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Toshiba Launches First Cell-based Laptop

Posted by timothy on from the my-laptop-has-been-cell-based-forever dept.

MojoKid writes "On Tuesday, Toshiba launched the Qosmio G55-802, the first laptop available with the Cell CPU. Yes, think PS3 technology, developed jointly by Toshiba, Sony, and IBM. However, in particular, the Cell CPU is not about gaming, but about the multimedia experience. Taking the load away from the Intel CPU, the Cell processor performs gesture control, face navigation, transcoding and upscaling to HD. Interestingly (and necessary, with 4 GB of RAM), the system comes with 64-bit Vista installed by default, but 32-bit Vista ships as an option as well." However, semi-relatedly, if you'd prefer your Cells run open-source code, 1i1' blu3 writes "IBM's put up an open source project downloads page for the Cell processor — APIs, toolkits, IDEs, libraries, algorithms, etc. Most of the stuff on it right now is from SourceForge, but they are asking for user contributions to add to it." (Terra Soft's also been providing a Cell-compatible Linux distro for a while now, and according to Wikipedia the kernel's supported it since version 2.6.16.)

6 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Not cell-based, cell-assisted by ALecs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to the article (and hinted by the summary), the thing has an ordinary Intel Core2Duo CPU. I'm assuming the cell is the "Toshiba quad code HD Processor" mentioned in the article. So it's a co-processor, then. My best guess it it's a 4-SPU cell processor without the PowerPC core. Weird...

    1. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by crabbz · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, it isn't a Cell, it is Toshiba's Spurs Engine with 4 SPEs and no PPE.

    2. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Funny

      So combined with the comment above that Ben Heck already did a PS3-based laptop, we find that the only accurate words in the headline are "toshiba", "launches", and "laptop".

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      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    3. Re:Not cell-based, cell-assisted by AeroIllini · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh man I hope the combination of those three words involves a trebuchet.

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  2. Re:Where are the apps coming from? by negRo_slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When is the last time a company come along with a proprietary technology like this and received market acceptance? I seem to recall companies like Aegia and Rambus... Hell RDRAM didn't even require any change to software and provided higher performance, but it was one company and of course the price remained high.... Nah I don't expect to see this go much further than it already has, a few people will buy it and it will ship with some in house programs on it and just like every other system from a major manufacturer support and software will slowly fade into obscurity. Sure a few websites will be started in dedication of this thing and they will light up their message boards with how superior and awesome it was/is/could of been...

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    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  3. The cell was NOT developed for the PS3 by WilliamBaughman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, think PS3 technology, developed jointly by Toshiba, Sony, and IBM.

    Saying that the Cell BEA was developed for the PlayStation 3 is like saying the wheel was developed for razor scooters. The PlayStation 3 uses the Cell, but the Cell was not made solely for the PlayStation. The Cell was developed to be a floating point and vector arithmetic monster that would be at home in a supercomputer, which it is.

    I have nothing against the PlayStation 3, but I get upset when a myth like this is perpetuated. Saying that one of the most powerful processors available today was 'made to play video games' detracts from it and gives readers an incorrect impression (in my humble opinion).