Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ultra-Thin Laptops To Be Next Intel-AMD Battleground

Posted by kdawson on from the can't-be-too-rich-either dept.

FinalAnkleHealer sends along an IBTimes article proposing that $500 ultra-thin laptops, capable of multitasking and editing multimedia content, could be the next market contested by Intel and AMD. "AMD partnered with Hewlett-Packard Co. in January to launch the Pavilion dv2. Intel launched its rival CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) chip this month and Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer Inc were among those that demonstrated laptops based on the new technology at the Computex trade show in Taipei. ... With more people gravitating toward mobile and wireless technology, consumers want smaller laptops — and most of those people would prefer doing more than surfing the Web, which the no-frills netbooks now excel at. ... Acer, the first company to introduce a cheap Intel-powered CULV laptop, expects revenue from that segment to account for 15 percent of its total sales by the end of 2009. Asustek, which pioneered the netbook in 2007, plans to launch five consumer-priced ultra-thins this year."

9 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Ultra-thin? by should_be_linear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of all things about notebook (weight, performance, size) thickness is last I care about.

    --
    839*929
    1. Re:Ultra-thin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's what my wife used to say, but then she got a big fat black Thinkpad.

  2. "capable of multitasking" Really? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    FinalAnkleHealer sends along an IBTimes article proposing that $500 ultra-thin laptops, capable of multitasking and editing multimedia content, could be the next market contested by Intel and AMD.

    Good to know they are not running MSDOS, DRDOS, CP/M, RSTS, RT-11, Windows95 or MacOS9.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
    1. Re:"capable of multitasking" Really? by SharpFang · · Score: 4, Informative

      waitwaitwait.
      Win95 had real, genuine multitasking. It was win3.11 that had the "task switching" tech where the foreground window was running.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  3. Slimness without performance? by bogaboga · · Score: 4, Informative

    I hope they are promoting slimness with performance. I wonder why today's computing power with 1GHz machines and 1GB memories does not feel snappy at all.

    I remember using computers years ago with Windows 95 that were quite fast on systems with 200MHz CPUs and 64Mb RAM modules.

    I hope they will not forget performance...maybe the ARM systems will deliver on this.

  4. Just more battery life by Crookdotter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can make a thin laptop, just add on a massive battery and make it as thick as a regular one. I don't care how thin it is, but a laptop that can survive normal use on battery for 8 hours would be an amazing thing.

    1. Re:Just more battery life by thijsh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seconded!
      Only when you're truly going to innovate make it 24h!
      My big-ass notebook has a battery that is around 5% of the total volume (rough calculation) and it manages 2.5 hours of normal work or 2 hours of more intense usage. When you have a battery that is 50% of the volume of the tiny netbook (and the chipset is much less power hungry than an ordinary notebook) you can easily make the battery life tenfold of what it is today.

  5. Um, snapdragon? by zefrer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm sure Intel would like all of that pie and unfortunately for us, they are willing to do anything to get it. Including strong arming Asus when they showed an Arm based chipset running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform (running Android no less). A quick intervention from Intel and Microsoft and Asus was saying that 'the project is on hold' while sharing a stage with a VP from each of Intel and Microsoft.. Story on slashdot a couple days back.

    Oh and these arm based devices can run all-day(apparently), nevermind 8 hours.

    http://gizmodo.com/5273723/asus-demos-snapdragon+based-eee-pc-with-android

  6. Re:Ports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's quite a bit of room before we hit that barrier. Macbook Air is 20mm thick in its thickest place. RJ45, the thickest of the ones you listed is 8mm in the thickest place, meaning a well-engineered socket can be 1cm thick (and a better-engineered one will collapse to half that size when not used). Ethernet is dying in the laptop world too. VGA is dying, HDMI is 4.45mm tall. I think USB at is to stay the longest, with its 5mm plugs.

      Anyway, the first centimeter can be shedded with little/no obstacles from the socket side.