Until a few days ago, the IDF Spring 2008 didnt appear to be the MID-fest that I was hoping for but after returning from a few days away at The Next Web conference and having time to read through all of the presentation slides, it’s clear that the MID juice was definately flowing. There has been progress in the technology, with Moblin, with software vendowrs and hardware vendors but I’m still left with question marks next to some of my more detailed queries.
The main point to come out of IDF and one that probably affected the detailed MID news was that the launch of Atom has been pushed out to June. This is two months later than previous Intel estimates and extends device availability way into summer. In most cases, customers waiting for the first hands-on reviews with retail devices are going to have to wait until July or August to finalise even early decisions. If there’s another slip of just a month or two we might even see marketing departments waiting until Autumn as they take advantage of the Christmas buying wave. The Olympics will also push a few manufacturers to get devices out in time for Asian marketing campaigns. Lenovo will be leading this as an official Olympic sponsor and the manufacture of the Ideapad U8. [More after the break…]
A number of technical details have emerged about Atom with ‘Z5xx’ part numbers, clockrates and TDP figures now in the open and Imagination Technologies confirming that the graphics core in the MID platform will be based on PowerVR and will include important video codec acceleration which, as well as improving common codec playback, will also enable a better H.264 experience, something I believe could be a major differentiator if YouTube open up their H.264 content to all. We also heard from Real Networks and AOL and got a good feel for the number of MID manufacturers we might see this year with new brands such as Fujitsu, Hanbit, Hitachi, NEC, Sophia Systems, TabletKiosk, USI/Abit, Viliv and WiBrain lining up to produce MIDs.
In terms of online reaction to IDF it was very mixed which is only to be expected as this new, incredibly disruptive technology enters traditional notebook and smartphone marketing space and Intel sends out the messages that Atom will affect you in some way or another within the next few years. There’s much less of the ‘push it to one side’ attitude that I saw with ‘Origami’ a few years ago and commentators are getting far deeper with their reports, realising that this is a big Intel project and it probably will happen in some form or another.
Quite where and when the successful products will appear is still open for discussion. In the smartphone-related blogoshpere I there is too much happening in their ecosystem for Atom to appear on the radar yet and with Windows Mobile 6.1, the Samsung Instinct, N-Gage and other CTIA news taking much of the limelight last week, its understandable. If we’re realistic, there are very few opportunities for generation-1 Atom devices to challenge the portability, price and battery life of ARM-based smartphones and although it sounds like HTC might make a move into this area, they already have a finger in the pro-smartphone market and can lever their existing high-end Universal and Advantage marketing channels if they need to. I don’t expect many others to aim for a smartphone-killer just yet but I would definitely love to see what designs Apple and others have in their labs for the 2nd-generation of Atom.
More active is the PC community as they put Eee PC + Atom together and come up with mininote thoughts. The MSI wind, Macbook Air, HP2133 and Cloudbook Max have shown them where the technology might lead and this is quite clearly going to be the most active area for the early Atom-based devices. ARSTechnica highlights it in a news article, TechReport joins them in predicting the netbook market will be the most successful, Anandtech have a detailed report that ends up saying the same. None of them were optimistic about MIDs though and EETimes werent optimistic about anything, saying that Intel’s dreams for MIDs, netbooks and nettops won’t be realised. I’m wondering if they’ve actually heard of the Eee PC yet!
I don’t think we should be expecting MIDs to achieve the sales numbers of nettops though. The devices aren’t there to beat the iPhone either. They are their for users that require a fuller Internet and video experience and that’s far from everyone. It’s still a relatively small market but it’s a much much wider one than Origami UMPCs were able to cover. Unfortunately, pictures, video’s and hands-on with prototypes and pre-release hardware isn’t going to help anyone decide so what’s needed is a hands-on with the final software stack and there lies the number 1 unanswered question. What are the Moblin core and applications like and how fast will the device be in real use? As far as I know, there aren’t any complete software stacks yet. Ubuntu Mobile will hit the streets later this month and that, when seen on devices like the Samsung Q1 Ultra, will give a good idea of what’s available and what’s possible but there are going to be a number of tailored UI’s and hands-on with Ubuntu won’t help you decide if you’re looking at a device with a different UI.
The second unanswered question is pricing. We’re still only hearing price range targets and there’s no territorial information being given out. I don’t expect this situation to change for quite a few months yet.
Battery life is the third question. While I can estimate, based on my hands-on, that we’re talking 2-3 hours active use, multi-day standby and 8 hours music playback for a pocketable MID, no-one is really able to accurately prove this yet. Watching the Ubuntu Mobile and Moblin mailing lists shows clearly that software engineers are still finding power issues with the software and are weeding out the problems one by one. Improvements between beta and release, or even the first updates, could be dramatic.
Fourth in the list is performance. How will the 1.8Ghz Atom device perform with Vista? Will Poulsbo enable an Archos-beating PMP experience and how long will it take to re-size a 30MB RAW image from a DSLR with the 800Mhz devices?
Following-on from that we need to get more information from the manufacturers about the device specs. Even the model names and territories aren’t clear yet. The product database here is sketchy in most places and while I’m picking up occasional details that leak through interviews and hands-on, there are almost no manufacturer websites to refer to yet. This will hardly affect the main market that won’t learn about these devices until 2009 but for the early adopters [Hi all!] its very frustrating.
So the MID story moves on and in terms of progress, we’re probably only just past the foreword and into the first few pages. The background story is being drawn, the main characters are being introduced, the readers are being pulled-in but as IDF finishes we find ourselves on a few pages that were left intentionally left blank. Intel’s story may not resume until June so between now and then, the only solution is to focus on tidbits from the manufacturers and the fun speculation that happens when Engadget and Gizmodo get hold of the inevitable leaked images and specifications!
