Google executive: ‘Desktops will be irrelevant in three years’
Google's prediction jumps on an obvious trend - but the implications betray the company's growing hubris It's likely that you don't know a lot about John Herlihy, the head of global advertising operations for Google. He's not a publicly-recognised figure in the same way as Eric Schmidt, Larry Page or Sergey Brin, and - like many vice-presidents at big corporations - he doesn't get a great deal of time in the limelight. But he is certainly basking in it today, after a series of comments - reported by Silicon Republic - caused a stir around the web. "In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant," he told an audience at University College Dublin. "In Japan, most research is done today on smartphones, not PCs." "Mobile makes the world's information universally accessible. Because there's information and because it will be hard to sift through it all, that's why search will become more and more important. This will create new opportunities for new entrepreneurs to create new business models - ubiquity first, revenue later." Various camps reacted in a mixture of ways.
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Google executive: 'Desktops will be irrelevant in three years'
Lenovo ThinkPad X100e | Technophile
The ThinkPad X100e has both good and bad points, depending on whether you see it as an overpriced netbook or a cut-price ThinkPad business notebook The IBM ThinkPad became the industry's premier notebook brand after the launch of the 700T in 1992, and its distinctive black styling and red TrackPoint became a noticeable part of business travel. ThinkPads were never cheap, but they were very durable, had outstanding keyboards, and you could get support and spare parts almost anywhere. Prices came down after China's Lenovo took over IBM's PC division, but the brand has managed to retain most of its value. I've been carrying ThinkPads everywhere for more than a decade, so I was delighted to see the Lenovo ThinkPad X100e when it appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. It was almost love at first sight. After using one (Type 2876), I'm less impressed, and my views might have tipped too far the other way. The main problem with the X100e is trying to decide what it is.
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Lenovo ThinkPad X100e | Technophile
European PC market has perked up, led by Acer
The PC industry had a tough time last year, but sales in Western Europe were higher in unit terms in the fourth quarter, says Gartner. And with consumers buying notebooks and netbooks, this year should be better Western Europe's PC shipments grew by 4% to 20.2m units in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Gartner figures released today . Shipments for the year were flat at 64.8m units, but could have been worse. Ranjit Atwal, a principal analyst at Gartner in the UK, said: "The Western European PC market performed better than expected. Despite the tough economic conditions the consumer PC market provided vendors with a source of growth." The company that benefited most was Taiwan's Acer, which has been particularly successful with its affordable portable PCs and netbooks. It became the leading vendor in Western Europe, where its shipments grew by 33.9% to 4.7m units. In Germany, its shipments grew by 87.1% to 808,000 units.
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European PC market has perked up, led by Acer
Asus Eee PC1005PE review | Technophile
The new Asus netbook has terrific battery life, but is let down by limited processing power This year has seen the introduction of a new generation of netbooks based on Intel's Pine Trail platform. By moving to a more advanced 45nm fabrication process, Intel has been able to put the graphics and memory control circuitry on the same die as the Atom, reduce the power requirements, and provide much better battery life. A sticker on the 1005PE says it will run for 11 hours, which compares with 8.5 hours for the popular 1005HA version. Of course, it also depends on the power settings, whether you have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned off, and how much time you spend watching videos. However, the 1005PE should easily get you through a normal working day, and if you need more, there's another version (PU17) that claims up to 14 hours. The disappointing thing about the 1.66GHz N450 Pineview processor is that it doesn't provide a visible increase in performance compared with the old N270 and N280 chips running Windows XP. With 1GB of memory, the 1005PE runs Microsoft Windows 7 Starter responsively, but it doesn't have much to spare, and it would be worth upgrading to 2GB. I found the N450's integrated Intel GMA3150 graphics circuitry wasn't able to run high-definition YouTube movies (720p) without stuttering, though it was OK for the BBC's iPlayer. The 1005PE scores 2.3 on the Windows Experience Index, which is down to the processor. It's rated 2.7 for graphics and 3.0 for gaming graphics, with better results for the memory (4.5) and 250GB hard drive (5.8). Like the 1005HA, the 1005PE uses Asus's popular Seashell design: it's slim, tapers nicely, and has a polished lid. It weighs 1.3kg. The 10in screen is reasonable quality but not exceptional, and the 1024 x 600 pixel resolution feels a bit cramped by today's standards. The 1005PE has a new "isolated keyboard" which is also reasonably good, the main drawback being the tiny shift keys. The mouse pad is small and has a texture effect, but supports multi-touch operations. The mouse buttons are on a one-bar rocker switch, though I'd prefer two buttons. The 1005PE is not short of ports. You get a full RJ45 Ethernet port, three USB ports, an SD card slot, and a VGA monitor port. The battery is removable, of course, and there's a built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam. Like many other Asus machines, the 1005PE also includes ExpressGate and Asus's own software dock, which drops down from the top of the screen, and links to 500GB of free online storage
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Asus Eee PC1005PE review | Technophile
Apple iPad: the first review
You may wonder what the Apple iPad is for. The answer: everything, but could that be too much? Like everything Apple designs, the iPad is intended to satisfy our cravings for simplicity and clarity. Steve Jobs had already sneered at the idea of netbooks, labelling the cheap, low-powered laptops that have proved phenomenally popular with consumers slow and clunky – but it's clear that this is the market the iPad is aiming for. On the surface it appears to be little more than an oversized iPhone, a flat, black screen with a single button but underneath it wants to be a laptop. As one of a small group of people given a sneak, hands-on preview of the iPad, my first impressions were good: it's hefty but not heavy, feeling solid and responsive in the hand. The screen is about the size of a large paperback, but it's just half an inch deep. That big, glassy screen does leave it vulnerable to breakages, but could also prove liberating for people who are used to toting a laptop around with them. Using it will be familiar to anybody who has tried an iPhone: it uses the same combination of swipes, pokes, jabs and sweeps of the finger of its smaller cousin. Sweep your hand across its reactive 9.7-inch screen, though, and everything feels more satisfying and natural. The big problem I had was in trying to understand what the iPad was for: the answer, it seems, is everything. It attempts to do almost everything that your laptop can, while also offering almost everything your smartphone can do as well. Surfing the web was a breeze, while it plays video smoothly and handles a variety of games pretty well. You can use any of the existing iPhone applications straight away, though it is disappointing when you realise that they become blocky and almost childlike when expanded to fill the larger screen. Switched into ebook mode, the way the iPad emulates the printed page feels fairly natural, if not entirely on a par with rival ebook readers such as Amazon's Kindle. The backlit screen doesn't come anywhere near the clarity of electronic ink, which means it's going to prove a lot harder on the eyes of bookworms(it's great for reading in bed, one Apple flunky told me, keen to stress the positive side). But what it loses here, it makes up for with the addition of colour and even video. When you get down to business, the iPad might not be enough for heavy users. The on-screen keyboard will take a little getting used to: unlike the thumb-driven flash of text messaging, typing on the iPad requires either a single finger stab or putting it down on a flat surface.
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Apple iPad: the first review
The future of consumer electronics is wireless, says the boss of Qualcomm, a wireless company
Dr Paul Jacobs entertained the audience, raised his company's profile, promoted his company's Snapdragon processor, and showcased smartbooks from HP and Lenovo in his first CES keynote speech -- success all round Perhaps because it was his first keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show, Qualcomm 's chief executive Dr Paul Jacobs put on an excellent, if slightly overlong, show. He featured a string of chief executives with interesting new products using Qualcomm technology, and announced support for Google's ChromeOS. Then, to end on a high, he gave 300 free FLO TVs to members of the audience. Jacobs' guests included HTC boss Peter Chou, Lenovo boss Yuanqing Yang, Todd Bradley, who runs Hewlett-Packard's Personal Systems Group, and D-Link boss Tony Tsao. These may not be household names, but HTC makes Google's Android phones, including the Nexus One, Lenovo is the biggest PC maker in China and took over IBM's PC business, and HP is now the world's largest technology company. All of that should worry Microsoft. HTC has always been the largest manufacturer of Windows Mobile phones, while IBM's PC division and HP have been two of Microsoft's three most important supporters (the other one is Dell). And both HP and Lenovo showed smartbooks, a format that Qualcomm is promoting as an alternative to netbooks. When I suggested that CES would see the start of a battle between ARM-based smartbooks and Intel Atom-powered netbooks , I imagined that the smartbooks would come from a dozen or so small Asian suppliers
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The future of consumer electronics is wireless, says the boss of Qualcomm, a wireless company
Asus 1201N netbook reviewed | Technophile
The Asus 1201N is the world's nippiest Windows 7 netbook, but the keyboard layout lets it down When you buy a netbook, you expect to compromise on performance, but the Asus 1201N makes the compromise acceptable. It's noticeably nippy when running Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, and it runs videos full screen without stuttering. In most situations, you'd think you were running a decent notebook PC, apart from the lack of a DVD drive. When the 1201N appears early next year (15 January in the US), it should be the most powerful netbook ever. The 1201N has two secrets. First, it's using an nVidia Ion (ie GeForce 9400M) graphics chip, like the one in new MacBooks. Second, it has a 1.66GHz dual core Intel Atom N330 processor, instead of the usual N270 or N280, and 2GB of memory. Windows 7 sees the N330 as four processors, and it makes a big difference to the system's general snappiness, especially with Windows 7's more pointless sliding and fading effects turned off. I found the dual core Atom a lot more responsive than a single-core CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) chip. When it comes to the hardware, the 1201N is recognisably a new-style thin Asus. It has a good quality 12in screen and a full-sized isolated keyboard of the sort common on much more expensive Sony and Apple laptops. The review sample had a very glossy black top that looked terrific, though it does show fingerprints. At 3.1lbs, it's also a fraction lighter than some rivals. The 1201N has a good set of connections including three USB ports, an RJ-45 Ethernet port, an SD card slot, and two ports for monitors – one of those is, of course, HDMI.
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Asus 1201N netbook reviewed | Technophile
Windows 7 laptops: how to choose | Jack Schofield
With the Windows market so large, the trick is to decide on a category of laptop before you start shopping Research suggests that Windows 7 is not going to give the PC market much of a lift when it makes its retail appearance on 22 October. My contrary opinion is based on a survey of only one user, but I get the impression from Ask Jack emails that I won't be the only person shopping for a new laptop when Windows 7 appears. Buying a portable Windows machine can be a bit of a challenge, because there is so much choice. There are hundreds if not thousands of suppliers, and some of them offer two dozen different models. The trick is to know what sort of laptop you want. To simplify things a bit, there are roughly six classes of portable PC: netbooks, "value" systems, mainstream notebooks, ultraportables, desktop replacements and gaming systems. Most netbooks today have Intel Atom processors with 1GB of memory, a 10in screen and Windows XP. Some will appear running the cheaper Windows 7 Starter Edition, which you can't buy in the shops
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Windows 7 laptops: how to choose | Jack Schofield
Will smartbooks replace netbooks?
Could netbooks be replaced by smartbooks? Yes. But will they? Maybe. The smartbook name has been adopted by companies working with ARM (Advanced Risc Machines), which developed the core processor used by most smartphones. The general idea is to run smartphone software such as Google's Linux-based Android and Microsoft's Windows CE (AKA Windows Mobile) on portable computers with 7in-10in screens. These could be netbooks or touch-operated tablets. Apple, which sells ARM-based devices such as the iPhone and iPod Touch, has been widely tipped to produce the latter. Smartbooks are designed to work with online applications rather than traditional desktop software – one of the ideas behind netbooks. As we know, things turned out differently. Suppliers such as Acer, Asus and MSI were keen to sell netbooks running Linux-based systems with consumer-friendly front ends but these models failed in the marketplace. When users were given the option to buy much the same hardware at a higher price running Microsoft Windows XP instead, the Linux versions went from 100% of the market to around 5%. Buyers also drove the netbook market towards larger screens.
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Will smartbooks replace netbooks?
Traveller needs a robust netbook
Paul Jeffcutt wants a really robust netbook that can survive motorbike rides in developing countries I want a robust netbook that I can take on my travels. I'll be using a cycle, motorbike and public transport, sometimes in developing countries. Paul Jeffcutt The machine that immediately springs to mind is the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) XO-1, which is designed for children in the third world. It has its own idiosyncratic Linux-based operating system called Sugar. I suggest you read the instructions first, then try running it on a PC using a LiveCD . This lets you try it without actually buying an OLPC. An alternative is an Intel Classmate PC. The original design, made by many small companies across the world, is intended to be more rugged than consumer netbooks, which are not particularly robust. Classmates are usually available running Microsoft Windows XP. Examples include the Zoostorm FizzBook Bang, and the forthcoming Archos Classmate, which looks the same. A chip-based SSD (Solid State Drive) should be more robust than a conventional hard drive, even when shock-protection is included. This could be important when travelling by motorcycle, where the vibration levels will be very high. You can use your body as a shock absorber by carrying the PC in a well-cushioned backpack, not in a pannier, but it's still risky. There is a big market for "ruggedised" notebooks for public services and military services, and there are Mil-Spec standards to cover them. Panasonic is perhaps the best known vendor, with its Toughbook range. In fact, it has five classes of Toughbook from "business-rugged" through "fully-rugged" to "ultra-mobile-rugged" designed using MIL-STD-810F. Ruggedness obviously comes at a price.
