Mooley Eden was on stage at IDF this morning to deliver 1hr of Ultrabook presentation. Add the coverage that Ultrabooks got in the first keynote and you’re looking at about 40% of the total keynote stage time being dedicated to Ultrabooks. It’s clear where Intels marketing dollars will be going next year.
Mooley set the scene by talking about PC market growth saying that China had overtaken the US market as #1. “Emerging markets are on fire” he adds. In a market full of tablet and smartphone competition, he needed to do that.
So far we’ve seen 5 official Ultrabook launches but there are obviously big names missing. Dell, MSI, HP, LG and more. It’s possible though that Ultrabooks will launch from these manufacturers soon because Intel expects 9 or more devices to launch across the world by the end of the year.
This video, made at IDF today, reveals the information. Unfortunately there were no new Ultrabook products on the Ultrabook booth today although we may see something ib the technology showcase later today. Stay tuned for our reports from that after about 6pm local time here in San Francisco.
We did see some Ivy Bridge based devices but all of them were ODM samples or prototypes. A video of those will follow-up on Ultrabooknews.
We weren’t expecting Andy Rubin on stage at IDF but there he was with a new Honeycomb phone. Its a reference design only ar this point.
Full details in the video below.
Lenovo gave us the U300S, Asus gave us the UX21 and UX31, Toshiba gave us the Z830 and Acer gave us the Series 3 this week at IFA. Samsung launched the Series 7 tablet too. They all have one thing in common. No, its not the word ‘Ultrabook’, it’s the word ‘tablet.’
We’ll get this weeks new Ultrabook details into the database as soon as possible but before that, let me give you my current analysis based on knowledge so far.
The tablet is truly eating into the PC space.
That’s no surprise. In the developed world, home netbooks are going to be hit first. I doubt many of the millions of netbook owners will update to another netbook. Why would they? There’s little difference today than there was 3 years ago. A dynamic, touch and app-enabled product is a much more likely choice.
It’s happening in the office space too where iPad experimentation is revealing some efficiencies.
What it means is that while Intel tries to push into the mobile space, they are also putting huge effort into re-architechting their notebook business to pick-up where the tablet can’t reach. Re-positioning is required. They’re building a second attack strategy. Or possibly a safe fall-back position.
To stay at a safe distance from Tablets requires leading edge silicon to create desktop-class power in a feature-rich laptop that does things that a $500 tablet won’t be able to do for a long long time. Graphics, wireless video, high-end connectivity, advanced security, sensors and even better battery life than tablets. Style and portability mean they become every bit as personal as the tablet. As end-users look to swap-out the low-end laptop and upgrade the desktop, it could mean a complete change to Tablet and Ultrabook for many. The total cost of ownership there is similar but the flexibility is way higher.
This is the seventh report on sizing trends in PCs below 12 inch screen size (and above 5 inch) appearing in the German market through the popular price comparison engine, Geizhals.at (*1) The last one was done in Feb 2011. Once again we’ve seen a big jump in overall numbers. The 7″ segment and 10″ segment have grown while the 11″ segment has shrunk. The 10″ market dominates more in this report than it did in the report of Feb 2011 although there is a clear trend occurring in the 7″ space where growth in products has occurred in all of the last 4 reports.
Number of SKUs in the market
The number of choices in the mobile screen space (above smartphones) has grown over 2x from approx 240 SKUs to over 630 SKUs.
Screen size distribution
The big jump in numbers is clear to see from the top graph. Total numbers jumped by 115 with most of that growth coming from the tablet form factor and the 10″ netbook/notebook sector. Big increases in the 7″ tablet sector (now the biggest number so far) and a reduction in the numbers of 11″ devices mean that percentage distribution has changed a lot. The iPad2 introduction caused the growth in the 9″ segment.
In the 10″ netbook space which accounts for 75% of the 10″ category there are now 18 AMD C-Series SKUs and 315 Atom SKUs. 64 of the Atom-based devices (20%) use the high-end N570 version.
In interesting statistic is that 1 in 5 devices on the market in the 5-11″ segment are from ASUS.
Across all categories, ARM-based CPU designs account for 23% of all devices, almost exclusively in the tablet sector. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the next 2 years with the introduction of Windows for the ARM processor.
In terms of weight, the tablets mean that the average weight of a device has gone down. 28% of the devices weigh under 1KG.
Meego appears for the first time along with the cheapest and lightest netbook ever launched. The ASUS Eee PC X101.
Chromebooks did not enter the sub 12″ screen space yet. (Acer 700 not available in Germany)
Sandy Bridge (2nd Generation Intel Core CPUs) enters the sector with 14 SKUs from 5 devices.
Total number of tablet form-factor devices: 193 (30% of total)
Cheapest devices:
X86/Windows Laptop Eee PCR101D at 199 Euros. (Was: Samsung N145 at 228 Euro)
Non-Windows Laptop (X86-CPU) – Eee PC X101 (Meego) at 169 Euros
ARM Tablet Debitel One Pad (Android 1.5) at 59 Euro
X86/Windows Tablet Archos 9 at 370 Euros (was 402 Euros)
In terms of netbook trends, the search and news volumes seem to be steady after their large drop in Q1 (see Google Trends.) Numbers of devices in the market have increased and obviously the introduction of Cedar Trail in Q4 will create news, products and searches in the netbook category. The trend for netbook products, news and search is going to be level-to-rising for Q4 That may, or may not, relate to sales numbers.
In terms of handheld PCs, our focus here at UMPCPortal, it’s a sad story. The online market is now almost totally clear of 5-9″ X86-based Windows devices. It will be interesting to see how the Windows 8 market affects this in 2012.
Warning: Please remember that this is a single data-source analysis of what is happenning today, in the German market. This is not a complete market analysis report. You may use the data and images but please also reference this article which includes this warning.
*1 Based on SKUs, not model families. Data taken from Geizhals An English language (and UK market) version of Geizhals is available at Skinflint.
There’s an interesting post over at the French site blogeee.net today. They’ve put the latest AMD E-series Fusion platforms up against the new 1.8Ghz ‘Cedar Trail’ N2800.
It’s not exactly fair to be comparing the E-series with Cedar Trail like for like as they have vastly different thermal characteristics but there’s an interesting result to be seen in the GPU test results.
The new PowerVR-based graphics in the Cedar Trail platform are turning in 3x what the N570-based platform does. That’s excellent news.
As far as raw CPU power goes the tests don’t show any comparison but I would expect the dual-core Cedar Trail platform at 1600mhz to be about the same as the E450. The 1.8Ghz N2800 should turn in better CPU performance.
With the N2800 having a design rating of 6.5w and the E-450 at 18W you can see which one has more chance of appearing in smaller, lighter devices. One wonders if it might be a better choice than Oaktrail for Windows tablets.
It’s clear that tablets are moving to the enterprise. The iPad has already infiltrated many markets (pilots are getting iPads to carry manuals for example) and you’ll find them in many media companies. Android is moving that way too with Honeycomb leaning towards touch and mouse input methods. The operating systems are moving forward quickly (although there are still many limits) and the apps are following. What about the hardware though? Can you plug a keyboard and mouse into an Android tablet and get to work in a corporate fashion? Cisco seems to think so and on analyzing some more information and hands-on with the Cisco Cius, I’m liking what I see. This is a very flexible thin-client and mobile computing device that could show the way for true pro-mobile computing solutions of the future.
Android, Intel, Tablet are three words that many wouldn’t really expect to go together but it’s no secret that Intel have been working on Android for well over a year. They’ve been working on core items like power control and trying to dovetail the software with their new ultra-mobile platforms. The version of Atom inside the Cisco Cius is unique in that it can’t run Windows – another surprise from Intel. I also note that we’re seeing an non-Windows Intel tablet from a major brand here. Isn’t that what Intel wanted to do with MeeGo and Nokia?
Moving on, the tablet is only half of the product because the media dock is the really interesting bit. Docks are worth their weight in gold, especially when it’s one that’s a feature-rich as this.
3 USB ports
3.5-mm headset jack
10/100/1000-Gbps switch ports for wired connections and Power over Ethernet (PoE)
Additional speaker for wideband hands-free communications
DisplayPortâ„¢ to connect to a larger display for an immersive video experience and for a virtualized desktop experience
Two handset options: standard and slimline
So lets summarise that as a quality docking station.
A bit more about the tablet software. It includes support for Cisco’s secure remote applications architecture. It’s thin-client for the big-boys basically and it integrates with cisco’s security, VPN and prioritisation support on their routers. A ‘VXI Endpoint’ is the Cisco term for this.
You’ve also got a Cisco marketplace with approved apps and a separate API and developer community. One assumes the IT people can remove access to the Google Market because that’s there too highlighting the fact that this is a fully approved X86 build of Android. Intel have done well to get past this point because it means a lot of value-add for their customers. One wonders if it could affect the value of Intels AppUp solution. The Cisco store includes apps from Citrix, VMWare and Wyse for remote access solutions although these are available in the market. [I’m using Wyse Pocket Cloud Pro to test Android to Vista server remote desktop right now. It’s nice to see Chrome on the Android screen.]
The Android build is only 2.2 unfortunately. Intel are working on Honeycomb but it’s not clear if Cisco will roll-out that upgrade for the Cius. I assume it would be a big software job.
HD video encoder hardware on the front facing cam. 720p 30fps should make for some great conferencing sessions. (Cisco WebEx is built-in)
SIP support
Removable battery
I’ve been looking around for reviews of the Cius and there isn’t much out there at the moment but the video below is worth a watch. It’s an honest overview from an owner who seems happy with the device overall but has a problem with battery life. Yes, you were wondering about that weren’t you. Intel, Tablets and battery life often don’t go together.
Take a look at the video below and you’ll hear a comment about the battery “draining like crazy.” It’s difficult to get a perspective on this comment so I asked the author. This is what he said:
I have the most current firmware and I would say the standby time is around 5 hours. It would around 3 hours if I used it regularly.
If we were talking about a small battery here I’d say ‘OK’ but we’re not. The Cius packs a 19Wh battery in 520gm. Here’s what Cisco say about battery life.
• Removable 5200 mAh battery
• Battery estimated use times will be provided at a later date (battery is expected to last up to 8 hours for typical business use)
There’s quite a difference between 3hrs and 8hrs there. Given that this is a 2.2W TDP Morestown platform that should idle way down to sub 1w territory with Android, a screen-off, Wifi-on scenario should be returning at least 15 hours. With the screen on, add 1W. In-use, add another Watt and you should be at a minimum of 4hrs usage. I don’t understand what’s going wrong here. Maybe Intel have some work to do on the Android build still?
The video is worth watching because you’ll see smooth transitions across the board and you’ll see some apps demonstrated. I only wish we could have seen some benchmarks. Sunspider would be important as would Quadrant and a simple Benchmark Pi test. Is the browser based on Chrome rather than the Android browser? [Update: It uses the standard Android browser.] Are there any other special features hidden in the system settings too?
Apart from the battery life issue which needs to be confirmed, there are two other issues. This is a Wifi-only device right now which is not good for mobility. 3G is expected later this year via Verizon in the U.S.A. Secondly, you’re looking at $750 for the tablet and (my) estimated street price of $400 for the dock. It sounds a bit heavy for a thin client based on Android (considering I can do the same on my Iconia Tab wifi for about $500) but don’t underestimate the value of a rich dock. Charging, USB, headset, display port, gigabit Ethernet and handset is a lot of flexibility there. As for the tablet itself, yes, $750 is a lot for the hardware but this isn’t just any old Android hardware, it’s a software bundle too. The price is right in my opinion. This is a corporate solution so don’t forget, if you’re looking at 200 of these units, you’ll be getting a huge reduction on those prices. 30% at least.
What we need now is for someone to make a consumer version of the Cisco Cius. Drop the handset and the Cisco-specific software, fix that battery life issue, style it up a little and you could be looking at an interesting crossover Android device. Fingers crossed for a real browser on the Intel Honeycomb build. It’s on the Google TV build so why not on a tablet build?
