Intel Graphic Drivers for Windows 7

Intel has started to release officially the graphic chipset drivers for Windows 7. Here is the link for Windows 7 RC1 82945G Express Chipset, one of the most used in UMPC and Tablet PCs (Used in the Fujitsu P1610).

Intel Introduces new Atom Chips

  Intel presented Yesterday a new series of it Atom processor targeting mw devices such as robots.

The company introduced four Atom chips that will go into devices such as entertainment systems for cars, videoconferencing devices, robots and interactive kiosks, said Doug Davis, vice president of Intel's digital enterprise group.

Intel slowly has improved the overall performance of the Atom processors making them ideal for all kind of small devices.

Intel Introduces Atom Chips for New Devices - PC World

Atom Dual Core

Intel just announced the release in September of a dual core version of the mobile processor Atom.

It looks like we'll be seeing Intel's new dual-core Atom 330 on the market sooner rather than later. The chip will launch in September accompanied by a refreshed D945GCLF2 motherboard, and is targeted at entry-level computer users, users in emerging markets, PC enthusiasts who want a basic home PC, and customized point-of-sale terminals.

Wow! That's good news. Finally Intel is taking care of performance.

Intel announces dual-core Atom, chains it to 945C chipset

First Intel MID pre-order/pricing: M528

Chippy from UMPCPortal has found that the first Intel MID can be preordered already at Tegatech, Australia.

Interested in mobile Internet devices? You know, the ones aimed at the consumer with consumer features and consumer pricing? Then read on… Tegatech, a well-respected UMPC retailer in Australia has recently signed a deal with Gigabyte for the distribution of it’s UMPCs and MIDs in Australia and New Zealand and has sent out an email to it’s media contacts announcing that my favorite MID, the M528 is on their books. A quick look at their website reveals that, yes, the M528 is listed, still looking very desirable, with a nice 8GB flash drive, the 3MP auto-focus cam, an 800×480 touch screen, 11Wh battery, built-in GPS, 3G radio and an 800Mhz Intel Atom processor. With a pocketable size, a pocketable weight and that slide out keyboard it’s a dream device for many.

But here is the interesting thing, the price for this device is around 1280 dollars! Was not the Intel's MID concept talking about very cheap devices which only main task was Internet Connectivity? For that money you can buy a decent UMPC! A powerful laptop! 3 iPhones! And the other thing is that this price fiasco for some reason reminds me the 500 dollars price tag for UMPCs in the initial Microsoft/Intel marketing campaign. And I said Microsoft/Intel because during that marketing campaign Intel was part of it and a very active part of it and I wonder if the 500 dollars price tag really came from Intel and not from Microsoft.

Intel is loosing the battle against VIA in the UMPC field

Well, at least that's my opinion after analyzing two years of fiascos coming from Intel. Last year was completely lost because the best that Intel could release was the A110 and A100, two processors that did not give a extra battery life worth to mention because we have plenty of examples of other UMPC using even Core Solo with about the same battery life. The A110 and A100 performance was about the same than what we see in the second generation of VIA processors. Now Intel just released the Atom. And what we have there, lets check this chart posted at JKonTheRun.

 

Once again the new processor from Intel specially designed for UMPC and MID performs worse than the old Celeron M at 900 MHz. There are even few reports about A110 processors out performing this Atom score. So for two years on the road Intel has not been able to release a better processor from the point of view of performance and there are some reports that the Atom even does not support Aero in Vista. If you compare this to what is going on with VIA processors you will see a different picture there. VIA has upgraded its processors for UMPC two times in the same period and in both cases we have seen a gain in performance and battery life. So, who is winning this battle? Evidently VIA. VIA processor still do not out perform in some cases the A110 and Atom processors in performance but if they continue doing what they have been doing I wont be surprised to see a faster VIA processor before this year ends.

Windows Vista and the Ultra-Mobile PC

I came today across this article and it was really interesting to read how I'm not alone when I'm asking OEMs not to install Vista in machines that use the Intel A110 or A100 processor.  

The Q1 Ultra I'm testing uses a lowly 800 MHz ultra-low-voltage processor mated to just 1 GB of RAM, a combination that is woefully inadequate for Windows Vista. I've tried to dumb down the UI in various ways to see how performance is impacted, but I can't see a difference between the Classic and Windows Vista Basic UIs from a speed standpoint, so I leave it on the more attractive Vista Basic. Not that it matters: Try to do two or more things at once and the memory dries up immediately and system performance comes to a screeching halt.

Some tasks are simply too demanding for the UMPC regardless of what else you're doing. Playing back a 1500 Kbps H.264 file in QuickTime or iTunes is almost impossible, and even Windows Media Player stumbles through these files with the appropriate codecs installed, providing a miserable overall experience. The supplied Origami Experience won't play these files at all, even with the right codecs installed.

For general note-taking in Word 2007 and simple online tasks (email, Web browsing), the UMPC works just fine, assuming you don't try to do both at once. A RAM bump to at least 2 GB--my recommended minimum for Vista--would likely do wonders, but these machines are never going to be performance champs, not in this generation. If your needs are far less demanding than mine, the UMPC may earn a place in your carry-on. But I don't recommend using it as your only PC regardless. This is more of a PC companion than a true PC, despite the underlying operating system and its capabilities. It doesn't matter if the device is compatible with something if it's not fast enough to run it effectively. This may just be the slowest computer I've ever used.

Paul Thurrott wonderfully described the problems I have seen in this past few days in the Fujitsu U810 that I have been testing. Vista is heavy even in my Samsung Q1 that runs at 100 MHz more. According to Kevin from JKonTheRun, it's more or less OK in his Q1p at 1 GHz. But it's too much for a A110 even when in its new 945 graphic chip Aero looks good.

[Discuss This Topic] 

Intel preparing “Montevina SFF”

According to this news published Today at X-Bit Labs:

In an attempt to boost sales of microprocessors for thin-and-light notebooks as well as ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPC), Intel Corp. plans to reduce the packaging sizes of its chips for next-generation Montevina small form-factor (Montevina SFF) platform due out in 2008.

I hope that Intel shows us something a little better than current McCaslin processors which bring more battery life cutting off performance.

BTW, I'm posting this from my Q1 while waiting for a oil change in my car. I love this company, they have a WiFi AP with free Internet!

Technorati Tags: Intel

[Discuss This Topic]

is the iPod Touch a MID?

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I would call it a duck. It has a closed OS, it allows you to browse the Web and send emails and it has touch screen of less than 5 inches. Every thing within the parameters described by Intel for this concept.

So what do you think, is the iPod Touch a MID?

Technorati Tags: MID

[Discuss This Topic]

Intel should have made something better

That's the main point and the reason why I keep talking about the A110 which I consider a step backward.  I never have claimed -neither James and Kevin- to be a hardware expert or to know more than anyone about processors. This is why a comment like this is really appreciated.

It has been reported that the 915 chipset apparently supported Aero in MS Vista Beta's, however the drivers are not recognized by Microsoft as Aero capable in the final version. The number of computers with the Intel 915 chipset was very large, and all of sudden it became obsolete, generating in some cases an artificial demand for the Core Duo and Core 2 Duo computers with the newer 945 that fully supports Aero.

At some point it become obvious that the VIA mobile chips are very power efficient and require less space, making them ideal for UMPC's. The OQO 02 is much smaller than the Sony UX or Fujitsu U1010. The VIA based Q1B has better battery runtime than the Q1 and Q1P. Intel's response was the A110, basically the same 90nm Celeron M 900 MHz (353) found in the Q1, with 100 MHz lower maximal core frequency and SpeedStep technology.

I'm not 100% sure, but there is evidence that the "new" A110 consumes less most of all because it's lower clocked, it's not an advance. I mean, Intel should have used the 65nm process as the base for the new chip, there was no reason to use 90nm. Having a smaller core it would have more potential to consume less. Also the the new chip should have SSE3/VT micro instructions, perhaps AMD64 too. Very soon there will be some problems to address more than 2GB RAM with 32 bits technology, also 64 bits OS and applications should run faster.

I personally find A110 based Q1 Ultra acceptable, I have said before that the 353 Celeron M had enough performance for an UMPC. Also it's great that they have added SpeedStep. But, being a new processor, Intel should have made something better than the older chip. Not only focus on consumption.

Technorati Tags: Intel

[ Discuss this News]

Hands-on with a prototype Intel MID

Arstechnica has the Intel MID  for a few hours and this is what they say:

A sticker on the back indicated that this particular device would likely be capable of running Windows, but it doesn't seem to have the power required for all the bells and whistles of Windows Vista. Fortunately for Mandriva, this machine has all the power it needs to run Linux, including graphics, videos, and even servers if one were so inclined. 

The Intel MID prototype is a solid device with a few early flaws that should be resolved. Helio said that the devices derived from this prototype will likely be hitting market sometime next year, complete with a faster processor, flash memory, a card reader, and hopefully a stylus or a screen with less of a lip at the edges.  

Another one that finds that a A110 processor is not powerful enough for running any version of Windows. Thanks God that the devices derived from this prototype will likely be hitting market sometime next year, complete with a faster processor. I seems to me that Intel got my message!

Technorati Tags: MID, Intel

My UMPC is more than a Companion PC.

I have been involved recently in many arguments about performance and battery life and that made me think about myself back in 2006 when the Origami Concept was being constantly attacked by the press and one of the things they were saying was that OEMs were using weak processors in Origamis. And I replied many times back then that UMPCs were companion PCs no designed or thought to replace your main PC at home.

Well, Today I have to admit that I was wrong. The processors used in the first generation of UMPC were good enough in the majority of cases, as you can see from the video attached to this article. But they have one problem, battery life. I wont say that this is a small problem. This is a huge problem in our modern life.  But like I have said before, you have many things that you can do to stay unplugged from power the whole day, but you can't do anything to increase performance once you reach the point where your UMPC is fully optimized.

I was wrong when I said that UMPCs are just Companion PCs. Why? Well because when you own one and you start to use it, soon you will discover that you can't live without one of these gadgets. You will enter in a state where you want to use only your UMPC. It's so comfortable after all to use it in literally everywhere that you wont turn on your main PC at home anymore.

To think like some companies are thinking that UMPC are designed for Internet and a little bit of document editing is too... simplistic. In current time everything is more complex. Let's take blogging. Who is going to visit a blog without pictures or without a few little videos? Blogging is about mobility! I like to blog when I feel that I have something to say and that happens in the most uncommon places sometime. Do I have to wait to get home to turn on my PC to get my short video edited or to insert some watermark into my pictures? Come on!

Games... I saw the other day a video from VIA demonstrating how they can play Quake III in a OQO 02. And I have conflicting reactions with that video. Who the heck is going to connect a UMPC to a full size keyboard and a mouse to play Quake in a UMPC? That's not what gamers want! Young people want to be able to take the UMPC in the way they are and play Hallo like they are playing it in a PSP! Yes, the OQO 02 can handle Quake III. That's good. VIA is getting better. But that's not enough. is there any company that has analyzed how to use the integrated keyboard in this second generation of UMPC to remap some keys to replace the normal use of those keys by the functionality of the keys in a game controller? has any OEM checked how many potential users ask for how good UMPC are from the point of view of games? Because this is one of the most common questions that I have been asked since 2006. And I'm not a gamer. If I'm talking about this is because like I said, people are asking me these kind of questions. No Microsoft, Sudoku does not enter in the category of games that young people want to play. And that brings the same problem again. Current UMPC are not powerful enough to handle most of the games that teenagers want to play. They do not have the power and they have not been optimized to be used as a portable game station. And they do not want a new portable play station. All they want is a real UMPC that they can take everywhere with all those programs and games that they have in their home PCs.

And now we have Vista. The Operating System with the best handwriting recognition I have seen. But... what a shame, people are downgrading their brand new Samsung Q1Us because some wise person decided to cut down a processor to increase battery life and another very wise person decided to use that weaken processor with Vista. Thanks God that that last person reanalyzed the idea of using a processor at 600 MHz with Vista! 

Performance is needed as much as battery life is needed!

Forget about that stupid idea about UMPCs being the next Nokia N800 in the market. That's the simplistic idea that I have back at the beginning of 2006 and like I have being saying from the beginning on this article I  W-A-S  W-R-O-N-G. And I was wrong because this is how I ended using my UMPC:

Technorati Tags: UMPC, Opinion, Vista, Intel

Intel Erath

Another one from  AVING USA with a lot of HR Pictures!

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AVING Special Report on 'COMPUTEX 2007') -- <Visual News> Intel displayed its swivel type 5.6-inch UMPC 'Erath' during Computex 2007, which used low power Intel Architecture silicon.

Intel has been showing this prototype since Microsoft announced the Origami Project last year but... so far I have not seen any OEM taking this ball.

 

Technorati Tags: Erath, Intel, Computex

Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC InkShow

If we are talking about Inkshow we are talking about Gottabemobile, on of the best and trusted source of information for TabletPC Owners and UMPC Owners, they posted a video review aka inkshow of the Q1 Ultra.

My conclusions?  Well..., performance with the 800mhz processor under Vista was a major negative for me.  There was not a consistent snappy feel to things, and I never seemed to know when that "drag" would appear.  I like the look and feel of the machine in my hands, but there are a few "gotchas" in there that make this not a machine I will want to insert into my tech arsenal.  You'll have to watch the show to find out more!  It is a nice machine that I am quite sure will have a loyal following, especially with those who have already integrated a UMPC into their lives. These machine are expected to show up in retail at places like Best Buy, Costco, etc...

I know that many of you, including my dear friends Chippy and JKK keep saying that McCaslin is ok. But it is not. At least when you are running Vista. I feel Vista heavy in a Celeron at 900 MHz which is not stepped down at any moment, including while working on battery. So at 800 MHz it should be even slower. It's true that the video chip in the Ultra is a little better but check Vista Performance Score, the 915 gets 1.9 while the 945 gets 2. Also is very well known that many users were able to run Aero in machines using the 915, that tells me one thing, the 945 is not a lot better than the 915 from the point of view of performance.

 

McCaslin could be an option when you need battery but no when you want both battery and performance, no when you want performance. And it's no good when you want Vista. Samsung was smart enough to see that was completely stupid to sell a device at 600 MHz running Vista, and I really believe from the deep on my heart that it's completely stupid to try to run Vista in a 800 MHz A110. I'm even thinking that a VIA C7M at 1.2 Ghz probably would do a better job. But that's just my speculation because unfortunately I'm not sponsored by VIA neither Samsung to have both machines side by side and test that. The only things that I have are the reports and benchmarks from now a lot of sources saying the same thing, the A110 is slow. (Correction: Well, I just checked again my Amtek T770 review and from there I can say one thing, VIA C7M at 1200 GHz has almost the same performance than the A110. The only difference in both processors is that the A110 supports Aero and the C7M does not).

 

One more thing, I'm not saying, do not buy machines with A110, what I'm saying is that that processor is slow. That if you need speed, good performance, you have either wait for the next generation of processors to be released by Intel next year or buy one of the devices for the first generation. If you buy from the first generation be aware that some of those machines are locked to a lower speed when they run on battery. I'm talking about the i7210 and i7209, and probably the Q1p too. Be aware also that the R2H Celeron is a cut version with a very small cache or none cache (I can remember exactly now) so it's a little be slower than the other Celeron machines from the first generation.

 

Of course, I wont post these comments at Origami Forum, you can imagine the reasons.  

Technorati Tags: A110

McCaslin: Stealy/A110/A100 = a brief stop gap in the Intel roadmap = poor choice for UMPC buyers in 2007? - Tablet PC Forums, Discussion and Support

This is a post from TabletPC Reviews forum that I want to share here because it says what I have been saying here since the day I saw for the first time the benchmarks of a Q1 Ultra. There are rumors about Samsung dropping the production of the Q1 Ultra at 600 MHz (A100) due to the really poor performance.

I was somewhat cautiously optimistic about the Intel's 2007 UMPC platform known as McCaslin, along with it's 90nm Stealy processor (officially known as A110 and A100), but apparently, it's gonna be replaced early next year with Menlow UMPC platform as all the recent news stated.
I say cautiously optimistic because up until now, Intel powered UMPCs had to make due with low voltage or ultra low voltage versions of the mobile CPUs designed for much bigger devices and their bigger batteries (namely portable or ultraportable laptops). This resulted in either not getting enough power for longer battery life, short battery life with acceptable power, or both short battery life and bad performance because of the size constraints of the UMPC platform. But with the Stealy CPU in the McCaslin platform, Intel was seemingly about to address the UMPC problem with a line of dedicated processors for the job (with it's own designation apart from the regular Pentium brand name).
But "cautiousness" of my optimism went to full blown caution when I later read that Stealy is essentially a Dothan Pentium M with much lower clock and tiny L2 cache of 512KB. Basically, The power savings comes from much smaller die size due to huge reduction in L2 cache size, reduction to 90nm from 110nm, and capping of the clock speed to a PDA like 600 to 800 MHz. Having read this fact, I questioned whether A110 could even out perform the 900MHz Celeron M in the Samsung Q1.
Now, the evidence seems to bear out my suspicions: Intel has moved up Menlow from late 2008 to early 2008. Why would they do this if McCaslin was up to the task?
I think the real reason for McCaslin was to stop momentum of UMPC OEMs switching to Via and it's C7-M until Menlow became available, and Menlow, not McCaslin is the first true dedicated UMPC processor. Let's looks at the reasons:
* LV and ULV Pentium M and Celeron M are expensive processors that eats up a huge chunk of the cost of a UMPC. They were designed for $2000+ ultra portable laptop market. They cost nearly $100 and up to the OEMs (do not confuse the cost of LV and ULV P-Ms to their regular counterparts. there is a huge gap there). This is big problem for UMPC OEMs trying to keep the cost of UMPCs well below $1000, so many have made deals with Via and it's much cheaper C7-M line.
* Stealy is a quick shortcut to provide a cheaper CPU based on current Intel processor line up. No new design here. Just cut the speed and get rid of much of L2 cache. Quick and easy. Would it provide a good performance at a much lower power? That's not the point. The point is to provide the OEMs a cheaper CPU alternative to fight off Via C-7M.
* Stealy will be replace in only about 9 months time. We have still yet to see Stealy equipped UMPCs in the wild in June of 2007. That's a mighty short run for a new CPU. And it's not using the latest fabrication process, which would be 65nm. Smaller fab process benefits battery challenged devices like UMPCs most of all. Why would they not use it for Stealy? Because that would take more time and cost more money. Not very conducive for a quick stop gap solution. BTW, Menlow and it's Silverthorne CPU will be using the cutting edge 45nm process (Silverthorne also promises high end Dothan Pentium M performance at only 2 watts. Stealy eats up 3 watts to do 800MHz of castrated Dothan performance).
As it stands now, my suspicion is that Stealy will prove to be a very poor choice for those consumers looking for a UMPC solution that addresses a lot of our complaints. I believe A110 equipped UMPCs will perform quite poorly compared to the previous models using the LV Pentium Ms. And most are still quite pricey (A decently equipped Samsung Q1 Ultra with A110 will cost around $1300).
I personally think the best thing to do for most of us will be to sit tight until Menlow platform comes to the market in 1 half of next year and skip the McCaslin/Stealy UMPCs of 2007.

The other day Hugo says that the secret of working with a slow processor is "Wait, you open a program and wait until it's completely open and then you use it or open the next program." But my question is, are not you wasting your precious battery in that unproductive time?

Technorati Tags: Intel

Once again the same Intel Concept

AVING USA  is reporting from Taipei about the new Intel UMPC Concept called Donley.

Intel introduced a 5-inch portable concept PC 'Donley' during Computex Taipei 2007. It features 5-inch LCD, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS and wireless WAN.

The question is, when we are going to see this damn concept in the market. I have been seeing this keyboard concept since more than a year ago and so far it has not been made by anybody.

 

Technorati Tags: INTEL

Battery Life still an issue

According to this Q1 Ultra review even with a weaker processor the battery life still an issue.

Alas, the battery-life problems remain. In my tests, where I turn off all power-saving software, use maximum screen brightness, turn on the Wi-Fi and play an endless loop of music, the standard battery lasted just two hours and five minutes, which translates to about three hours in more normal usage.

I'm praying for the 2 Gb of RAM working in my Q1. That will keep me going until 2008 where Intel should release the next generation of processors because this one is just BS: no performance but no battery life either.

Performance vs Battery Life

Yesterday after reading my post about Intel, Steve pointed me to some of the Santa Rosa platform good features designed to get the maximum Battery Life as possible. And do not get me wrong, there are people that will prefer to have more battery than a better performance. I myself bought the eo v7110 with a VIA processor because I thought at that time that Battery was more important than performance. But then while using my eo v7110 I quickly discovered that there are many ways to get more battery life if I needed but there was not anyway to get more performance out of that device. And in my case, performance is more important. I'm editing movies and pictures in my UMPC, I'm working with heavy applications like Visual Studio. So I need performance. The VIA processor was not good enough for me and this is why now I'm using mostly the Samsung Q1 with a Celeron processor.

So I thought, let's post a poll and see what users really want, performance or battery. I know that many of you will say, I want both, but let's be realistic, at this moment we can't have both. If we could do you think that Intel would have released the McCaslin at 800 MHz? Come on! Let's choose between what we have at this moment.

What is going on with Intel

To anyone is not a secret that UMPC has been largely criticized because of the poor battery life in it's first generation. And it's not a secret that almost 40%27 to 30% (thanks to Steve for the correction) of the battery life is used by the CPU. So basically, the bad guy in the first part of this movie is Intel. To change this situation Intel desperate has introduced the McCaslin CPUs, currently used in Samsung Q1 Ultra and few other devices that have not been released yet, and from what I have seen they have been able to lower the consumption in around 30%. But is really a McCaslin a solution, I do not think so. What Intel have done is just cutting down the capabilities of their mobile platform, releasing a CPU with a lower speed, weaker capable of giving a lower performance than current Pentium M used in the first generation of UMPCs. is a coincidence that Intel is suddenly promoting MID as the device of the future? I do not think so. I think that Intel is trying to focus our attention to a "new" type of device where this weaker processor is enough.

	Consumption	Battery	Launch
Current Processors	>5W	1-3 hours
McCaslin	2 to 3W	4-5 hours	This summer
MenLow	<1w	6-8 hours	1st Q2008

Like any other user I would like to see a longer battery life in my UMPC but this next generation of UMPC coming with McCaslin processors is not what I want or need. I do not want to give up performance for 30% more of battery life. I'll be glad to carry more weight using a extended battery than giving up performance. So I definitely will wait to see what happens with Menlow CPUs that should be released at the beginning of 2008. In the meantime I'll wait for Kevin's tests of a 2GB RAM chip in this Q1p. I current Q1s support 2 GB that's going to be the best news of this year because from Intel I have not seen any good news yet.

Update: Here is a press release from Intel that is worth to read. If you read between lines you can see that they make almost no emphasis in McCaslin processors. But they spend a lot of time talking about Menlow. And the reason why is because there is where the real changes are. At least that's what I "hope". In one thing I agree with Intel, WiMax is the future.

24 Hours of Battery Life

According to this news published by DailyTech we could find UMPC running the whole day on Batteries as soon as in 2009.

Intel this week announced another major milestone for its ultra-mobile platform. Called Moorestown, Intel revealed that by roughly mid 2009, we will be able to see devices that consume 20 times less power than devices available in 2006. According to Intel roadmaps, Moorestown devices will be able to last a full day's of mixed productivity and leisure activities -- approximately 24 hours.

Intel Motorcycly use UMPC as dashboard

Intel has made a motorcycle that use a UMPC as dashboard and webcams as mirrors. Awesome, is not?!