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News & Opinion
News & Opinion
Phased Rollout of Intel Ivy Bridge Processors Could
Delay New MacBook Pro Release
DigiTimes' Monica Chen and Steve Shen report that Intel plans to
release 25 models of its next-generation 22nm Ivy Bridge family of
processor chips, including 17 CPUs for desktops and 8 for notebooks and
ultrabooks on or around April 8, 2012, according to sources at PC
makers in Taiwan.
This news is of particular interest to those of us attempting to
draw a bead on a likely release date for the next generation of MacBook
Pro notebooks, widely anticipated to be coming sometime in the
spring.
Chen and Shen say Core i7-3920Qm, 3820QM and 3720QM notebook CPUs
will be released in April, with other models including Core i5-3520M,
3360M, 3320M and ultrabook CPUs Core i7-3667U and Core i5-3427U to be
unveiled later. If that prediction is accurate, it doesn't look good
for an April MacBook Pro rollout, since it's a pretty sure bet that
Apple will want Core i5 models on the mix as well as Core i7.
Perhaps a June MacBook Pro refresh?
Link: Intel to Unveil
Some 22nm Ivy Bridge Processors on April 8? (subscription
required)
Why Do PC Trackpads Suck When Mac Trackpads
Don't?
So asks ZDNet's James Kendrick, contending that Apple set the bar
for laptop trackpads with the outstanding ones on the MacBook line,
observing that there's yet been a trackpad on the PC side that comes
close matching Apple's products.
Kendrick says he's been using PC laptops since they weighed 30
pounds, and that one common feature found on almost all of them over
the years is a trackpad that sucks, noting that until the unibody
MacBooks came along, the first thing he did with a new laptop was plug
in a wireless mouse - a some of us still do - and he doesn't understand
why, out of all the companies making laptops, Apple is the only one
that makes a decent trackpad. The rest are either too sensitive, not
sensitive enough, or interfere with typing by sending the cursor all
over the screen when his palms hit the trackpad, while Apple has nailed
multitouch trackpad technology down cold, making it work exactly as it
should - the sensitivity just right, integrated mouse buttons working
just right, and palm rejection just right.
Kendrick says he's beginning to think making a trackpad that works
properly must be incredibly difficult.
Editor's note: From personal experience, I'd say that Apple had it
nailed back in 1996 with the PowerBook 1400c, and it got even better
with the various PowerBook G3 models of the late '90s and early '00s.
cm
Publisher's note: It's quite simple. Apple puts the focus on the
user experience and is far less concerned with component costs than PC
makers, which means not only the best trackpads, but also higher prices
and great profit margins. On the PC side, price is such a huge factor
that few are willing to pay for higher quality components unless they
can see that they will generate increased sales. dk
Link: Why Do PC
Trackpads Suck?
Seagate's 750 GB 2nd Gen Momentus XT Hybrid Drive:
Almost an SSD, Almost Affordable
So says the Houston Chronicle's Dwight Silverman, noting that in
September he
wrote about the joy of installing a 240 GB Mercury Extreme Pro 3G
Solid State Drive (SSD) in his 13" MacBook Pro, dramatically improving
the notebook's speed, but at a stiff cost for what is modest capacity
these days.
Silverman maintains that SSDs won't gain mass acceptance until
pricing comes down and capacity goes up, but an alternative that's more
affordable and provides almost the same performance is hybrid hard
drives, which combine a small SSD with a conventional rotating disk
drive, providing higher capacity and better performance than a regular
hard drive at a fraction of the price of a pure SSD - for example,
delivering a boot time of about 15 seconds vs. 11 seconds for the
"pure" SSD.
Link: Seagate's Hybrid
Momentus XT 750-GB Drive: Almost an SSD, Almost Affordable
Thunderbolt Coming to PCs in April
DigiTimes' Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai report that Intel recently
notified its partners that the company will fully release its
Thunderbolt technology in April 2012, and several top-tier PC players
are preparing to launch Thunderbolt-supported motherboards, notebooks,
and desktop PCs, according to insider sources.
To speed up standardization of Thunderbolt, Intel is cooperating
with Apple, which is currently the sole vendor offering PC products
equipped with Thunderbolt technology, but as demand for thunderbolt is
growing, Intel is ready to release it for wider use.
Chen and Tsai note that adding Thunderbolt support costs more than
$20, and Thunderbolt is in competition with USB 3.0 to become the
dominant next-generation data transmission technology. They note that
while Thunderbolt didn't receive a lot of attention from the IT
industry when it was first announced, Apple's adoption of the
technology into products including its monitors, MacBook Pro, iMac,
MacBook Air and MacBook Mini, has boosted demand, and the cost of
including Thunderbolt support in PCs is expected to drop in the second
half of 2012.
Sony and Asustek Computer are expected to be first up adopting
Thunderbolt in their their high-end notebook products, and Chen and
Tsai report that Gigabyte Technology has been aggressively adopting new
transmission technology into its product line, is also expected to
launch Thunderbolt-featured motherboard in April.
Link: Wider Availability
of Intel Thunderbolt on PCs Come April (subscription required)
Ultrabooks to the Fore in 2012
Time's Doug Aamoth thinks that 2012 will be an interesting year in
the notebook orbit thanks to an onslaught of ultrabooks - MacBook
Air-style laptops from major PC manufacturers weighing in at around
three pounds and measuring less than 1" thick, but not requiring nearly
as much compromise as ultraportable netbooks.
However, with about half the notebooks on the market expected to be
these new razor-thin designs, it will deal another blow to physical
media - CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, and so forth - since ultrabooks are too
thin to accommodate built-in optical drives, although notebooks with
optical drives won't entirely disappear, and external drives are an
option.
Ultrabook advantages cited include portability, speed, instant-on
features thanks to flash storage media, and improved power management
with new processors from Intel and AMD, with ultrabook entry-level
pricing expected to drop $700 by mid-2012.
Link: Looking Forward to
2012: Ultrabooks
Intel Hopes to Keep Netbooks Alive with New
Dual-Core Atom Chips
IDG News' Agam Shah reports that Intel started shipping the latest
Atom chips for netbooks last week, an important step to sustain growth
of the low-cost PCs in the wake of the tablet onslaught.
Shah cites Intel saying that the dual-core Cedar Trail chips bring
better battery life and overall improved performance to netbooks,
doubling graphics performance while reducing power consumption by up to
20% compared to Atom predecessors introduced two years ago. The new
chips will help netbooks provide up to 10 hours of battery life on one
charge. Top PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Lenovo,
Toshiba, Asus, and Samsung, will ship netbooks with Cedar Trail chips
beginning in January starting at $199.
Link: Intel Tries to
Keep Netbooks Alive with New Atom Chips
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