I sat in front of. It was really easy to use in my living room on my lap and even the kitchen as well.

Simplicity: Although the mini-note had more icons off of the main tabs than the full-note, the tabbed environment seemed simpler to navigate. (1) The inability to add additional software could be simpler, I suppose. The other enjoyable thing was the lack of windows popping up telling you that you need to check into every single thing from virus scanners, to firewalls, and software registrations.

Cold-boot and shut-down: On average, the mini-note took 76 less seconds (171%) from cold boot to internet and took 27 less seconds (338%) to fully shut down. The Presario only took 2 seconds more (33%) to go into standby, but interestingly, was faster from standby to internet by 21 seconds (168%). (2)

In my next blog, I am going to examine some of the big tradeoffs users will need to consider when deciding between a mini-notebook and a full-sized notebook at the same price.

(1) The Compaq had 9 desktop icons and 23 options from start icon for a total of 32. The Eee PC had 45 icons off of the main tabs.

(2) Average of three runs. “Internet” for the Presario was indicated by the globe icon appearing in the systray and the Eee PC by the appearance of the wireless LAN connection icon. “Standby” for the Presario was indicated by the blue blinking power button and for the Eee PC, by the green, blinking power LED.