Scooopy – Scoops about Gadget, Mobile & Technology
Scooopy
Scooopy (http://scooopy.com) - Scoops about Gadget, Mobile & Technology Scooopy Team Members will try to bring all the latest news & stories about Gadget, Mobile & Technology. Keep visiting us regularly to be up to date with all the latest Gadget, Mobile & Technology Scooops.
Homepage: http://scooopy.com
Posts by Scooopy
Nokia’s Netbook Comes With Marathon 12-hour Battery Life
Nov 22nd
Nokia is entering the personal computer market with a small netbook computer, the Booklet 3G, which has specifications much like a cellphone: 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, and a headphone and microphone combined on one jack. It’s also got a price that gets a lot better if you sign up for a two-year contract for wireless data on AT&T $299. (It costs $599 without the $60-a-month commitment.)
The Booklet, which will be on sale exclusively at Best Buy starting in mid-November, runs Windows 7. And like Apple’s MacBooks, it is cut out of a single piece of aluminum.
The most intriguing feature, however, is not common on laptops or cellphones: 12-hour battery life.
Nokia is trying to carve out a premium segment in the netbook market, which has largely seen a race to the bottom in prices. Best Buy’s current assortment ranges from $250 to $500 for netbooks without a wireless contract and subsidy. AT&T offers three netbook models with a contract for $200 each.
AT&T’s best seller, the Acer Aspire, claims only three hours of battery life.
One way that Nokia was able to extend the battery life was to use the slowest of Intel’s Atom processors. That raises the risk that the Booklet, like other Atom-based devices, will be sluggish to use.
Nokia is clear that you wouldn’t want to use the machine to play intensive video games or to do bridge engineering. But when I played with one at Nokia’s press conference in New York Wednesday, it seemed fast enough rendering complex Web pages and displaying YouTube videos.
At the event, Glenn Lurie, the president of AT&T’s emerging device unit, said he understood that a $60-a-month data plan put the device out of the range of many potential consumers. He said that AT&T would introduce other data plans with lower prices before the end of the year, possibly including prepaid plans and those that charge users only for the days they are actually online.
Source: Nokia, NYTimes
Notebooks vs. Netbooks, What’s the main Difference?
Nov 22nd
Vodka and water. They look the same, but taste different (or so they tell me).
Similarly, netbooks may look like notebooks, but - as we’ve previously pointed out – they’re not the same.
NPD released a survey last week finding that 60% of consumers who purchased a netbook thought it would have the same performance as a notebook. Additionally, out of the 18-24 year old demographic – a major segment for netbooks – an astounding 65% said they bought their netbooks expecting better performance.
It’s no wonder that some netbook resellers saw a 30% return rate, as reported by Brooke Crothers at CNET.
Clearly, there is confusion in the market over the functionality of a netbook. And I don’t blame the consumer.
So what do we do? BusinessWeek’s Olga Kharif wrote a call to action for PC makers and retailers to better explain the difference in netbooks’ and notebooks’ capabilities. Speaking from personal experience, she writes, “I loved using [my netbook] to quickly check Hotmail or to watch a video off of YouTube. But try multitasking, such as downloading a photo or a document while streaming a video off of YouTube, and their performance falls off the cliff. Consumers need to be made aware of this before they make their purchases.”
In some cases, consumers may even encounter problems during normal Web surfing. Many Websites now have video or flash right on their homepage. If you’re a parent buying a netbook for your kid, try loading Disney.com.
As with battery life, we think the PC industry has a role in helping consumers make educated decisions. In fact, Best Buy calls out on their Website that, “Netbooks may look like laptops, but they don’t have the full capabilities of a computer.”
What I also find interesting about the NPD survey is that the percentage of consumers who bought a netbook expecting the performance of a notebook closely parallels the percentage of netbooks that never leave the home (60% according to NPD). To me, this signifies that there is an opportunity in the market for a higher-performance product that is inexpensive and lightweight, satisfying consumers’ desire for a small, powerful machine while not disappointing on performance.
Of course, AMD’s response is the“ultrathin” category. If you’re looking for a lightweight, sleek laptop that is still powerful enough to handle your day to day activities, we recommend you check out the HP Pavilion dv2, powered by the AMD Athlon™ Neo processor for ultrathin notebooks.
Source: Blogs, AMD
Demystifying Battery Life of Notebook or Netbook
Nov 22nd
Do you ever feel like the actual battery life on your notebook/netbook never quite equals the information that appears in promotional material? For example, you may see “up to five hours,” but actually get about half that. Well, you aren’t alone. I hear it all the time, and if you do a quick Twitter search on the topic, you’ll see lots of discussion.
I can assure you that no devious plot exists to mislead you. It really comes down to three simple factors.
#1: Measurements are best case: Like a car’s “highway miles per gallon” which gauges the best case (cruising at a sustained speed for an extended period without stop-and-go driving), notebook battery life is typically based on MobileMark® 2007. This benchmark primarily measures battery life while the notebook is doing nothing – not even wirelessly connecting to the Internet. A “city-driving” equivalent of notebook battery life doesn’t exist…yet.
#2: Different strokes for different folks: Notebook users are different; we all use notebooks differently, and therefore will see different battery durations. Some watch HD web videos on YouTube, some may just do email, and some play more games than others. ALL which will mean varying battery life. You can see this data from AMD here that shows the phenomenon. This even shows that battery life under system use can even vary by component manufacturer.
#3: Battery life varies over time: The longer you own your notebook, use it, charge, and recharge, over and over again, the more the battery loses its effectiveness. So theoretically, your longest battery life will be on the first day you crack open the packaging. See all the people selling new batteries for old notebooks? Some even say, battery life is variable with heat.
So what should a consumer like you do?
- Grade battery life on a “curve”, let’s say 60%. If the label says 10 hours, my guess is it’s probably only about 6 hours in real use. (UPDATE: this isn’t always linear, so be very careful with this.)
- Ask your retailer and systems providers to provide the “city miles per gallon” or using the tried and tested cellphone analogy, “talk-time”. They all have web sites and when all else fails, you can ask them over Twitter.
I may have not added back 40% of your battery life, but hopefully you know why you only get 60% of it!
Sources: AMD, Blogs
Google Chrome OS – Good, Bad and Ugly
Nov 21st
Google Chrome OS – The good, the bad and the ugly!!!
After yesterday’s Google Chrome OS announcement, We’ve had a little time to think about Google’s vision for the OS and how it fits in with Windows, Mac and Linux.
The Good
There’s a lot I like about Chrome OS because it sound different enough and radical enough to maybe get people thinking a little differently about what an OS is and how it relates, how to secure it, how it interacts with the hardware and how the user interacts with the it. Certainly the way that Google plans to make Chrome OS speedier and more secure shows that there’s been a lot of out of the box thinking going on.
Note: What was interesting at yesterday’s announcement was that during the Q&A session at the end how many of the tech press questions and comments seemed to want to drag the project back from being radical and make it into what we already have,
For example, take changes to the boot sequence …
… verified boot …
… and how easy it is to re-image the OS following malware or corruption …
There’s also tight integration with Google’s massive array of online apps. Now, depending on how you view Google this can either be a good thing or a very bad thing. However, it’s hard to deny that a machine where all your data and settings are synced to the cloud for both storage and security is a very interesting way to mitigate data and system loss disasters. The idea that your data isn’t tied to a particular system is interesting, and the idea that all local data is encrypted is also very interesting.
I also like the fact that Google has made the project truly open source and is allowing outside developer involvement. Actually, I think it’s been done at exactly the right time too – some of the framework has been put in place, but now the project can evolve. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes.
The Bad
It’s not all good stuff.
First, Chrome OS is basically one big Google vehicle, pushing Google’s online services. If you like Gmail, Docs and so on, great, if you don’t, well, Chrome really isn’t for you. That’s not to say that you can’t use other online services for some things, but overall Chrome OS ties you into Google in many ways.
Another problem is that Google isn’t looking at Chrome OS as software, but as netbooks loaded with Chrome OS as products. Sound familiar? Yeah, sounds an awful lot like Apple. It sounds like getting Chrome OS to run on standard desktops, laptops and notebooks isn’t a priority for Google, so people wanting to take the OS for a spin will need to do some legwork. That said, the OS is open source, so people are free to tinker and make changes. But at the announcement there was a lot of talk of OEMs and reference hardware, so this isn’t an OS that you download and install to replace your current OS.
Note: Google isn’t touting Chrome OS devices as a desktop replacement, more a web-based “companion” device.
The Ugly
Chrome OS sounds like it revolves heavily on having near constant access to the web, which even today with WiFi and 3G networks, isn’t always possible. Google seems to be building in features that allow you to use Chrome OS devices standalone, but this sounds like it caters for rare instances when the device is not hooked up to the web, rather than long periods.
Also, since Chrome OS is so reliant on Google web pass, if/when Google Docs of Gmail or Voice of whatever has a bad day, you’re left twiddling your thumbs.
Then there’s the fact that all this stuff is untested. Even with a year to go until we see Chrome OS on hardware, things could go horribly wrong. There’s plenty of scope for bugs, security issues and data loss.
How Chrome OS fits in with Windows/Mac/Linux
It’s interesting that Chrome OS doesn’t represent a direct threat to Windows, Mac or Linux because the OS can’t be downloaded and installed onto existing systems. However, given that Google is earmarking netbookesque form factor devices to get the Chrome OS treatment, this still means that Google could capture market share from both Windows and Mac, especially those looking for a simple, fuss-free web-based solution.
Bottom line is price. How well (or badly) Chrome OS does seem to me to be down to how much the devices will cost. If they’re priced on par with Windows-based netbooks then it’s hard to see how to make it relevant enough to gain critical mass. But if the price is right, then who knows what might happen.
