All Portable computing Feeds

Dell tops out UK computer sales

Patrick Goss — 1210865880

Gartner has released its estimated computer sales figures for the quarter, suggesting a 11.2 per cent rise in laptop sales in the UK, but a 15 per cent decline in desktop purchases.

In figures published by the Guardian, Technology analysts Gartner believe that Dell’s deals with Dixons and Tesco brought a 200 per cent increase in consumer mobile PC shipments and put them ahead of rival Hewlett Packard.

Acer, Toshiba and Fujitsu-Siemens were also in the UK’s top five, with the likes of Asus and Sony languishing behind.

Laptops up, but desktops down

Laptop sales across Europe were up 14.1 per cent on the same period last year, with Germany the biggest country of growth on 17.4 per cent

“The UK market was driven by strong mobile PC sales, which accounted for more than 60 per cent of the total PC shipments and nearly 70 per cent of consumer PCs," said Gartner’s report.

“Mobile PCs saw volumes increasing nearly 40 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2007. The desktop market declined in both consumer and professional markets by more than 15 per cent year-on-year.”

Desktop's decline?

However, PC Format editor Adam Ifans believe that people are buying laptops in addition to owning a desktop - with the former becoming a cheap, portable and home friendly extra.

"Everyone's got a desktop," Ifans told TechRadar. "So people are buying laptops who already own a desktop PC.

"Laptops are cheap, light and therefore much more home friendly, and of course you can move them around with you."

Will the 3G iPhone have Intel's Atom inside?

Rob Mead — 1210850195

iPhone owners are are used to having deep pockets - but it turns out they may need longer and wider ones too. That's because the boss of Intel Germany reckons that a future iPhone will have a much bigger display. Oh and it'll also be sporting Intel's ultra-mobile Atom CPU inside it too.

Hannes Schwaderer, managing director of Intel Germany, says that future iPhones will be slightly bigger than we're used to, chiefly because they'll boast bigger 720 x 480 pixel displays than the 480 x 320 version in current iPhones.

Of course the timing of Schwaderer's comments couldn't be more perfect - the 'future' 3G iPhone is surely a matter of weeks away, and his comments have reignited old - no, make that ancient - rumours surrounding the Mac Tablet, Apple's so far non-existent take on Wintel's Tablet PC.

Intel Atom

The presence of an Intel Atom processor would seem to be a shoe-in too. It's been specifically targeted at mobile internet devices or MIDs, with the aim being to usurp the current encumbent ARM, whose processors can currently be found in the iPhone.

At 24mm, the Atom is the smallest processor Intel has ever made, yet it packs in 47 million transistors with clock speeds ranging from 800MHz to 1.88GHz - ideal for a device that needs to play movies, music and surf the web.

Intel's naked ambition to be inside the iPhone has already led to some rather surprising results - for example the MID concept it showed off at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai was so iPhone-like Apple's lawyers probably should have sued.

Intel issues denial

Of course, Schwaderer may have just been drinking way too much Apple Kool-Aid. Intel Germany has already denied that he made specific comments about the iPhone, while Apple has taken its highly usual step (sic) of not commenting on rumour or speculation. We'll soon know the truth for sure.

At 10am on Monday 9 June Apple CEO Steve Jobs will walk onto the stage at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) and reveal his iPhone plans. And there's certainly enough evidence kicking around to suggest that a 'future iPhone' is definitely on the cards.

Dell's Eee killer in June?

1207821402

It looks like Dell is aiming to get into the new low-cost laptop niche – and the world’s second biggest computer vendor could be piling into the market as early as June.

The news comes from an unnamed source at Compal Electronics, which would make the budget laptops for Dell.

The source told Dow Jones that between 200,000 and 300,000 laptops would be produced and could come to market by early summer.

Niche

If the news is corroborated, Dell is far from the first laptop maker looking with envy at the sales figures for Asus Eee, the ultra-cheap Linux-based mini-laptop that has quickly become a worldwide phenomenon.

Hewlett Packard – which overtook Dell as the number one vendor – has unveiled its HP2133 and Everex’s Cloudbook is attempting to compete in the niche, as well as Acer and MSI.

New Eee PC 900: Review coming next week

James Rivington — 1207654370

We’ve just come off the phone to Asus, which had some rather good news for us. The brand spanking new Asus Eee PC 900 will be arriving at the Asus UK headquarters on Monday, and it will be bringing it into the TechRadar office by Wednesday.

The second-generation Eee PC was announced some months ago, and made its debut at the CeBIT computing expo in Hannover, Germany back in March. One thing’s for sure, the Eee PC is becoming one of the most iconic computing products of the 21^st Century.

It's opened up a whole new product category that everybody else is now trying to copy.

New Eee PC on its way

The new model is coming with a larger screen (8.9 inches at 1024 x 600), 1GB of RAM and 12GB of SSD storage, making it a big step up from the first model. It will also now be available with Windows XP as well as Linux.

The new Eee PC is an extremely important product for Asus. And let’s not forget it's also pretty important for Microsoft, which is extending the life of XP just for ultra-mobile lappies. And for Intel too, which has developed the Atom platform to get into this new market with its aspirations of super power-efficiency and ‘everywhere’ connectivity.

Intel all but announced it will be using a latter Eee PC to further its WiMAX aims. Atom will ensure it's pretty nippy, while the addition of an XP model simply furthers the possibilities. Our excitement isn't just for the Eee though, Asus' work will open up the competition in this market. We'll be talking about completely all-singing and all-dancing sub-£150 laptops by next year.

Tune in next week for our in-depth review of the new Asus Eee PC 900.

Intel's Atom to enable £100 PCs?

Jeremy Laird — 1207219316

Mobile internet devices are the buzz topic at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Shanghai. But the first generation Atom processor might actually end up seeing more success as a low-cost desktop and notebook CPU.

Intel's main Atom announcement at IDF yesterday involved five MID-orientated iterations of the new uber-tiny chip. However, Intel's Dadi Perlmutter also revealed that the Atom chip will be sold as a cut-priced processor for a new generation of affordable "nettop" and "netbook" systems.

Pricing and detailed specifications for these further variants of Atom have yet to be released. However Perlmutter said that the Atom platform will reduce the bill of materials for a bargain basement desktop PC by 20 to 25 per cent.

The £100 barrier

That could be enough to push a simple desktop system very close to the £100 barrier. As well as doing duties as second or third PCs in developed-market households, super-cheap nettops and netbooks are designed to help push PC technology into emerging markets.

All very intriguing. But what kind of computing experience can you expect from an Atom powered PC?

Intel had several Atom-powered nettops on display at IDF, running both Windows XP and Windows Vista. While the XP box feels zippy and highly responsive, the Vista machine is notably laggier. That said, the 1.6GHz system was managing to smoothly decode full DVD video for the cost of approximately 40 to 60 per cent CPU. Not too shabby, then, and approximately on a par with a something like a 1GHz Pentium III.

Dual-core will follow

These early machines, of course, are running the initial single-core, dual-threaded version of Atom. Intel says a dual-core will follow in 2009.

As for the netbook implementation of Atom, think Asus Eee PC and you'll get an idea of the sort of cut-down laptop to expect. But with Intel weighing into the market, both volumes and competition will be on the up. And that in turn will mean even lower prices.

Expect Intel to deliver further nettop and netbook revelations in coming months, with products shipping later this year.

Intel reveals Atom ultra-mobile CPU details

Jeremy Laird — 1207216490

After last month's Atom branding launch, Intel has revealed full pricing and specifications for its new ultra-mobile x86 processor. Showcasing the new chip at the Intel Developer Conference (IDF) in Shanghai, Intel also gave a sneak peak of how Atom will perform.

Previously known under the Silverthorne codename, five versions of Atom will initially be targeted at the so-called MID (mobile internet device) form factor. Clock speeds range from 800MHz to 1.86GHz. Bus frequencies start at 400MHz and top out at 533MHz.

As for power consumption, the slowest 800MHz model is rated at just 80mW idle power and 0.65W peak. The rest of the new family share a 100mW idle rating, and range from 2W to 2.4W peak.

Cheaper chips

All initial Atom chips sport 512k of L2 cache memory. At just 24mm square, Atom is the smallest Intel processor ever and packs 47 million transistors. Intel current dual-core 45nm Core 2 Duo processor, by contrast, soaks up well over 400 million transistors, though much of that total is cache memory.

Volume pricing for the entry-level Atom Z500 chip kicks off at $45 while the top 1.86GHz Z540 model weighs in at an extremely hefty $160. That's comparable to an Intel Core 2 Duo chip running around 2GHz.

So, we now have a pretty good idea of the cut of Atom's jib. We know how fast it will run, how big it is, what it costs and what makes it tick. But what about the minor matter of how it actually performs?

Pint-sized power

Well, the full story of Atom's performance is not yet known. Predictably, Intel claims that Atom beats seven shades out of the Arm-based chips that are found in many existing mobile digital devices (including the iPhone). If Intel's claims are to be believed, a 1.6GHz Atom is around 13 times more powerful than a 400MHz Arm chip.

But how does Atom compare to Intel's own PC processors? Intel demonstrated the same 1.6GHz Atom completing the Cinebench9 rendering test in approximately two minutes. That compares with around 35 seconds for the likes of a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor.

Needless to say, Intel's high-end quad-core processors slash that to mere 10s of seconds. Intel also said the integrated GPU found in the accompanying Poulsbo chipset is capable of pumping out 400m pixels per second. Sounds impressive, but it's a tiny, tiny fraction of what a powerful desktop graphics chip is capable of.

Fit for purpose?

So, Atom is no powerhouse by PC standards. But is it fit for purpose? Perusing the various engineering samples of MIDs and other Atom-based systems on show at IDF, the chip certainly delivers a responsive experience when running the likes of Windows XP and Linux.

But the bloatfest that is Windows Vista appears to be more than it can handle. The Vista-powered Atom systems are frankly sluggish.

Intel says it's shipping Atom processors to customers now. The first Atom-powered devices are scheduled to go on sale within 60 days.

Intel goes MID mad in Shanghai

Jeremy Laird — 1207214447

The key theme in Shanghai during the opening day of the Intel Developer Forum was, essentially, 'unleashing the internet with mobile devices'. Worryingly, however, the devices Intel has been showcasing look a lot like the failed UMPC project of 2006.

The basic philosophy behind Intel's MID (Mobile Internet Device) strategy and the Atom Centrino platform that powers it is sound enough. As Intel's mobile tech guru Anand Chandrasekher expounded during his IDF keynote, global internet growth continues unabated. Upwards of 1.3 billion people were regularly going online by the end of 2007.

But mobile internet devices to date, such as smartphones, have delivered a poor end-user experience. So the internet has remained largely tethered to fixed, desktop devices.

Intel's solution is to bring the wide compatibility of Intel's x86 CPU technology to mobile devices with the new Atom Centrino platform. The full internet experience in your pocket, in other words.

Size matters

So far, so good. But the problem with what Intel has shown us at IDF is size. Though many of the MIDs revealed yesterday are smaller than the UMPCs of yesteryear, not one is genuinely pocket-sized.

Crucially, all are much, much larger than the likes of the Apple iPhone. Given that many consumers feel the iPhone is at the upper end of acceptable size scale for a pocketable gadget, and that device already brings almost-full internet to the pocket, size could be a major barrier for Intel's MID initiative.

Needless to say, Intel doesn't see it this way. We put it to Gary Willihnganz, Intel's ultra mobile marketing director, that the MIDs we had so far seen were simply too large. He flatly rejects the idea. "These MIDs fit comfortably in bags typically used by women or students. I simply disagree that they are too large," Willingham says.

Why not a notebook?

Perhaps, but what about the rest of us? Willihnganz's defence would also apply to subnotebooks in the 10-to-11-inch size range. And those systems offer infinitely superior usability. Just inputting a simple web address can be a real trial on a touch-screen MID, for instance.

The harsh truth may be that the first generation of Intel's Atom processor and the Atom Centrino platform is just too big and power-hungry to enable truly pocket-sized devices.

For that, we will have to wait until 2009 and the launch of the second generation Atom platform, known as Moorestown. Indeed, Chandrasekher proudly showed off an early Moorestown motherboard during his keynote. It was only slightly larger than a credit card.

User interface

In the meantime, the other big question mark hanging over MIDs is the user interface. And the invisible elephant in the Grand Ballroom at IDF yesterday was the conspicuous absence of Microsoft. Surely the world's dominant vendor of computer operating systems and long-time Intel collaborator should be a key player in the effort to make MIDs as slick and user-friendly as possible?

"That's something you'll have to ask Intel about," says Chandrasekher. Whatever Microsoft may or may not be working on for the future, the fact that both the Windows XP and Windows Vista interfaces are thoroughly suboptimal for this new generation of mobile devices is all too clear.

With Microsoft currently out of the picture, Intel is sponsoring the Linux-based Moblin initiative. It boils down to a pair of mobile-optimised Linux distributions from Ubuntu and Asianux.

From a performance and power-management perspective, the lean and mean Linux OS looks like a winner. But in terms of the user interface, it doesn't look quite so clever. As Willihnganz admits, it took the release of the iPhone to really get the industry thinking hard about mobile user interfaces. There is still much work to be done.

The future for MIDs

Of course, there are plenty of other hurdles to clear for the MID initiative. Not least of which is the availability of affordable, ubiquitous wide-area wireless broadband networking, a problem Intel hopes to address with its WiMAX technology.

The idea of putting the internet in your pocket may be compelling, but our overwhelming impression of Atom and the overall MID initiative from Intel is that of gen-zero technology. It's a stepping stone on the way to a more realistic and commercially viable future for MIDs. And that won't arrive until at least the latter half of 2009.

Social networking bigger than porn

Patrick Goss — 1206006782

“If you took all of the porn off the internet,” Dr Cox said in sitcom Scrubs, “you’d be left with one site called ‘Bring back the porn’”. But according to Intel’s senior vice president Arun Chandrasekhar, it is actually social networking now consuming the most bandwidth online.

Chandrasekhar was commenting on the rise of WiMax – the next generation wireless network – when he told the Von.x conference that porn was taking a back seat in comparison to social networking. And that it was the latter that was driving the demand for mobile platforms.

"[Social networking everywhere] is the next chase," Chandrasekhar added. "This race has started, and there's a tremendous amount to be done here."

Push

Intel is aggressively pushing the WiMax technology, insisting that it will quickly spread in the way that its predecessor Wi-Fi has. Indeed Chandrasekhar told the conference that 37 per cent of laptops being built with its Intel Atom Centrino processor would be WiMax enabled.

The conference was also given a glimpse of Intel’s vision of the future, with a three-way fold up internet device codenamed ‘Magic’ which had a keyboard and screen one way and a media player the other.

Students texting it in

Patrick Goss — 1204901478

Shy students are being given the chance to send answers to questions via Bluetooth from their PDAs, as the classroom embraces the latest technologies.

The times of students hiding behind textbooks and offering silent prayers that they wouldn’t be picked to answer the question could be at an end, with Grenwich schools trialling a high tech alternative.

With PDA use being encouraged in the schools, pupils are now given short spells in lessons where they can text over the answers, rather than face potential ridicule.

Appropriate use

Secondary ICT consultant Jane Gordon explained that the technology was only used at appropriate times. It apparently will not prevent students from picking up vital social skills whilst hiding behind screens and handsets.

“What we have been trialling is the use of PDAs and Bluetooth to send messages between students and teachers,” Gordon told TechRadar.

“An example is an English teacher putting a question on the board and students Bluetoothing over the answer rather than putting their hand up and answering in front of everyone. It’s less intimidating for the more quiet students.

“Like any ICT it should only be used in an appropriate way. It might only be a 10 minute session in a lesson when we try this kind of thing.”

Mobile help

Gordon hopes that a more pro-active response to technology will stop the draconian measures that some schools have resorted to, like banning mobile phones from the premises.

“I think it’s just a matter of teaching them what’s appropriate,” she adds.

Has the iPhone screwed over the UMPC?

James Morris — 1204731703

When the Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) was launched in the middle of 2006, it didn't exactly meet with an enthusiastic reception.

Whilst the idea of a paperback book-sized PC you could use with a pen like a notepad sounded promising, the first generation of UMPCs just didn't hit the mark. They were too bulky, with too short a battery life. And they were too expensive. Yes, they were fun to try (as a lot of new technology ideas are) but not particularly useful to own.

However, just because the first UMPCs didn't quite get portable computing right didn't mean the idea of a full Windows PC you could carry around you like a Filofax was a bad one.

But do you really need Windows in your bag? This is the question asked by the latest breed of all-singing mobile phones, in particular Apple's iPhone. The iPhone claims to be almost a full computer, too. It runs Mac OS X, although on an Xscale PDA processor rather than a notebook CPU.

So if the iPhone is essentially a little portable Mac, and the UMPC is a portable PC, why has the iPhone succeeded where the UMPC failed? Both can play music and video, and you can get UMPCs with built-in GPS, such as Asus's R50A, which can give you a map showing exactly where you are.
Let's forget the size difference for now - although this is clearly a major factor. The iPhone may be pocket friendly, where the UMPC would require trousers baggier than MC Hammer's to accommodate it.

The obvious difference is that Apple realises that the battle to be the people's everyday computing device was won some years ago. And it was won by the mobile phone.

Sure, Microsoft has Windows Mobile, and that's not doing too badly. You can buy quite a few decent phones running it nowadays, although pure PDAs appear to be dying out, with Dell killing its Axim range in April. But Windows Mobile is not really Windows, anyway, it's Windows CE, which is an entirely different codebase and can't run the same applications.

In contrast, the iPhone runs MacOS X, right? Well, no, not really. You definitely can't run desktop MacOS X apps on it. In fact, you can't officially run third-party apps on the iPhone at all, just unofficial hacks, although in October Apple did announce it would be releasing the SDK for this in February 2008.

So the iPhone's success is not about the extra software you can run on it, which is the primary selling point for the UMPC.
Despite the fact that the iPhone is basically a large PDA phone, it focuses on fun and style, not processing power and extensibility. After initial reports to the contrary, the iPhone has arrived with Exchange email support and Office compatibility. But it's really the funky iPod features and built-in Google Maps which make the iPhone more than just a phone.

The UMPC, on the other hand, is a device designed by people who only begrudgingly know what leisure is. It's a laptop without a keyboard; another incarnation of the Tablet PC concept. It has some fun abilities, but its big selling point is that it can run Windows apps, in particular MS Office. In other words, you will have even fewer excuses for not working 24 hours a day.

So who needs a UMPC any more? Who needs, or indeed wants, to carry a complete computer around with them at all times?

Well, some of us do. But most of us don't. Most of us just want an all-in-one mobile entertainment device you can actually fit in a pocket. And that's why so many people have gotten all hot and bothered about the iPhone, even queued up for hours to buy one, where the UMPC has come and gone with very little fanfare.