Category: Laptops

Christoph Derndorfer and SJ Klein discuss the status of OLPC

Posted by – October 24, 2011

Christoph Derndorfer is the managing editor at the unofficial http://olpcnews.com website and SJ Klein is the director of outreach, community content coordinator at One Laptop Per Child.


This video was filmed using the new JVC GC-PX10 camcorder at 36mbitps 1080p50 with the JVC MZ-V8/MZ-V10 external microphone, you can download the full sample file here on Google Docs

Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 runs Windows 8

Posted by – September 17, 2011

Video showing Windows 8 running on a Texas Instrument OMAP4430 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, it’s behind glass though they are not showing things react to touch in this video.

Source: anandtech.com

Qualcomm MSM8660 Dual-core runs Windows 8

Posted by – September 17, 2011

Here’s an official video released on the Qualcomm YouTube channel showing Windows 8 running on their latest dual-core ARM Processor.


Source: QUALCOMMVlog

Microsoft also released this video showing that there is no difference between the ARM Powered device and the Intel Core i5 based device:


If you don’t have Silverlight you can download the WMV file here
Source: channel9.msdn.com

Nvidia Kal-El Windows 8 tablet hands-on

Posted by – September 17, 2011

This seems kind of ready to me, why don’t they release this before Christmas?

I guess they still need to do a lot of work on the whole ARM and x86 Intel compatibility system so all the .exe files “just work” on ARM (virtualized, emulated, or whatever trick they are working on..), and for that a bunch of software optimizations still need to be done.

They should be selling or giving those ARM Powered Windows 8 Tablets away at least to the developers during the coming weeks and months? You can right now download Windows 8 Preview Edition at http://dev.windows.com but this is not yet the ARM version of that Preview software.

Source: thisismynext.com

Acer confirms at IFA: No ARM Laptops before Windows 8

Posted by – September 4, 2011

I got it confirmed by a high-ranked product strategy manager (on Ultrabooks) at Acer that Acer will likely not release an ARM Powered Laptop before Windows 8 is ready. That probably means, he says, not before the beginning of next year. He says though that he does not know about Acer making ARM Chromebooks or not. I have to emphasise that this guy is in charge of the strategies around Acer’s new Ultrabook, so he might not know everything that is being worked on in his 7757-employee, $20-Billion-revenues-per-year company.

Sorry about my article posted on July 23rd, quoting yet another turns-out-to-be-a-false-rumor Digitimes article where the Acer CEO was reportedly saying that Acer’s ARM laptop was imminent.

Another perhaps interesting aspect of Acer’s business to consider is that while Acer complains of lowering profit margins and lowering consumer spending on Intel Powered Laptops and Desktops (in exchange for more spending on ARM Powered Smartphones and Tablets), companies like Lenovo and Dell seem to be suggesting in other speeches that they are doing ok. I do not know if Lenovo’s numbers about them being the fastest growing PC maker has something to do with them having recently acquired NEC and Medion, it surely is interesting to follow the profit margin and growth-disruption that ARM devices are doing to the PC business.

The imminent $199 ARM Powered Chromebook is the single most disruptive threat to Intel, Microsoft, Apple and the PC/Mac profit margins business.

Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook, starts at 799€ up to 1199€

Posted by – September 2, 2011

Acer is also launching one of those new thin Intel Core i powered Ultrabooks, expensive, but thin but they promise power. I haven’t yet seen one with 2 USB3 ports, I wonder why they don’t design them with that. The price starts at 799€ and goes up to 1199€ depending on configuration, using any among Intel Core i3, i5, i7, SSD or Hard Drive and the amount of RAM.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Ultrabook, $999 starting price

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Here’s a very thin Ultrabook from Toshiba.

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook, $1199 starting price

Posted by – September 1, 2011

Lenovo is launching this new Ultrabook based on the second generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, pricing starts at $1199, goes up perhaps to about $1999 with all kinds of options in terms of dual or quad core processor, 128GB or 256GB SSD memory, 2GB, 4GB or 8GB RAM. They have done some ventilation design so there are no vents under the laptop, it’s aluminium everywhere, so it stays cold under the laptop even though this is a quite powerful new processor.

Acer to release an ARM Powered Laptop next week!

Posted by – July 23, 2011

x86 is becoming more and more problematic for Laptop makers as the retail prices are lowered, component and manufacturing costs remain high, profit margins are lowered and the overall Laptop market growth is being slowed by consumers using gradually more and more of their consumer electronics budgets on ARM Powered Tablets and Smartphones instead of x86.

Acer’s previous CEO got fired about 3 months ago as their board of directors were angry at them not investing enough of their potential into releasing more ARM Powered devices, those that can maximize profit margins and enable real growth.

The big question for this ARM Powered Acer Laptop is to know if this will run the Tegra2, does that provide enough memory bandwidth for a good multi-tab web browsing experience, if they somehow have been able to provide a version of the 1Ghz Tegra2 with more memory bandwidth for Laptop use, or if performance is simply going to be similar to the awesome ARM Powered Toshiba AC100 released last year.

The other big question is do they run Chrome OS, Ubuntu, Android Honeycomb or all of the above? Wouldn’t it be awesome if Acer came forward and said something like “Hey, we will support more than 1 OS, even Windows 8 when it comes out, simply choose your OS in a multi-boot menu and we will provide updates for each OS over the Internet or they can be updated through the SD card”. I think multi-boot multi-OS support is the key to enable a successful ARM Powered Laptop product for convincing the early adopters now while the whole Linaro software is being optimized and worked on, while memory bandwidth on ARM Powered laptops may or may not provide a fully smooth multi-tab full javascripts and Flash web browsing experience, and while so many nice OS are competing with each other to provide the best most hardware accelerated web browsing experience. I would for example very much like Chrome OS on this, but the look of Android Honeycomb on a Laptop sure is nice and Ubuntu on ARM is becoming awesome!

The news arrives by way of company chairman and CEO J.T. Wang as he addressed concerns about the company dropping from the second world’s largest PC manufacturer to the fourth largest during the second quarter of 2011. He said that to regain its lost market share, the company plans to adopt a new strategy to create “more value instead of pursuing volume growth.”

This is Awesome! ARM Powered Laptops are CHEAPER, use much lower power, thinner, lighter, would be perfect in a $199 ARM Powered Acer Chromebook, this is a perfect way for Acer to introduce something new to dominate a market.

Finally, instead of simply pushing out x86 powered reference design laptops based on Intel and AMD x86 chips, now Acer is investing to differentiate, improve, optimize, customize and design awesomeness through ARM Powered laptops that run embedded software.

Acer is not the only one!

Last month, Digitimes reported that Several vendors plan to offer ARM-architecture notebooks.

Several vendors, including Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Acer and Asustek Computer, plan to develop ARM architecture notebooks, with products possibly to be launched as early as the end of 2011, according to industry sources.

Samsung may release Exynos 4210 Powered Chromebooks! Toshiba is probably doing an AC200! Asus is also rumored to be preparing a 13″ ARM Powered Android Laptop similar to its Asus Transformer!

Look forward to A LOT of FUN TIMES ahead in the ARM Powered Laptop market. Which ARM Processor with how much memory bandwidth and which software OS would you like to run on your next ARM Powered laptop?

via: liliputing.com and tomshardware.com

Linaro ARM Linux optimizations status at the Freescale Technology Forum

Posted by – June 23, 2011

Discussion with Linaro employees about the status of ARM Powered laptops.