Hardware Archive

Dell has gone mad and designed this really weird portable computer that's not really a laptop. Cnet has a set of pictures of the Dell XPS M2010. "Dell's new XPS M2010, which starts at $3500, includes two hard drives with up to 120GB capacity each, a Core Duo processor and 4GB of dual-channel (667MHz) memory."

Computer maker Lenovo will not install or support the Linux operating system on any of its PCs, including ThinkPads and a series of new notebooks, the company said this week. The company is clearly positioning itself as an exclusive partner of Microsoft, several weeks after the companies announced they were "reaffirming" global market development and cooperation agreements. "We will not have models available for Linux, and we do not have custom order, either," said Frank Kardonski, Lenovo's worldwide product manager for Lenovo 3000 offerings. "What you see is what you get. And at this point, it's Windows."

In this, the 60th anniversary year of the computer, it may be interesting to look back at a couple of key events in the evolution of this very important market. This is a market now amounting to extraordinary numbers of machines. In 2010, the last year for which we have numbers, there were no less than 10 million machines shipped! This growth and penetration is unparalled in the history of industrial products in the last 100 years, and is an amazing success. However, to get to this stage, the industry had to make its way through some issues and decision points. There are generally agreed to have been key turning points. What would have happened if they had gone differently?

The server market was slapped and dropped on its head during the first quarter of 2006. We haven't seen anything quite like it since 2000. What's the big shocker? Well, Sun Microsystems actually enjoyed one of the stronger runs during the first quarter by most metrics, while Dell proved one of the worst performers. Beyond the server vendor rumbles, AMD continued to gain gobs of share on Intel in the x86 processor market.

Samsung will early next month ship the first notebook PC and the first ultra-mobile PC fitted with 32GB of solid-state NAND Flash storage instead of a regular hard disk drive, the company announced today. The two machines - respectively, a version of Samsung's Q30 12.1in notebook and its Q1 UMPC - are both fitted with the 32GB SSD (Solid-state Disk) the company unveiled in March this year. Both PCs will go on sale in South Korea for KRW3.5m ($3700) and KRW2.3m ($2430), respectively.

eWeek takes a look at Sony's Vaio SZ160, and concludes: "Sony's Vaio SZ160 is the type of laptop that executives ask for - and with good reason. With a 13.3-inch widescreen format and an Intel Core Duo dual-core processor, this 3.8-pound laptop offers business users exactly what they're looking for. It has great features, including a Web cam and an integrated microphone for videoconferencing, and the Vaio SZ160's bright screen is one of the best eWeek Labs has seen among the current crop of systems."

"There are dozens of other massively multiprocessor projects - known alternatively as distributed computing, grid computing, or volunteer computing - that can take advantage of your otherwise unused CPU cycles in an effort to do things like predict global climate change, calibrate particle accelerators, or develop drugs to combat cancer and AIDS. We decided to look into whether these projects have actually accomplished anything or were just spinning CPU cycles unnecessarily and making their users feel virtuous."

Sony will ship its Vaio UX UMPC on 27 May, the consumer electronics giant said today. The successor to the company's U series of handheld mini PCs will ship as the retail-oriented UX-50 and as the Sony-sold UX-90S and UX-90PS. As expected, the UX-50 will contain a 1.06GHz ultra-low voltage Intel Core Solo U1300 processor backed by 512MB of 400MHz SDRAM and a 30GB, 4,200rpm hard disk. The unit's display is a 4.5in, 1,024 x 600 panel driven by Intel's integrated GMA950 GPU - the chipset's a 945GMS. The handheld PC runs Windows XP Home Edition. Connectivity comes courtesy of Bluetooth 2 and 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. There's an integrated webcam and a fingerprint sensor.

"Thin is in again. After years of false starts, so-called thin clients are gaining traction as IT departments look to cut costs and boost security. Dell, Intel and AMD are eyeing the space." eWeek takes a closer look at Thin Clients, including a set of pictures.

"Samsung Electronics and Microsoft will next month show off the ready-to-market version of a hybrid hard drive which can greatly reduce boot-up time of laptops and desktop PCs. The HHD is the convergence of a flash memory chip and a conventional platter-type magnetic disk drive. To save the time and energy spent spinning a metal disk drive it is designed to use static flash memory when starting a PC."

"Can you imagine getting a new PC and finding your software runs no faster than before? You probably can't imagine it running slower. For some types of software however, that is exactly what is going to happen in the not too distant future. Faster processors running slower may sound bizarre but if you're using certain types of data structures or code on large scale (8+) multicore processors it might actually happen. In fact it might already happen today if you were to run legacy software on one of today's processors which feature a large number of cores."

ColorWare, a company which offers pre-coloured (my apologies for using that abomination of an English word) notebooks and desktops using a special coating process, has added the MacBook Pro to their product line up. If you find Apple's standard grey too boring, maybe a red or a black MacBook Pro is your game. They also offer coloured Mac Minis, iBooks, iMacs, Alienware computers, and more. You can also send in hardware you already own. They say they have some magical Wonderland procedure to paint the computers, but whether or not the process creates a tough layer of paint remains to be seen from customer testimonies.

The ECB_AT91 is a new Colombian SBC with a 180 MHz ARM9 processor that runs Linux. It supports up to 64MBytes of SDRAM, has a SD/MMC slot, a 10/100 Ethernet port and an USB 2.0 interface. It was inspired by Darrell Harmon's and Flavio Ribeiro's SBCs. Debian runs on this board without problems. More information and pictures can be found at the ECB_AT91 website.

"IDC has released its first quarter PC market share figures, and for the first time in recent memory, it's not smooth sailing for Dell. Overall, it was a good quarter. PC shipments rose 12.9 percent from the same quarter in 2005, with the growth occurring worldwide. The big winners for the quarter were HP and Gateway. HP's gains are to be expected, given that it has been battling Dell for the number one market share position for the last several years. Gateway is a bigger surprise."