The Netbook Thread

oNyx · Post by **oNyx** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:15 pm 0

noodles wrote:[...]
Wonder what kind of power demand the flash ram access creates ?
Will it last for days on one charge or is the gain just marginal ?

SSD takes very little power. The whole machine will take about 12.5w at most (by the looks of it). The TDP of the CPU is at 3.5w and the chipset typically takes 1.95w (9.3w max)... that is if they actually use the GMA950. The 900 one takes less.

However, the batteries are tiny (4 cells: 5200mAh, 2S2P -> ( 3.6V * 2 ) * ( 5200mAh ) = 37.44Wh). So, you get more like 3-4h or more if you use that battery-friendly "easy" mode.

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:16 pm 0

noodles wrote:Wonder what kind of power demand the flash ram access creates ?
Will it last for days on one charge or is the gain just marginal ?

It depends upon the battery. Intel say 3.5 hours on Mobile Mark 05
(Office type stuff) or 2 hours of SD video for the McCaslin chipset
with a 16 WHr battery.

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:23 pm 0

Dio wrote:CPU: ? - Â£30-40?

I agree with your other prices, this is the one that stands out, I believe
Intel sell it as a chipset of Stealey (a 90nm Pentium M), north and south
bridge. If it was priced at anything like the usual mobile part prices I'd say
there was no way Asus could hit $200. But Intel may well be offering them
a very silly deal.

Dio wrote:That's $200 without the case, screen and battery. So yeah, $299 looks a bit more likely to me.

I agree with $299, that puts it at the Apple TV price, similar hardware but
with HD and GPU but obviously no screen, less RAM and no 4 GB flash.

Dio · Post by **Dio** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:30 pm 0

The CPU's pulled out of thin air. I got that price from the Celeron M's on Scan's web site. It's an indication of what Intel can afford to sell a small CPU for...

RAM is just utterly stupidly cheap now. I'd happily pay Â£15 more for 1G

.

GeeZa · Post by **GeeZa** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:37 pm 0

Even at $299, as a Linux-based portable computer it's looks *very* compelling to me. If you're careful 4Gb is still enough to work with. The fact that it will be light and (presumably) quiet is a huge draw. Looks like a baby MacBook, they seem to have got the design pretty right too. Nice. Best thing I've seen since those posh Japanese Zaurus PDAs.

Yak · Post by **Yak** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:47 pm 0

If I were Palm I'd be well smegged off. The $500 not-quite-video-capable Foleo thing suddenly looks a lot less attractive..

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:47 pm 0

GeeZa wrote:Even at $299, as a Linux-based portable computer it's looks *very* compelling to me. If you're careful 4Gb is still enough to work with.

I think Palm's Foleo looks pretty good at $499 even $599, assuming a fair
amount of Linux software comes out for it. The Asus machine is a must
buy if it's $199. They will sell gazillions even running Linux.

There's this to look forward to.

Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Edition will provide a rich Internet experience for users of Intelâ€™s 2008 Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform.

Okay that's for next years reference design but there's no obvious reason
that it would have trouble on the Asus box.

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:49 pm 0

Yak wrote:If I were Palm I'd be well smegged off. The $500 not-quite-video-capable Foleo thing suddenly looks a lot less attractive..

Price wise maybe, but the Palm has a better screen and larger
keyboard. It's an odd product from them but I think that recent
announcements from other companies are showing that the
niche may be about to take off. If they could do something about
the price I'd pick Palm over Asus or Via any day.

Yak · Post by **Yak** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:56 pm 0

Kemper_Boyd wrote:
Yak wrote:If I were Palm I'd be well smegged off. The $500 not-quite-video-capable Foleo thing suddenly looks a lot less attractive..
Price wise maybe, but the Palm has a better screen and larger
keyboard. It's an odd product from them but I think that recent
announcements from other companies are showing that the
niche may be about to take off. If they could do something about
the price I'd pick Palm over Asus or Via any day.

Aye, but they need to get video working too. Since they are pushing the thing as a mobile phone's companion, and every phone and PDA can do video these days, they'll need that wirking out the box I reckon..

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:01 pm 0

Version 2.

If you want multimedia a PMP is likely to be far better than any
of the three systems.

Yak · Post by **Yak** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:05 pm 0

I don't really want multimedia that much, I just want a slim light net'n'stuff machine that's easy to take with. I just don't want it to choke on Youtube

.

Dio · Post by **Dio** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:25 pm 0

Kemper_Boyd wrote:But Intel may well be offering them a very silly deal.

Hmmm, thinking about this... will Intel have a shitload of spare 90nm fab capacity coming up soon?

oNyx · Post by **oNyx** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:39 pm 0

Youtube will be fine and flv videos with the more cpu intensive on2 codec will be also fine. SD videos will be also fine. They already work on P3/K7 CPUs with 500mhz... h264 is a tad troublesome on those CPUs tho. However, with a tad more processing power everything is fine. And even a Pentium M with 600mhz is already about twice as fast.

I would say that everything below HD 1080 will work pretty well.

Yak · Post by **Yak** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:44 pm 0

Yeah YT would be fine on the asus thing, it's just Palm are currently saying that the Foleo won't do video. Which seems a bit silly.

oNyx · Post by **oNyx** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:45 pm 0

Fooleo