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38 Comments
- sanskrtam, on 03/12/2009, -1/+24Investing in ARM is not "RISC-y" anymore.
- Arghblarg, on 03/12/2009, -1/+15Please let the x86 instruction set die, NOW. We owe it to our children, and our childrens' children...
- MacEnvy, on 03/12/2009, -0/+11Punny.
- jer2eydevil88, on 03/11/2009, -2/+10Could this be the same analyst who predicted G5 Powerbooks in six months?
- buckrogers1965, on 03/12/2009, -0/+7I saw an arm based netbook now that has upto 15 hours battery life and it only weighs 2 pounds. And there is going to be a lot of choice as to what OS you install too. You can install winCE or something useful like Linux or *BSD* or Android.
- rolf, on 03/12/2009, -0/+6Arm has significant advantages over intel in this space: namely getting the same performance out of 1/10th of the power. Perhaps because they don't have to do as much backwards compatibility and also because they are so focused on the portable market and hold so much of the mobile phone market.
The drawback is that it is a different instruction set. Although Windows Mobile can run on Arm CPUs, normal desktop windows programs aren't compiled for it AFAIK, nevermind the average driver. OTOH, Linux, by its open source nature, can and usually is ported to anything. Apple has shown to be willing to move OS X to another architecture, and seem adept in dragging the developers along.
This tablet with removeable keyboard by Always Innovating, built around the arm-based beagle board, looks great imo, reportedly has a 15 hour battery life, and comes out in June:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-from ...
I hope to buy it. - ThantiK, on 03/12/2009, -0/+5The general public is already accepting it. the iPhone has an ARM processor in it. Your mobile phone ANY of them, have arm processors in them usually. Most media devices that aren't full blown desktops or servers use ARM processors. Nintendo DS/PSP use ARM Processors.
Get over yourself with the Windows propaganda.
www.openpandora.org
Pandora is an AMAZING piece of hardware coming to the general public by around april and it runs an ARM processor as well, with a full featured linux distro. - Peepsalot, on 03/12/2009, -0/+4benologist, It's not just about CPU processing power. It's largely about power consumption. Your 2-3 year old cpu that outperforms an Atom processor likely uses many times more power than the Atom.
A smaller form factor dictates a smaller battery, so the CPU used in these netbooks must be as efficient as possible. - rockstar1o9, on 03/12/2009, -0/+3Sounds good for consumers. Horray for competition!
- benologist, on 03/12/2009, -0/+3Ah thanks for that, I didn't know there were those restrictions on Atoms. Hopefully this year sees a more powerful flavor of 7/9/10" netbooks appear on the market then.
- benologist, on 03/12/2009, -0/+3Peeps - where's the middleground though? With netbooks it's very cut-and-dry, you *must* have inferior, pretty much identical across all models hardware. The only thing you really pick is which company's logo will be on the shell, and what color it'll be.
As soon as you go up to 12.1" / 13.3" / 14.1" etc you get a much wider variety of options.... current and former generation AMD and Intel processors, GPUs, DDR2, DDR3, good solid state drives, good sata drives, fingerprint readers, led or not-led backlights, etc.
An 8.9" netbook with an ok processor - something from 2007 even - and 1280x800 resolution would be useful in far more situations than a slow 8.9" with a 1024x600 resolution. It'd be less battery and it'd cost more but that's always a tradeoff anyway, we're not talking cutting edge technology so the price at least could remain attractive even if the battery's reduced to the 2 - 3 hours we're accustomed to on our normal laptops.
I'm not a conspiracy guy but I do find it strange that *nobody* deviates from the generic netbook specs across all of the manufacturers. There's like 2 configurations to choose from across most of the largest pc manufacturers in the world. - MacEnvy, on 03/12/2009, -2/+5That's just because you don't want a netbook. You want a small laptop.
If you're only willing to pay $300, you're going to get reduced performance, be it from VIA or Intel. - Elranzer, on 03/12/2009, -0/+3"There's like 2 configurations to choose from across most of the largest pc manufacturers in the world."
Yeah, VIA C7 (like HP's Mini-Note) and Intel Atom (which still doesn't have the dual-core Atom in the netbooks yet). The differences are all in the bells'n'whistles, like the screen size, wifi and adapter slots. - codereview, on 03/12/2009, -0/+2dugg .. for the kids
- Elranzer, on 03/12/2009, -0/+2I'd LOVE to buy an ARM-based netbook (or hell even a PowerPC-based one, I'm sure Freescale's got some impressive new PPC low-power processors now). Trouble is, I can't seem to find one anywhere. The closest thing to a PowerPC netbook would be a used 12" iBook G4 on eBay.
On that note, I casn't seem to find ATX-style motherboards for non-x64 processors either. I'd love to build a custom PowerPC or ARM-based computer.
If I'm mistaken, and there's PPC or ARM motherboards you can buy, I'd love to know. - MacEnvy, on 03/12/2009, -0/+2@benologist
The reason for the standardization across the platform is that Intel will only license the Atom for certain configurations. You can't have discrete graphics or a screen size larger than 10", or Intel won't sell you the processors. And at that price point, power consumption, and processing power, the Atom is the only way to go. Looks like VIA is catching up though.
These licensing issues are part of the reason why nVidia is trying to build their own GPUs, and why they're building strategic partnerships with companies like VIA. They want to be able to put things like the Ion platform together without getting sued by Intel for breaking the Atom license. If nVidia is successful, you'll see many more options become available in the netbook/nettop segment. - ChrisHB, on 03/12/2009, -0/+2Must be nice to see the future. How about some winning lotto numbers.
- rrife, on 03/12/2009, -0/+1I don't think that I've even seen any mainstream netbook running ARM, so when are they going to start to over take Atom?
- hajihill, on 03/12/2009, -1/+2Because for instance with the 1000HE, it weighs in at 3 pounds and I can charge it every other day. For most things I need to do it's the most convenient form factor. Super energy efficient, lightweight, and versatile enough for around the house, off to the side at work, on the train, or out and about. I can plop down anywhere I am and have a decent computing platform, with some storage and ability. Nothing fancy, or back-breaking just dependable and lightweight.
At this point, I am looking forward to them evolving, but I'm quite happy with what they can do. They're worth trying, and I won't feel bad spending money on a new one in, say, a year or so. - djphilos, on 04/30/2009, -0/+1Is that based on some preconceived notion that the Atom will not get any better over the next 3 years?
- burchie2, on 03/12/2009, -0/+1atom? 2012? No.
- yaazz, on 03/13/2009, -0/+1yeah and it will sell great in the neck beard demographic.
Phones are completely different. People expect computers to run windows its a pretty well known fact. - molochi, on 05/09/2009, -0/+1I kind of agree with you. But it has more to do with how they're sold. People are being sold netbooks as cheap notebooks, so they expect Word to work.
The ARM netbooks need to be designed and sold as a "consumer electronic item" like a Palm or an iPod Touch or the Handheld PCs of the 1990s. The old HP 660 LX used to be displayed next to the Palm Pilots. Put it in the MP3 player section at bestbuy cycling through a demo of working media internet video, netflix, video played from a SDcard or thumbdrive, and show it surfing the internet and answering email and doing voice and video calls. Hype its "immunity" to viruses because it's NOT a PC and doesn't run software that can be infected.
And REALLY talk up the battery life. - djphilos, on 04/30/2009, -0/+1Risc is good. -Zero Cool
- rebrad, on 03/12/2009, -0/+1How many times have we heard this same tired prediction over the last 20 years. I don't think it would be too far out to state that if you had a dollar for every time that someone predicted that "the rule of Linux is at hand" you'd be the richest person in the world. The netbook is a good example of this. When they first came out Linux was pushed because of the cost. But the netbook didn't start to sell in quantity until the vendors added an OS that people wanted and to top it all off the price went down. Spare me the pain. Linux is an OS for self-proclaimed elitist, the antisocial or the uninformed consumer.
- larsalan, on 03/15/2009, -0/+1Well you could look for them on the internet.
http://www.google.com/products?source=ig&hl=en ... - rmxz, on 03/12/2009, -0/+1"upcoming ARM ... could create a market for netbooks at price points Intel and Microsoft simply won't be able to match"
Huh? Hasn't Intel been the leading ARM vendor since they bought the StrongARM group from DEC? And Windows (even going back to NT, now CE) runs fine on ARM. - cannarymburns, on 03/13/2009, -2/+2meh, its an arm cpu... cell phones or calculators can be slow without much of a problem, but netbooks are closer to the pc range in speed, so an arm will be dog slow compared to other netbooks. i guess its how much performance you're willing to sacrifice for battery life. i'd rather be able to open up several tabs in a browser and still have a usable computer, thank you very much...
- glitchbit, on 03/12/2009, -1/+1lol Intel sold their ARM processor division years ago for a reason... sorry x86 is the past, present and future.
- zeth006, on 03/12/2009, -1/+1So...good news or bad?
You decide, I guess?
Glad to see AMD's joining the game soon. Some years back I figured it would be some time before Via made anymore significant moves that would put it head to head against Intel. Now with Nvidia possibly making its own microprocessor I’d say the next 3 years will be marked by the netbook processor wars. - Mertchel, on 03/12/2009, -1/+0"these pre-netbooks might have 100mbit internet access from cell phone signals and be able to mass produce on their own. They are light and quick and can strike with a vengeance. Be afraid, pre-netbooks possess processing powers of command line proportion are known to be very compatible."
I really don't like netbooks either. - varun1s, on 03/11/2009, -4/+3Same news in 22 words: "War clouds appearing over the netbook processor platform. Battle likely between VIA/Intel/Nvidia.Other derivative platforms such as pre-netbooks may appear."
- huangfanzhen, on 03/12/2009, -1/+0yeah, agree with you
- benologist, on 03/12/2009, -4/+2Personally I'm willing to pay more. I would love to pay for a less-than-***** 8.9" that performs in the enormous middleground between Intel Atoms and current laptop CPUs. Unfortunately pretty much every netbook vendor picked the same identical and identically crap configuration.
This isn't in English but the benchmark comparison of a CPU trip down memory lane is. Why aren't we encouraging netbooks with older but better hardware? How much could it possibly cost them to use a 2 - 3 year old CPU that outperforms an Atom?
http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/prozessor ...
Why are people so keen to insist a netbook must be weaker than the 3 year old laptop sitting in your closet? - RobotBuddha, on 03/12/2009, -3/+1Get a full featured operating system with support for the latest version of flash and I could easily see it. But flash is the limit. A netbook that can't access all of the net isn't worth it to me. If adobe goes through with their plans for android, I could really see that combination working well on arm based netbooks. There's a whole lot of 'if' in that, however.
- yaazz, on 03/12/2009, -4/+2No X86 means no Windows.
I dont care what anyone says, if it doesn't have windows, the general public won't accept it. - nullcodes, on 03/12/2009, -4/+2For netbooks, and maybe even phones .. there is nothing wrong with the x86 instruction set versus ARM.. actually as the process size shrinks to 32 nm and below .. x86 will shine more.
- benologist, on 03/12/2009, -10/+5Why would we still want Atom CPUs in another 3 years? I don't even want an Atom CPU in a netbook *now*.
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