True the new Motorola is pushing the fact it does high resolution video (not seen it though!)Yak wrote: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 wrote:Price wise maybe, but the Palm has a better screen and largerYak 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..
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.
The Netbook Thread
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Kemper_Boyd
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Spare is not free. It's still a 90nm Pentium M, 945 northbridge and ICH7 I/O.Dio wrote:Hmmm, thinking about this... will Intel have a shitload of spare 90nm fab capacity coming up soon?Kemper_Boyd wrote:But Intel may well be offering them a very silly deal.
There's something fishy about all this. Perhaps Intel think UMPCs are such an
important future product they must take drastic action and give away the
chips and promote Linux ahead of Windows.
Ooh my birthday is in Augustravuya wrote:Seconded. I thought this was only for the developing world, but holy crap me wanty.Kamineko wrote:Where do buy pay monie now please?
Edit: Release date August. I wonder if I can call my local computer store and have them put one aside for me.
(just show, no stabby stabby)
Sure, but idle fab == no money made (and significant costs required for upkeep) and if it's 'old stuff' there's no R&D amortisation required. If they've identified a big chunk of fab they can use at 90nm now and upgrade to 45 later then, hell, that's cash in the bank.Kemper_Boyd wrote:Spare is not free. It's still a 90nm Pentium M, 945 northbridge and ICH7 I/O.
The wafer cost is constant (and cheaper on older processes, as well as delivering higher yields), so if the chip's small I'd imagine they can afford to bung 'em out at $10 each (or whatever, I don't know the detailed maths) and still make a profit, perhaps even a decent one and keep the margins up.
I'd say the reverse if anything; Windows is tied to x86, while Linux can run on anything. If I had to take a wild stab in the dark as to why Intel would be so cooperative, it's that they think the UMPC's are capable of gutting the low-end and midget laptop market and they want to make sure it's x86 playing in this space - no incentive to shift to ARM or for another Transmeta to come along if they've got x86 and Windows firmly established there from day 1.There's something fishy about all this. Perhaps Intel think UMPCs are such an important future product they must take drastic action and give away the chips and promote Linux ahead of Windows.
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gilesgoat
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Silly question .. how can it run any OSs of today that require a swap file
( both Linux and Windows need it ) on flash ram only ?
With all those read-write cycles would not destroy the flash in a few days ?
Or does it manage to use some ram-disk for the swap file ?
How could it ever run XP on that ?
( both Linux and Windows need it ) on flash ram only ?
With all those read-write cycles would not destroy the flash in a few days ?
Or does it manage to use some ram-disk for the swap file ?
How could it ever run XP on that ?
Giles the billy goat
"Baa"
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Kemper_Boyd
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$10 is way too low for the manufacturing cost of such a chip. They'd loseDio wrote:The wafer cost is constant (and cheaper on older processes, as well as delivering higher yields), so if the chip's small I'd imagine they can afford to bung 'em out at $10 each (or whatever, I don't know the detailed maths) and still make a profit, perhaps even a decent one and keep the margins up.
money at that level.
I got the distinct impression from what I'd read about this that Intel wereDio wrote:Transmeta to come along if they've got x86 and Windows firmly established there from day 1.
not happy with Microsoft's progress and so where approaching Linux
developers to get the job done. Linux is easier to tailor for the specific
hardware and forms of UMPCs. For what most of these devices will be
used for Windows compatibility is irrelevant, just as in the smartphone
market. Of course Intel still want you to use x86 rather than ARM as
you said.
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Kemper_Boyd
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The enormously high figures you sometimes see, thousands of years,Dio wrote:Write levelling supposedly sorts the problem out to a great extent. Someone on here worked out that the reliability was better than the MTBF of a HD a while back I think.
are only correct for any empty device. As well as the rate of I/O the
amount of static files and the utilisation of the drive matter as well.
An almost full drive will wear out faster than an almost empty drive
doing the same I/O.
The performance and reliability of flash is quite hard to gauge as the
view presented to the OS does not reveal the internal operation of the
flash chips and controller. Even so large modern flash drives should
last as long as any of the other components in a UMPC.
heheWiteWulf wrote:lol, sorry Giles, but that's just the funniest thing I've seen all daygilesgoat wrote:
Or does it manage to use some ram-disk for the swap file ?
I made a couple of "industrial" A600 computers which ran totally off an 8MB PCMCIA card, in a high-vibration environment. If I remember correctly those cards were battery backed SRam rather than flash.
They worked *great* - booted and started the application by the time the monitor warmed up.
I'd have no idea how to build the same kind of system these days, without resorting to 15 year old hardware
(just show, no stabby stabby)
I dunno. Like I said, this is all guesses, but... $5k-$10k a 30cm wafer, isn't it? That's 1000 or so 70mm2 chips. Yield of 50-70%? Couple of $ for packaging? $10 is a feasible ballpark...Kemper_Boyd wrote:$10 is way too low for the manufacturing cost of such a chip. They'd lose money at that level.
