Tag Archives: AMD
AMD Ontario to Compete with Intel’s Atom in Mobile Devices
Posted on 19. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
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Lilliputing has a report out that Intel’s oft-pushed around little brother in the semiconductor space, AMD, will be releasing a chip aimed at mobile computers. AMD has always been a lower-cost solution to Intel’s chips, and the release of this chip called Ontario offers both manufacturers and consumers better choice in processors for netbooks and tablets.
This information was provided to investors during a recent AMD earnings call. AMD CEO Dirk Meyer said that the performance and power consumption of the Ontario chip would be comparable to the Atom, although graphics capabilities would be better than Intel’s chip.
While having both the Intel Atom and now AMD Ontario as mobile computing options for processing is good, we’re still convinced that most Chrome OS devices will eventually run on an ARM solution. ARM offers more flexibility when paired with cloud computing and low-power capability than traditional processors.
Noticeably absent from the list of official Chrome OS partners is Intel, although many manufacturers that produce Intel-based solutions are taking a part. There is an overwhelming amount of ARM processor developers on the list such as Qualcomm (Snapdragon processor), and Texas Instruments (OMAP processor). Freescale Semiconductor, an ARM-licensed developer of the i.MX series of processors whose Taiwan office I had a chance to visit while I was at Computex, is also a part of the official list, which must mean something, right?
The Difference Between Netbooks and Smartbooks
Posted on 02. Jan, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
It’s becoming clear that the PC hardware market is about to become full of a lot of different types of small and lightweight machines. With CES coming up we can probably expect to see new and intriguing models that don’t fit into a particular genre. One thing that’s certain is that there are two totally different markets that are being targeted when contrasting netbooks from smartbooks. There is also hardware inside each that differentiates the two.
While netbooks are typically laptops that are smaller and geared mostly towards using the internet, smartbooks are really larger iteration of a smartphone. In fact, most smartbooks are expected to be produced by smartphone manufacturers and backed by wireless carriers. This is because unlike netbooks, which use Intel or AMD architecture, smartbooks utilize ARM processors that are found in just about every cell phone on the market today. Because these units are using the ARM technology, smartbooks are cheaper than netbooks. At the same time, a netbook will have more capabilites than a smartbook.
Smartbooks will be priced aroound the $200 range while netbooks can go from $300-$500 depending on hardware configuration and operating system.
Bottom line?Although netbooks have been a hit for the past two years, the market could change based on new technology that is shown at CES. Google’s going to have a big part of this market as users begin to adopt computing devices that are different from the traditional PC of the past.
I would expect to see Android on smartbooks and Chrome OS on netbooks.
