ARM netbooks coming soon

[Modelworks]

I have been wanting companies to start looking more at the ARM processors for pc use. I think right now the market is dominated too much by x86 , killing innovation. We always have to wait for Intel or AMD to come up with something new. ARM is a wonderful platform and i don't think people realize how powerful the processors are now. A problem I see with ARM is that people equate the Mhz of ARM with Intel/AMD. They don't compare easily since ARM can get more done at the same Mhz.


Some interesting ARM bits

ARM can do quad core too :
The ARM11MP
http://www.arm.com/products/CP...oreMultiprocessor.html

Very nice ARM developer computer you can buy now for $149. Complete with DSP and 3d graphics, USB, DAC. Great if you want to learn the platform. All in a 3" x 3" board
http://dkc1.digikey.com/us/mkt/beagleboard.html
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard



Maybe the main reason that companies have not released ARM pc is because of windows. Currently it does not run on ARM except as embedded, so pc released will likely have to run linux. I admit I am a bit biased as someone who uses embedded cpu but I still think it has more of a future than just in phones and other embedded products.

The article below shows that some are starting to take interest. To me they are not being fair in that article. $100 is seriously cheap for everything included.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inq...d-android-netbook-tips

A GOOGLE ANDROID-POWERED netbook has tipped up from Chinese firm SkyTone, but don't hold your breath just yet, it's really not very impressive.

Fair enough, the guys from Guanzhou are only flogging the little lappie for $100 , but even for that paltry sum the Alpha-680 Google Android netbook is a bit naff.

ade from what appears to be very cheap plastic, the netbook sports a tiddly seven inch display with 800 x 480 WVGA resolution, has only 128MB of DDR2 memory, 1GB NAND flash and runs on an ARM 11 533 MHz 32bit CPU.

To its credit, however, the netbook does seem to have a swively touchscreen, Wifi, Ethernet, 3G, a couple of USB ports and an SD card slot bunged into the low-cost package.

Android netbooks may have only tentatively started to tip up, but at least another two - Pegatron's Freescale based netbook and little known, Atom based I-Buddie - are set to pop up on shelves any day now.

To be kind, Skytone's attempt definitely looks way better than your standard etch-a-sketch and is not all that bad for a firm which has only really had success making skype headsets. Oh, and it does come in Pink, Yellow, Red, Black and White. Oooooh!

 

[magreen]

Any idea of performance in linux desktop office productivity apps, like office, surfing, emails, etc? I don't care about MHz but I care how long it takes to unrar something or run a graphics intensive webpage with flash animations.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: magreen
Any idea of performance in linux desktop office productivity apps, like office, surfing, emails, etc? I don't care about MHz but I care how long it takes to unrar something or run a graphics intensive webpage with flash animations.

Direct comparisons are really hard to find right now because their isn't wide software support just yet except for the embedded market. Ubuntu is ported to ARM though and they gave a press release on what they expect to be able to do.

One thing I left out about ARM is that it isn't a single company making the chips. There are several and each can add their own customizations. So if I wanted to make a desktop platform I could use an off the shelf ARM for the main cpu, then add a custom chip for FPU, DSP, GPU , or anything else and still keep the cost low and size and power small.

With the pc if I want faster FPU I have to upgrade the cpu just to get that feature when everything else the cpu does may be fast enough. ARM will not overtake the pc, not anytime soon anyway. But it could open up a whole new market.

http://www.ubuntu.com/news/arm-linux

Such a chip customized for video.
http://www.design-reuse.com/ne...-signal-processor.html

 

[DrMrLordX]

Too much of the software I use everyday has been written and compiled for x86. I do tinker with Linux and I'm sure there is fairly broad application support for Linux on ARM-based platforms, but remember that, in all likelihood, the more customization is done with additional chips, the less hardware support there will be at the OS, driver, and application levels unless the vendor provides necessary support in all three areas.

Furthermore, I must say that the harddrive and RAM on the above-mentioned ARM netbook are pretty sad. Sure a 533 mhz ARM chip could do well, but 1 gig of flash storage? 128mb of RAM? There are some Linux distros that will run in space that small but I would either want a lot more RAM for running things on a RAMdisk and/or more storage before touching a machine like that.

Besides, if Windows7 really does run faster and cut down on the bloat, stupid MS-features aside (DRM support, etc) I'd like to see that running on a netbook. XP runs okay on my wife's Acer Aspire One (came pre-configged to accomodate the flash storage, which was nice) so I would imagine that future netbooks with more storage, more memory, and faster processors will do just fine on a lighter, faster version of Windows.

Unless someone uses Transmeta-like code morphing paired with ARM-based chips (*cough*Nvidia*cough*) I don't expect to see rapid adoption of non-x86 netbooks outside limited ultra-budget markets due to the convenience of being able to run a full suite of x86-compiled apps on an x86 netbook, regardless of the OS.

 

[Modelworks]

The ram and storage amounts is low because they are trying to keep it low cost. If they doubled the cost to $200 they could easily give it 16-32GB storage and 2GB memory. ARM is designed so that if you add a custom chip to the design you do not have to scrap your current code and start over. So adding support for custom designs is really something that has made it a success in the embedded market.

ARM is in its infancy when it comes to using it for a pc because it has only been targeted at the embedded market. It is not going to be a serious competitor for a couple years. But I think anyone who wants to get into something that could be very big before too long , now is a great time to do it.

 

[thilanliyan]

Can you run any version of linux on that beagleboard?

 

[frostedflakes]

ARM probably wouldn't be a bad netbook platform, but I doubt it will ever take off. Even if it had the performance users required, there just isn't as much software for it as x86. As you mentioned, inability to run Windows would be a deal killer for many people.

It looks like there are some options out there, though. I came by this recently and thought it was kind of neat. I doubt it could even handle flash-heavy websites, though, which just isn't acceptable for most users.

http://www.buy.com/prod/3k-raz...loc/101/210401409.html

 

[soccerballtux]

I'd rather just have a dual core Atom. Overclock it to 2Ghz on one of those ASUS or Acer laptops that has 8hours battery life (probably 5 after OC'ing) and you're good to go.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd rather just have a dual core Atom. Overclock it to 2Ghz on one of those ASUS or Acer laptops that has 8hours battery life (probably 5 after OC'ing) and you're good to go.

Do you seriously think a laptop running at 2GHz will get 5 hours of battery life? Maybe if you're running the 12cell

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd rather just have a dual core Atom. Overclock it to 2Ghz on one of those ASUS or Acer laptops that has 8hours battery life (probably 5 after OC'ing) and you're good to go.

Why in hell would you buy a netbook and overclock it?

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd rather just have a dual core Atom. Overclock it to 2Ghz on one of those ASUS or Acer laptops that has 8hours battery life (probably 5 after OC'ing) and you're good to go.

Why in hell would you buy a netbook and overclock it?

Because at idle the dual-threaded Atom runs cool enough to not even need a heat sink (active or passive). The included fans are more than enough for overclocking.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd rather just have a dual core Atom. Overclock it to 2Ghz on one of those ASUS or Acer laptops that has 8hours battery life (probably 5 after OC'ing) and you're good to go.

Do you seriously think a laptop running at 2GHz will get 5 hours of battery life? Maybe if you're running the 12cell

The ACER/ASUS's I'm talking about (sorry don't recall which it is) already get 8-10 hours. Worst case scenario on OC'ing it would be 5 hours.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd rather just have a dual core Atom. Overclock it to 2Ghz on one of those ASUS or Acer laptops that has 8hours battery life (probably 5 after OC'ing) and you're good to go.

A high end ARM would probably have decent performance and absolutely kill the Atom in battery life. Pineview (the SoC version of Atom) should really close the gap in power consumption, though.

Also, the battery life ratings used by many netbook manufacturers are pretty deceptive. The EEE PC 1000HE with the monstrous 63 watt-hour battery (rated for 9.5 hours) gets about 7.5 hours during normal normal use. You have to dim the screen, shut off wireless, etc. to even get close to the rated 9.5 hours. It's not exactly a real world usage scenario.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: thilan29
Can you run any version of linux on that beagleboard?

With some changes , yes.
Ubuntu has a version for ARM cpu.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
I'd rather just have a dual core Atom. Overclock it to 2Ghz on one of those ASUS or Acer laptops that has 8hours battery life (probably 5 after OC'ing) and you're good to go.

A high end ARM would probably have decent performance and absolutely kill the Atom in battery life. Pineview (the SoC version of Atom) should really close the gap in power consumption, though.

Also, the battery life ratings used by many netbook manufacturers are pretty deceptive. The EEE PC 1000HE with the monstrous 63 watt-hour battery (rated for 9.5 hours) gets about 7.5 hours during normal normal use. You have to dim the screen, shut off wireless, etc. to even get close to the rated 9.5 hours. It's not exactly a real world usage scenario.

Dailytech reported it to be about 8.5h.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
The ram and storage amounts is low because they are trying to keep it low cost. If they doubled the cost to $200 they could easily give it 16-32GB storage and 2GB memory. ARM is designed so that if you add a custom chip to the design you do not have to scrap your current code and start over. So adding support for custom designs is really something that has made it a success in the embedded market.

Interesting that ARM setups can change hardware without having to recompile software. That's a good idea actually.

I still think you would need some kind of code morphing to support x86, though knowing the Chinese, they don't give a damn about patents anyway. Hell they're translating x86 opcodes to run on their Longsoon-II processors.

A $200 netbook with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage and an ARM that could run x86 code respectably well would sell just fine I'd imagine, since most Atom netbooks these days are running $250+

At that point, though, you have to think that they'd be looking to adapt one of China's MIPS ripoff designs like the Longsoon-II, at least for the Chinese market where that ARM netbook is currently selling. Some of those MIPS knockoff chips run at very low voltage levels.