Ugly? Practical? Heavy? Flexible? The HP Folio 13 is a strange Ultrabook in that while it doesn’t follow fashion in terms of looks and weight, it’s possibly a good thing because it also packs ports, features and battery capacity that other Ultrabooks don’t. The HP Folio 13 could turn out to be the sensible choice among Ultrabooks in the first half of 2012
Video overview below. Full specifications, gallery, links to videos and reviews available in the HP Folio information page.
Giving battery life figures for any modern notebook will always be a difficult task due to the huge dynamic range of the mobile platforms used in notebooks today. Take the Samsung 900X1B I’m testing at the moment. It’s not an Ultrabook but it’s built on the same platform to the same dimensions and it will run at anything between 2.8W drain and over 10X that figure. In this article I’ll give you some results from some fairly detailed testing I completed today. In summary, the Samsung 900X1B has excellent battery life for the size, weight and battery capacity. It’s efficient.
The Samsung 900X1B runs on a Intel Core i3 2357M platform. It has a nominal 1.3Ghz clock speed but can speed-step down to 800Mhz. There’s an Intel HD3000 graphics unit, a video encode/decode unit and, of course, lots of busses, components and connectivity. There’s also a 11.6″ 1366×768 screen with a relatively powerful back-light. The battery capacity is 42Wh [I recently corrected our database which showed in incorrect 40Wh.]
The tests I did today were aimed at finding how low the platform can idle and what sort of drain you can expect some of the components to add, all the way up to maximum power usage.
While I was researching for the last article, a warning about battery life figures, I came across some very useful information on the Toshiba Z830. They’ve officially submitted BAPCO MobileMark 2007 scores to BAPCO, for Core i3 and Core i7 versions of the Ultrabook, along with some other useful information.
First, lets take a look at the SSD they’re using. It’s a critical part of an Ultrabook. Toshiba have obviously dropped their own part in and it’s a TOSHIBA THNSNB128GMCJ , 128GB, SSD, SATA on the Core i7 model tested and a TOSHIBA THNSNB064GMCJ , 64GB, SSD, SATA on the Core i3 model tested.
It’s time to fire another warning shot across the bows of the over-eager marketing teams. Here’s the truth about the battery life on the ‘18 hour’ Fujitsu SH771.
But first, let us pay respect to the fact that there is a class of devices above Ultrabooks that can retain features like DVD, fully-clocked CPUs, large battery capacity options and still keep the weight down. The Fujitsu SH771 looks like it offers the best of both worlds. In some respects it does, but it starts at $1800.
Press release here. Battery life analysis below.
Head on over to Anandtech and stay tuned because they’ve just got an Asus Zenbook UX21.
This $1199, 2.3lb, Core i7 1.8Ghz Windows laptop (try finding that combination in any other product. It’s truly groundbreaking) should get a thorough test and review by the well-respected team over there.
Without stealing their content I’ll just say that the UX21E-DH72 matches the MBA for battery life and turns in an excellent PCMark score in the first set of tests they Anandtech have done so far. Check out the details here.
ANANDTECH – First tests with UX21
Remember that you can get a Core i5, 1.6Ghz version of this for $999 which I personaly find a better value solution. European prices start at a (tax inclusive) €999 for the Core i5 version and €1099 for the Core i7 version – only a €100 premium.
Full specs and more links, images, information in the database. Asus UX21 Information Page.
About 3 months ago I bought a Toshiba AC100 ‘smart’ book for testing. While I didn’t believe it would provide me with a netbook experience I was very interested in continuing my testing with ‘always on’ ARM-based devices. Unfortunately, that ‘always on’ experience highlighted in marketing and videos, has still not been delivered 3 months later. It’s time Toshiba actually stood up, removed the false claims, started apologizing to customers and fixing this broken device. More importantly, potential owners need to keep fingers off until we can confirm the problem is fixed.
We highlighted the standby battery life problem just a few days after we got the AC100 and a few weeks later delivered the message direct to Toshiba at IFA. The product simply doesn’t provide anywhere near the claimed ‘up to 8 days’ of standby battery life. You’ll be lucky if the AC100 still has a charge 24 hours later. Many many users have confirmed the same issue.
A promised upgrade to Froyo was the light at the end of the tunnel that most owners clung on to but that is now many weeks overdue with no official word about a timescale. In fact, a surprise firmware update last week that failed to install was followed by another firmware update that doesn’t seem to have fixed the problem or updated the device to Froyo. Do you trust them to deliver 2.2 AND fix the battery life problem?
In attempts to actually get something useful out of the AC100 I hacked the bootloader (yes, forgoing any rights to a return or repair under guarantee) to install Ubuntu and after trying the update a few days ago, I now have a bricked device. I’m sure others will fall into this trap.
I’m not going to address this email to Toshiba because their forum should be alerting them to their problems (link) instead, I’m addressing it to current and potential owners. The AC100 is still broken and I advise you to check your standby battery life and if you think I’m right, return the device. [If not, please let us know – we’d love to strikethrough and update this article.] Potential owners should refrain from a purchase until there are clear confirmations that the problems have been fixed. Better still, pass the message on and highlight that the AC100 is not yet the device with the ‘ultimate battery life’.
When the N900 was launched, Nokia positioned it as a total convergence device. It’s a dream (and the subject of my first ever blog post in 2006). The X10 is also aiming to be a total convergence device and does an incredible amount of activities with impressive quality but again I say no; and that’s not all. Battery life is a major problem with every smartphone I’ve ever used. I wrote about the problem back in 2008 and again in January. The X10 re-confirms my theory. There is NO SUCH THING AS IDLE and screens and communications continue to take the lions share of battery drain. Smartphones, when used professionally as smartphones, don’t bring all-day battery life.
Forget talk about cpu idle power claims because it’s totally irrelevant. 2W is the headroom needed to do all the things the marketing people tell you are possible and assuming you ‘only’ use the device for 15 minutes every hour, you’ll need a 7.5wh battery to get you through a full day.
The X10 has a 5.5wh battery which means it’s not going to hit the mark for many. It needs attention, a top-up late in the day and if you’re to be ready for the next day it needs plugging in before you go to bed. That late-day top-up is a big risk if you’re a pro user and relying on being able to take an important phone call or respond to an email at any time and if that risk is there, you’ll need to manage it. In this case it means either a spare battery, a universal charger or, and I suspect that this is going to be the easiest route for many, take a second phone. Either way, you’ve got a second device and a problem.
Corner cutting.
The X10 pushes the boundaries in so many ways but it does it within the confines of a pocketable size, smartphone pricing and smartphone life-cycles and that means (and always will mean) cutting corners. The web experience is great but even though you’ve got 800×480 pixels, the pixels are too small. a 5 inch screen has always been better for mobile web browsing from the hand and now that people are experiencing even bigger handheld web experiences, the 4 inch screen has issues. Zooming to click a link is a pain in the backside.
Then there’s the camera. How do you keep the price down and still provide a superb photo solution? You stick to daylight-only scenarios, drop the flash and choose a daylight sensor. The X10 is crap at low-light and flash situations. My 2 year-old N82 beats the pants off it.
How do you keep the design simple, reduce parts costs and avoid having to ship 500 different physical keyboard layouts? You make a tablet device with a software keyboard. Losing 50% of a landscape screen to a keyboard isn’t nice but it’s a great way to reduce the time-to-market costs.
How do you tackle the audio issues? Speakers need space, always. To fix that problem you ship it with a standard 3.5mm headphone port and hope no-one wants to use it as a radio. The speaker on the X10 is far from ‘top quartile.’
A great MID.
A 500 Euro smartphone is an expensive item but when you look at what the X10 is giving you it’s hard to put much weight on the corner-cutting. In terms of mobile internet, the X10 blows away any Intel-based MID I’ve tried. Sure, I’ll have to put up with a no-flash experience but the X10 brings me email, PIM and calendar integration, sync and accessibility that I’ve never had before. The dedicated GMail J2ME app on my old Nokia 6280 was really fast but this is something else altogether. Being able to push information around (sharing with email, IM, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and other important networks) is easier than on a PC and when you add the always-on feature, GPS (location based search adds a lot of value) a WVGA video capability and an 8MP camera that puts every PC-based 1.3mp webcam to shame, you’ve got something special that goes way beyond browsing. With 4-6hrs full-on web browsing time, 9GB storage and a 138gm (measured here) weight, you can forgive it not having the ability to beat a dedicated digital camera in a low-light photography test.
What have I learnt?
I’ve learnt that I use the Internet too much for a smartphone. Actually I knew that already which is why I’m still looking for the ultimate MID but the X10 serves to re-iterate that point. No smartphone battery can keep up with me.
I’ve learnt that Android fits me perfectly. I’m a Google user and Android brings my services to me in a way that no other device ever has and that means that I won’t pursue a Windows-based mobile internet device. Actually, I never did. I knew that a dedicated OS was needed from day 1 but the choice just hasn’t been there. [History: Carrypad was started in 2006 to journal my question for a mobile internet device]
I’ve learnt that I love having a top-end, stylish smartphone. Just because! (Who doesn’t?)
I’ve learnt that the ARM/Android platform is able to bring a consistently high-speed, multitasking and flexible web experience. I experienced it on the Archos 5 and it’s here again on the X10. Android will easily scale to bigger screens and given the apps, would be able to provide a productive internet experience.
I’ve reaffirmed that the Marketplace is critical. Without it, Android devices just can’t keep up.
I’ve learnt that the X10 may not be for me but I know it will be difficult to part with it. I’ve tasted Google Android at 1Ghz and I don’t want to step down from that. The Dell Mini may be my savior.
HTC Nexus One / Desire, Motorola Milestone / Droid
Many of you have been asking how the X10 compares to these two phones. I’m afraid I can’t comment on the Desire and N1 because my hands-on was with a device that kept crashing but from my brief hands-on with the Nexus One I can say that the experience is very comparable. As for the Droid, I’ll immediately say that the Droid is a better value device. It’s available for under 400 Euros now and has the 2.1 upgrade. It offers similar photo, web and UI experience. If you’re a Google user and smartphone oriented,you’re not going to walk away from a Droid purchase unhappy.
The fact is that all five devices are top quality Android smartphones and offer an experience that will is likely to lock you in to the Android way.
Detailed first impressions and review.
I’m writing about the X10 in detail on a separate sub-blog and have just posted Part 1 of my first impressions. The article highlights three potential show-stoppers so take a look, comment and check back soon for part 2 where I cover the good stuff. Part 2 is going to be much longer than Part 1 I’m sure!
Also on the XperiaX10 blog:
Sample Daylight Photos. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to create photo’s and videos on a UMPC!
Size comparison. Includes Archos 5, 5 inch PMP.
Information on the screen. It’s transflective. Why didn’t UMPCs ever get good outdoor screens?
Unboxing and Open Review (with JKK)
We’ve been talking about the area of mobile internet-connected devices between the smartphone and notebook for a long time now. Many companies have tried with many many different designs but in reality, none of them have been a success. OQO, Flipstart, Wibrain and Raon Digital are proof that it’s a market where many are going to fail before a winner comes along but what is it going to take to make that winner and how close are we to it? Where are we on the Mobile Internet Timeline?
There are three components to a successful mobile internet product. Hardware (including technology and design), software (including UI, apps and community) and the magic pixie dust that is the combination of pricing, branding, distribution and marketing needed to bring the device to the people in just the right way. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about marketing to be able to comment (apart from the fact that I think that certain marketing teams are easily capable of making it happen today) but my experiences with ultra mobile devices and customers over the last 3 years gives me some idea about what’s needed for the hardware and software components.
One of the keywords that I keep coming back to in this segment is the word ‘microblogging.’ In my mind, microblogging is the word that connects to all the elements that go to make up a good mobile internet device. I’ve listed those below.
I talk a bit more here about my own ideal microblogging device and the markets it addresses but let’s focus on a more generic level here.
Of all the items listed above, the first two are the biggest issues. These are the ones that are limited by current technology and have prevented engineers from creating what could be the ideal device so lets take a closer look at these.
Portability
It goes without saying; a mobile internet device needs to be portable but how portable is portable? Through my conversations with thousands of mobile computing and smartphone fans I’ve learned that it can be vastly different to many people although it largely centers around ‘the bag.’ If you’ve got a bag with you all the time (as I do, I hate carrying things in my pockets) then portability goes all the way up to 7 inch screens and nearly 2lb in weight. For those that are looking for a jacket pocket solution, forget anything over 4.8 inch and 1lb. One important thing to note though is that the smaller the device is, the easier it is to hold in one or two hands but that it gets harder to display information. Pixel density can only go so high before websites become unreadable and need to be zoomed. 4-5 inch, 250gm, 15mm thick and an 800×480 screen is going to be the target in my opinion for the next few years. How far away from that are we? We’re there already. Devices have already been designed with both X86 and ARM cores that achieve this size. [Example]
Form Factor Style. Keyboard. Screen.
There’s no real answer here expect to say that most styles and form-factors in most materials are possible today. A keyboard creates a thickness problem and a folding screen option would be nice for the industrial designers but I’m confident that given current industrial design knowledge, materials, skills and production technologies, almost anything is possible today. Fasion changes but given economies of scale, anything should be possible.
Always-on and connected
Being always connected means not having to charge a device for a whole day of about 15 hours. This has been possible with mobile phones for along time but we’re talking about a different level of ‘always connected’ with a mobile internet device. This is not a device that will sit idle. Background software will be checking emails, waiting for instant messages, polling social networks, processing GPS signals, updating locations, checking for software updates, playing music, checking accelerometers and ambient light levels, scheduling alarms and the device will probably be in-use, with the screen backlight on, every 15 minutes during the day. Idle devices are a thing of the past and that’s where the technology challenge comes in. Running these scenarios on a phone architecture results in a dead battery within hours. I know because i’ve tested it!
Always-on Internet applications increases the average power requirement of a smartphone by a minimum of 1000% and up to 3000%
The answer here is not to use the lowest power CPU but to use a very closely coupled hardware and software layer that can schedule events at the right times and make sure the device sleeps for as long as possible. In general, low power devices take longer to perform general purpose processing tasks so the power advantages are outweighed by the need to keep screens and radios active. In general, a device that can perform tasks quicker in processing ‘windows’ and then resume to a standby state is probably going to have the advantage. [See this article for more thoughts and view the image on the left.] How far away from that are we? Quite far. We’re in a very early stage of mobile internet software development and unless a golden bullet comes along in the form of new battery technology, the problem will need to be worked on for some time before true all-day mobile internet ‘computing’ is possible.
Fast in use.
Getting a task completely quickly and efficiently means better user satisfaction and more productivity. The days of waiting 20 seconds for a web page to load on a smartphone are over and we need to be looking towards the sub 10-second page load. Ultimately, 5 seconds for every page on the internet. Not only that but applications need to start instantaneously and user interfaces need to react in a physical way in order for the device to become more a part of the user. How far away from that are we? Quite far. The new generations of smartphone are improving very well and reaching the 15 second average page load level along with having great almost instantaneous interfaces but its still the exception. UMPCs and netbooks are into the sub 10-second level for web page processing but still struggle to meet the battery life requirements when doing so. In general we need about 4x efficiency improvement from the X86 based devices and about 4 x processing power improvements in the ARM-based devices. Both sides are moving very quickly towards it but we’re a couple of years away from what I would call a thrilling experience.
Pervasive 3G networks
As for the rest of the list, we’re pretty much there now. Location, storage, video and software is available. It’s just a matter of sticking it al together in the right way and focusing on the limitations above.
The dream of that ultimate mobile internet communications device is spread wide across potential consumer base and the industry itself but we’ve still got a long way to go. 2009 is an early point on the timeline where although devices are possible, customers are burdened with issues. Be it battery life or slow web processing, heavy form factors or tiny screens. The good news is that everyone working in the industry is already working on those problems and we’re now only a short few years away from seeing devices that satisfy everyone.
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