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Issue #183 October 2005
11-lb. Bricks
by Steve Ciarcia
Ever get the feeling that the computers in your life have all conspired to turn work and pleasure into an overlapping jumble that runs 24/7? I used to be able to live with a discrete chunk of my life on each computer. I’d have Circuit Cellar stuff on the office desktop, personal stuff on the Circuit Cellar desktop, HCS II stuff on the HCS II desktop, a mixed assortment on the “cottage” desktop, and a little bit of everything on an ultralight notebook for travel. Basically, each computer task was separate. And except for a small flash memory drive to transport shared data, I didn’t try to integrate everything into one place.
Today it has become a different story for many of us. We’ve become so personally and professionally dependent upon e-mail that we continually check it at home as well as the office. Answering business e-mail on weekends requires access to office folders. MP3 files started out being just at home, but now we like to listen to them at the office. The 5,000 pictures we took on the last vacation were fine on CDs at home until someone elsewhere asked to see them.
I can’t speak for others, but I find that the supposed convenience of using PDAs and flash memory drives to transition among a bunch of stationary computers is overrated. The only solution for me was to start using a big, portable unit (in essence, a giant PDA) as my main computer and not stationary desktops. Rather than trying to move or coordinate databases in multiple desktop locations, now I just move one portable computer with one database. OK, this transportable brick weighs 11 lb. and isn’t exactly a notebook, but I wanted a 17² screen, and that’s the price you pay. I still have a 3-lb. ultralight notebook for travel.
My Pentium M ultralight gets about 3.5 h on batteries, but you’d be pushing your luck much beyond 1.25 h on one of these big 17² transportable bricks. The compromise here is that they aren’t really laptops. They are desktop replacements with a lot of processing power and not the best efficiency. Users like me only care about battery life for covering power interrupts and moving the computer between stationary locations, not watching a full-length DVD movie on a plane (however, I suppose if desktop replacements ran for 5–6 h on batteries, we might all consider their function very differently).
Whatever the rationale, apparently I’m not alone in my notebook/transportable conversion. According to the statistics, one-third of the chips that Intel sells these days are destined for portable computers. Because most people want both high speed and long battery life, the development trend has been to try to satisfy the demand. By the end of the year, both AMD and Intel will introduce chips built on a 65-nm manufacturing process (versus 90 nm in the present process). The smaller transistors allow electrons to pass among transistors more quickly (higher speed) and efficiently (lower power). Intel and others are bullish enough about the notebook market to call for the design of an “8-h notebook” (versus today’s 4-h devices) within the next three years.
Making that happen will involve a lot of parallel design activities to improve efficiency. Portable computer design is one big trade-off among the battery, display, and processor technology. Lithium ion batteries will continue to evolve as well as be challenged by emerging chemistries like zinc alkaline and lithium polymer (notebook fuel cells are still a dream). LCDs and graphic chips continue to improve to where 3W LCD screens will be common.
Finally, by the end of this year, Intel plans to release a new 65-nm processor called Yonah. Yonah comes with a number of enhancements over the current single-core Pentium M line of notebook chips. It actually contains two processor cores (like the lesser functioning Celeron chip, a single core Yonah chip undoubtedly will be produced). Unlike current dual-core AMD and Intel desktop chips, each core in a Yonah chip shares access to the same cache rather than dedicated access to separate caches with a lot of intercommunication overhead. Yonah’s shared cache, 65-nm process, and improved architecture and power management supposedly will result in considerably more processing power with equal or lower power consumption than its single-core Pentium M predecessor.
My present circumstances dictate using an 11-lb. transportable desktop replacement because that was the only package available with 3.0-GHz Pentium 4 power and a 17² display when I bought it. An 8-h notebook is a serious challenge and achieving the goal will have great benefits. I also recognize that this design challenge is clearly aimed at people who want 8-h use from a 3-lb. notebook with a 12² screen. Hopefully, the spin-off will be that the same technology makes a high-powered desktop replacement with a 17² screen that goes from being an 11-lb. brick to a real 5-lb. portable.
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