Apple’s refreshed 27-inch monster LCD monitor is now 16:9 aspect ratio. If “large-margin” Apple switches to 16:9, it must not be all that bad right?

Though with 2560 x 1440 pixels, you aren’t exactly wanting for desktop real estate. And I imagine that if our 16:9 displays were IPS as well, we’d all be a lot happier.

Source: [Apple] via [DailyTech]

Lenovo is all aboard the Google Android train of late, and one man’s analysis points to a huge swell coming for the ‘droid OS in China.

As we’ve seen numerous times of late, Lenovo is supporting Android full speed ahead. Their China-only smartphone runs Android, their two show-stopper products have been delayed to switch to Android and the hot-off-the-press LePad slate will feature…tada – Android! While Lenovo has had a long standing relationship with Google, their Android allegiance is well planned.

A report from a tech insider in China paints a convincing picture of Android’s dominance in China. Did you know that a gimped iPhone 4 costs $1285 in China? Add to this China-focused apps and preloads for Android along with Lenovo’s unyielding desire to keep their homeland market.

Finally, take all these tidbits and multiply them by the 957 million projected Chinese mobile internet users in 2014, giving you one helluva recipe for Android dominance in China.

If you’re interested in such topics, I suggest you give the article a read over at TechCrunch.

Source: [TechCrunch]

In a recent post on the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft announced that a whopping 46% of PCs running Windows 7 were doing so with the 64-bit version. As shown in the table above, this is a huge proportion compared to Vista, and especially XP which had a very limited release of a 64-bit version.

While most processors have been able to support a 64-bit OS since even the Windows XP days, only recently have we seen the increased 64-bit market share. The relative drop in memory prices helped with this, making 4GB installed RAM from the manufacturer cheaper and necessitating a 64-bit OS.

With Windows 7, Microsoft also started requiring OEMs to develop 64-bit drivers. Accordingly, OEMs are offering 64-bit Windows on nearly every product and some have switched to 64-bit all together. Heck, even Intel is solely using 64-bit Win7 within their organization.

And 64-bit is only going to gain steam. 77% of PCs sold at retail stores in April 2010 had 64-bit Windows 7 preloaded. Analyst firm Gartner predicts that by 2014, 75% of all business PCs will be running 64-bit Windows.

What is 64-bit again?

For those who missed out on the 64-bit train, here’s a snippet from the Windows blog with a high level description:

A primary benefit of 64-bit Windows is the increase in addressable memory. This makes more “bits” available to Windows (the OS), which means more information can be “addressed” at once. 32-bit architectures have a memory ceiling of 4GB while the 64-bit architecture increases the memory ceiling to approximately 17.2 billion GB or RAM! Windows 7 is designed to use up to 192 GB of RAM (see SKU and OS comparisons here), a huge jump compared to limits with all 32-bit systems.

How has 64-bit worked out for you?

Like most people shown in the stats above, I didn’t bother with 64-bit until Windows 7. My ThinkPad X61 has supported 64-bit since its launch years ago and I always need more RAM, so 64-bit made perfect sense.

Perhaps it was just the feel of a fresh OS, but the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate just felt a bit faster in general. The extra memory from my 4GB installed RAM was very nice as well. Perhaps the largest boost in performance I’ve seen is with the 64-bit version of Adobe Photoshop. The 64-bit version leaves the 32-bit in its dust, which is easily verifiable since they can both be run back to back.

I’m also rather lucky that I’ve had no driver issues moving to 64-bit either. My quite old Samsung laser printer had 64-bit drivers available (thanks Samsung!) and of course Lenovo stepped up and had me taken care of as well. That, ladies and gents, is what you get from a business laptop line that you won’t see with a consumer PC.

Source: [Windows Team Blog] via [ITBusinessEdge]

Source: dchurbuck on Flickr

Word comes from DigiTimes that a number of laptop vendors and manufacturers are planning to get behind a laptop new power supply standardization initiative led by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

The companies in support include vendors Acer and Asustek and manufacturers Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Pegatron and Inventec. Such a standard is still a long ways off, as the IEEE has just established a team for this project.

DigiTimes notes that power supply manufacturers will likely opposite such a move, as their business is in manufacturing a variety of different adapters. While a unified power supply would reduce their costs, it would also likely reduce their margins.

Opinion

This is an interesting initiative with great long term implications: less electronics waste, more common parts and lower costs. It is not surprising to see two of the consumer only manufacturers on board, as their models are generally less specialized and far more commoditized (yes, that is my own word) than business class laptops like Lenovo ThinkPads, Dell Latitudes and HP EliteBooks.

If such a standardization were to come about, it would take years upon years for large IT departments to make the switch; just think about how many brand-specific adapters an IT shop could have. But in the end, the simplicity and cost savings would be a good move even for a large IT department.

Source: [DigiTimes]

Research firm iSuppli is warning that a series of critical electronic component shortages could lead to price increases in the near future.

The bits that make up most any modern electronic device, and are especially crucial in all PCs, are pushing into the 20 week lead time range. Various MOSFETs and transistors are the subject of this constraint and normally have a 10-12 week lead time.

“When lead times enter the 20 week range, they indicate a major schism between component supply and demand,” said Rick Pierson, senior analyst for semiconductors and component price tracking at iSuppli. “Supply constraints for electronics and semiconductor components might not come as a big surprise amid the present market rebound. However, specific market and pricing trends are spurring varying degrees of short supply depending on the component market.”

Limited component price increases, particularly over the short term, shouldn’t have an appreciable effect on prices of electronics like PCs. However if suppliers are unable to replenish stock and continue to meet manufacturer demand, a prolonged shortage could lead to reduced inventory or higher prices.

Source: [iSuppli] via [The Inq]

Just a couple weeks ago Intel officially announced their first dual core netbook processor and now one group got their hands on an upcoming model with the new chip.

The dual core Intel Atom N550 was tested inside an Asus netbook and found to have significantly improved multitasking performance. While its single-threaded performance will likely be a hair less than the usual 1.66GHz Atom N455, the overall “experience” for users should be improved.

The biggest complaint I have over netbook performance is that loading multiple web pages or even switching between multiple apps is a bit of a chore. Between the dual core chip and a healthy 2GB RAM, netbooks should become a bit more livable now.

Source: [NotebookItalia] via [Lilliputing]

Intel has released some details on their next generation low power mobile chips, which include a dual core Atom, an ultra-thin reference platform and Intel’s answer to smartbooks.

Dual core Atom chips have been around for a while, but with higher power consumption and almost exclusively found in desktop (i.e. nettop) systems. These new chips will support the newer DDR3 RAM and despite having dual cores, should have comparable power consumption to existing single core Atom chips. While there are no further details on specs, Intel did clarify that performance improvements will be seen in multitasking and web browsing. These chips are entering production now and we should see them in netbooks by the holiday shopping season.

Super-thin netbooks

Intel also unveiled a reference platform for netbooks, codenamed “Canoe Lake.” This is something like a proof of concept, that shows off just what one can do with technology like Intel’s Atom platform. Canoe Lake is a netbook platform that is only 14mm thick thanks to a significant redesign of the cooling system. The reference design is one that partners like Lenovo and leverage for their own designs, in part or in full.

Intel brings Windows to Smartbooks

Another announcement from Intel takes their smartbook chip and ups the ante over competing chips like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. In short, Intel took the processor package from their Moorestown smartphone/tablet/smartbook platform and added a chipset that offers enough features to run Windows. The result is dubbed Oaktrail.

Moorestown itself is an Atom Z600 processor with the requisite chips to facilitate power efficient support for all the features required by smartphone/book/tablet devices, and nothing more. Oaktrail adds on to that package the necessary bits to run Windows, offering Intel a decided advantage over traditional ARM-based platforms like NVIDIA Tegra and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon.

Oaktrail will be “ready” in early 2011. For more details behind Oaktrail and Moorestown, check out these articles from Anandtech.

To avoid possibly cannibalizing sales of larger, full-power notebooks, Intel has only allowed OEM’s like Lenovo to produce laptops with their Atom N-series processor if the screen was 10.2-inches or smaller. This may change as Intel faces increased competition in the bargain-bin notebook category.

A bevy of ARM-powered smartbooks and tablets are set to launch this year, generally in the same price range as Intel-based netbooks and without Intel’s arbitrary screen restrictions. Lenovo’s Skylight is one example, powered by Qualcomm’s 1GHZ Snapdragon processor found in so many new smartphones. NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 solution is also expected to be used to power new slate tablets and even Apple’s iPad could be considered a competitor to netbooks.

This rumor of Intel policy change comes with the expected launch of a new dual core Atom processor. With manufacturing improvements bringing more performance and lower cost to Atom, Intel may feel they have both the impetus and now the leeway to increase the functionality of Atom-based netbooks. One could also make the argument that with some models offloading video processing to a Broadcom or NVIDIA chip that larger, higher resolution screens are needed to actually take advantage of those improvements.

Source: [Digitimes]

Dell’s Adamo XPS was announced late last year with a revolutionary design, and a price tag to match. Not even a year out the gate, Microsoft’s retail store is clearing out the ultra-super-duper-thin PCs.

It’s not that the Adamo XPS is a bad laptop. The design is really unique and probably made the Macbook Air go “doh.” The internals aren’t that bad either, with a CULV processor, HD 13.4-inch screen, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and the works.

But at $2000 for a netbook/CULV  crammed into a 9.99mm chassis, there is almost no reason to choose this laptop over…any other.

It appears Microsoft has decided it’s had enough of the Adamo XPS’ gathering dust on their shelves. Valid through tomorrow, May 20, you can get 40% off one of these beasts at the MS Store.

40% off the $1999 list price brings the Adamo XPS down to only $1199, which isn’t a bad price for a high end CULV. Sadly, Dell is still in denial over the Adamo XPS and to buy one new through Dell would run you the full $1999.

If you fancy such a PC, which would certainly turn more heads in a coffee shop than some iPad, you can pick it up through LogicBuy below.

Source: [Dell Adamo XPS coupon at LogicBuy]

Yesterday Lenovo announced a slew of new laptops and desktops, some of which use the new family of mobile processors from AMD. Today AMD has shared some more details around those processors, including some rather impressive specs.

You can view the full marketing slides over at Engadget, but right off the bat I noticed that they have 25W versions of every processors from the entry-level V Series to the Phenom II Quad Core. A 25W 1.6GHz quad-core is pretty impressive, although the N620 2.8GHz 35W dual core is probably the best combination of performance and power usage for most users.

On the “ultrathin” side of things, aka CULV, AMD is sporting some competitive numbers, if not outright impressive. The single-core V105 runs at 1.2GHz and sports a 9W TDP. I can’t help but expect this chip’s performance to be comparable with Atom, but have twice the (max) power consumption.

For the higher end CULV notebooks, you can get several dual-core chips rated at 15W and up to 1.7GHz. That’s not too shabby at all.

While these specs are certainly enticing, real world battery life tests will show how these chips do with “part-throttle” power consumption. The other factor will be cost; while the laptops with the prior generation AMD processors sold for a nice discount below their Intel counterparts, I would expect pricing of the new chips to step up a bit.

Source: [Engadget]