Don’t panic. I’m not changing the scope of UMPCPortal. We remain focused on ultra mobile computing solutions of 10 inch and below with a target weight of 1KG and under. What I did do today though is to go out of that range to buy in an interesting platform and a potential solution for myself. The Lenovo S205 11.6 inch laptop.
The Lenovo S201 is available now and includes the AMD Fusion platform based on the Zacate 1.6Ghz dual-core CPU. I want to get a feel for the performance / watt ratio of the platform and to think about how small a design could be made around this solution.
I’m also taking the next step in my Ultra Mobile Video Editing project for which 1.4KG of video editing solution is actually very lightweight. If I couple this with the new features I have on the Nokia N8, we’re talking about a 1.6KG 720p recording and editing suite. That’s 400gm lighter than my previous camera and netbook solution!
The other reason I bought it is because of my changing requirements. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has taken away all the social media activity I used to do on my netbook. It’s now my first port of call for email, for news updates and even for short-form blogging, image editing and uploads. I rarely use the netbook now so I can afford to think about optimising for the things I really need out of a laptop.
- Video editing Requiring performance, battery life and screen resolution of 1366×768 minimum (for many applications)
- Long-form typing
- Desktop PC for day-to-day work
1.4KG is about 200gm more than the average netbook and the increased footprint isn’t going to worry me on the few occasions I am out and about with it. As I mentioned above, in my work at expo’s, conferences and events, I’ll actually be better off if I can slot the N8 in as my video camera.
The cost is interesting too. Last week I was upgrading a €299 Acer Aspire One Netbook with about 120 Euros worth of operating system and RAM enhancements that the Lenovo offers for €399 out-of-the-box!
Today I’ll be unboxing the Lenovo S201 and videoing it with the Nokia N8. I will attempt to edit the 720p video on the Lenovo and you’ll hear fairly soon if it was efficient or simply too slow. Watch out for the video and some first-thoughts later.
Update 1: Rendering out a 720p, 4Mbps video right now and it looks to be using 16.5W (screen-on 30%, wifi on. 14w with radios disabled and screen off ) and taking 4x real time to process. I’m using Windows Live Movie Maker for the first test. Importing 720p into Movie Maker required downconversion for the editing process too. That takes up a long time so i’ll be looking for an alternative software solution that doesn’t have that input conversion stage.
Thanks to Ndevil for the tip on the S201 which was available in my local Conrad Electronics Shop this morning.
A 11.6″ , 1.4KG Notebook on UMPCPortal – Why?: Don’t panic. I’m not changing the scope of UMP… http://goo.gl/fb/lAn9y
Geht es hier nicht um das Lenovo S205?
You typed S201 but I think you talk about the S205 ?
Yup. I keep calling it the 201!
Dear Chippy,
11.6 is the new 10 any reso below 720p is total crap…for now and for me a 10 inch netbook with Atom is DOA proposition! For now The 2 Fusion chips C-50 & E-350 are the way to go. We all know how promising the next process shrink is going to be for this platform…
Not pocketable, no (digitizer) touchscreen, no alternative OS – simply boring.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the size, dimensions and performance the smallest macbook air is targeting?
The price is nearly double, but conidering you’re a mobile professional and not a consumer, or even a prosumer, in your particular case, if the macbook offered something better it might be worth it, right?
I’m asking because Apple get’s a lot of criticism on the meet mobility podcast (and also some amount of love, strangely), so I’d like to know if this purchase has made you reevaluate their most mobile computer.
This is a purchase for testing the Brazos platform and testing for the ultra-mobile video editing project. I talk about the MBA and iPad2 in some previous articles in that series.
http://www.umpcportal.com/tag/ultra-mobile-video-editing/
Stopping messing with AMD – I bet i3 in the acer 8172 will double that crystalmark score. Replace the HD with an SSD and you are looking at 1.3Kg.
Sorted.
People are interested in learning about the Brazos platform. I’m interested in testing it!
i3 would also add about $200 to the price, while you might gain about 1,000pts in CPU you would lose about the same in GPU.
pick your poison, but in this hardware accelerated world (and browsers) I would pick having the extra GPU to free up CPU for other tasks, unlike Intel machines were the CPU is being choked constantly.
i3 also doesnt come with a fairly heafty GPU included which Fusion does. Can’t wait to see your opinions on this Chippy.
It’s really quite amazing. Lenovo, as always has the best keyboards and you can now get a 11.6″ screen, a full-size keyboard, 3 lbs weight and decent battery life. The keyboard is key, as my current Acer ONE is 10″ and very nice, but I hit the wrong keys all the time. Do love the 7 hours battery life though.
As the other poster said: 11.6″ is the new 10″!
I thought you wanted this thing for video editing. CPU is the dominant factor here, not GPU – GPU is for video playback and games. The acer 1830t may also be worth looking at. Intel HD graphics should be enough for HD playback.
Mostly, GPU is for 3d and HD playback but don’t forget solutions like Cuda, video encoding hardware and open cl that are in the GPU.
What about the Acer TimelineX or TravelMate notebooks? 11.6″ screen, i5 430UM, Intel HD graphics, 6-8 hour battery, weight 3 lbs (1.18 kg).
Yup. I’ve been looking at that (I think its the 1820 here) and the Lenovo edge 11. Thxs for the tip!
Chippy what video format are you converting from and to? 720p = HD maybe some form of MPEG-4 eg H2.64? Yeah P4 class processors and 1GB RAM can deal with DVD standard definition (640×480) resolution but hell HD editing and conversion needs much more fire power or you can conversion rate of 1 fps!!
I have been avoiding HD conversion. I still convert stuff to XVID with Virtualdub, but I know Virtualdub does not support H2.64 natively. I use a freeware called mp4cam2avi (at Sourceforge) which “convert” H2.64 to DIVX/ XVID (no transcoding, only changing the container). I find XVID fast and less resource demanding than other codecs, therefore I have been using it for years. It is a good intermediate format for eg. editing with Virtualdub (well simple editing like crop and join).
Sorry I mean “I still edit stuff in XVID with Virtualdub”
I’m a big fan of Mpeg 4 part 2. Wmv, divx, xvid were always the best balance between file size/bitrate and decode/encode cpu requirements. With bandwidths and storage going up, its a shame that h.264 is now the standard code.
I am shooting in h.264 and encoding to the same. Sometimes sources format is 480p which allows me to reach 0.5-0.3 fps – fast enough for the short 3 minute clips I often do at events. The problem.is that most cams are recording in 720p which means something like 3x cpu requirements!
Core i3 is entry level unless I can find a tightly integrated solution that uses open cl / cuda and a hardware encoder.
I don’t know if Core-i3 UM (ULV) is powerful enough, or if you need a real Core-i3 without ULV.
But in the ULV range with 11,6″ there are the Lenovo Edge 11 and Lenovo U160.
Let’s have a look at them.
It’s a shame that you can’t edit the comments.
So I reply threaded again.
I wanted to give you a hint to a good offer.
These U160 have various ULV cpus, and a nice price:
https://www.cyberport.de/ideapad#Lenovo-IdeaPad-U160-Notebooks
For example this one https://www.cyberport.de/notebook/notebook-berater/erweiterte-suche/1C31-11C/lenovo-ideapad-u160-m436cge-4-gb-ram.html
Chippy: if you are editing video clips to be uploaded to eg. youtube, why don’t you transcode it to DIVX/ XVID, edit it and recode it in the same format? I have uploaded DIVX/ XVID in 720p HD to youtube at 8000 kbps bitrate (I think the XVID encoder allows up to 10000 kbps).
The video editor has to decompress the video so that you can edit it anyway. In my opinion, XVID is still the fastest transcoder which produces decent to good quality video. When you upload to flash sites like youtube, the video quality always gets degraded because the sites always transcode. You can also set up the video editor to recode your edited video in a low resolution eg. 480p (standard DVD res which I think is decent) at a lower bitrate to speed up the process.
Yes, that’s one of the methods I wrote about in previous articles. I have tested Avivo for this bit when the source is 720p, it still takes a long time. A lot of editors allow low-q editing though with the final render done in HQ. What I’m also finding is that a lot of software and hardware optimizations are geared towards h.264.
I do agree though that xvid is a great format for this sort of work. Both for source, editing and final output for YouTube.