ARM netbooks, current situation

[P4man]

So far now there's the HP Airlife, the Toshiba AC100, and i saw another one just a couple of days ago with a Cortex A9 processor, but for the life of me I can't remember where...
It was (also) overpriced anyway.

You sure? The only cortex A9 soc actually shipping today is the tegra 2, and afaik the toshiba is the only netbook based around it for now (airlife is snapdragon based). There are a million tablets on their way based on tegra, but I havent seen any other netbooks, certainly not for sale.

I wonder how long it will take OEMs to realize that they'll have to play to ARMs strong points (low $, long battery life) if they want to get any marketshare. Otherwise they'll just be outgunned by Atoms.

The problem is software. Android 2.2 isnt fully baked yet and very, very unoptimized for non touchscreen devices. I mean seriously, you cant even scroll with a mouse. Doesnt help that there are all sorts of problems like the toshiba running out of battery on standby in less than a day due to a 3G modem that isnt even installed. Android is a fine mobile phone OS, it will do okay on tablets, but its far from a good desktop/laptop OS.

I hope the upcoming sales disaster isnt going to make OEMs draw the wrong conclusion that ARM based laptops dont sell, but the right conclusion that they need an appropriate OS and application stack. ChromeOS might be a better solution, ubuntu probably already is although Ive never used ubuntu on ARM.

Slightly off topic, I saw my first Android netbook in a large retailer today, Asus, seemed nice but still x86 hardware, and priced way too high.

I assume you mean this one:
http://www.connectionpros.com/acer-i...ows-xp-netbook

It dual boots with windows.

[formaldehyde_spoon]

You sure? The only cortex A9 soc actually shipping today is the tegra 2, and afaik the toshiba is the only netbook based around it for now (airlife is snapdragon based). There are a million tablets on their way based on tegra, but I havent seen any other netbooks, certainly not for sale.



The problem is software. Android 2.2 isnt fully baked yet and very, very unoptimized for non touchscreen devices. I mean seriously, you cant even scroll with a mouse. Doesnt help that there are all sorts of problems like the toshiba running out of battery on standby in less than a day due to a 3G modem that isnt even installed. Android is a fine mobile phone OS, it will do okay on tablets, but its far from a good desktop/laptop OS.

I hope the upcoming sales disaster isnt going to make OEMs draw the wrong conclusion that ARM based laptops dont sell, but the right conclusion that they need an appropriate OS and application stack. ChromeOS might be a better solution, ubuntu probably already is although Ive never used ubuntu on ARM.



I assume you mean this one:
http://www.connectionpros.com/acer-i...ows-xp-netbook

It dual boots with windows.

No, not sure It was something reasonable, but I'd only had one night's sleep in four days when I saw it, so I could easily be wrong...

I agree with you about OS's - you can't go around mixing touch/non-touch OSs/devices, it just doesn't give a good result (and that goes both ways ie. Windows on a tablet).

Yes, probably that one. Didn't notice it was dual boot. It was a bit weird not having the 4 android buttons, I couldn't figure out how to get around.

[init1]

Yeah, I'd be interested in a cheap, fan-less ARM netbook with great battery life for web browsing and note taking. So far, nothing decent has been released. There are quite a few Windows CE and Android netbooks available, but the quality is too low to even consider.
The OpenPandora might be good, although it's I think it's a bit more expensive than originally projected. It was supposed to be released years ago, but it looks like it'll actually be available soon.

[P4man]

Yeah, I'd be interested in a cheap, fan-less ARM netbook with great battery life for web browsing and note taking. So far, nothing decent has been released. There are quite a few Windows CE and Android netbooks available, but the quality is too low to even consider.

Both the HP airlife and toshiba AC100 seem decent enough hardware wise. If its possible to replace android with an OS that works better for that form factor (like ubuntu), Id certainly consider either, even though the toshiba is a bit pricy still and the HP not available here.

[formaldehyde_spoon]

Yeah, I'd be interested in a cheap, fan-less ARM netbook with great battery life for web browsing and note taking. So far, nothing decent has been released. There are quite a few Windows CE and Android netbooks available, but the quality is too low to even consider.
The OpenPandora might be good, although it's I think it's a bit more expensive than originally projected. It was supposed to be released years ago, but it looks like it'll actually be available soon.

What P4man said.

OpenPandora is designed to be a portable gaming device, and at 4.3'' I wouldn't want to type more than my name (and it's already shipping, btw).

There are plenty of good ARM netbooks ''on the way'' (and they've been ''on the way'' for at least a year...). I'm most interested in Pegatron's netbook, and maybe the Mobinova one, when/if they start shipping.

[3rdalbum]

I wonder how long it will take OEMs to realize that they'll have to play to ARMs strong points (low $, long battery life) if they want to get any marketshare.

Power-to-performance, Atom just out-edges ARM when you're talking about the kinds of CPUs you'd find in netbooks. The ARMs are something like 35% slower and use 30% less power than the original single-core Atoms. The newer Atoms with the integrated graphics may end off being more efficient still.

x86 netbooks with extreme energy efficiency (that can run for over 8 hours in between charges) are currently available from at least one manufacturer and are on the drawing boards of several other manufacturers. The rest of the netbook's components are developed for efficiency too. The CPU is not a big part of the computer's power use.

As for price - I wouldn't be surprised if Atom-based netbooks end off being cheaper, there's about a billion of 'em in the marketplace right now, and almost no decent-performance ARM netbooks.

[P4man]

Power-to-performance, Atom just out-edges ARM when you're talking about the kinds of CPUs you'd find in netbooks. The ARMs are something like 35% slower and use 30% less power than the original single-core Atoms. The newer Atoms with the integrated graphics may end off being more efficient still.

Where are you getting those numbers from?
Cortex A9 seens roughly on par with atom at similar clocks, perhaps slower on some loads, faster on others. Here is coremark:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_l82fIgiKEl...00/Table-1.gif

Be very VERY careful comparing application performance. The OS and software stack is evolving quite rapidly and just changing android from 2.1 to 2.2 can give a performance boost on things like web browsing that dwarfs any difference in CPU speed.

Now Atoms do run at higher clock speeds for now, which probably gives them the edge performance wise, but 2 GHz cortex A9 are on their way and ARM recently taped out the design for a dual core 2.5 GHz implementation with a turbo boost to 2.8 GHz:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardwar...hz-processor/1

Its aimed at mobile phones, so probably still fits within <1W TDP. Contrast that with the current ipad for instance, which is a single core, 1 GHz soc and based on the older and slower cortex A8. So thats twice the cores, almost 3x the clock and something like an extra 25% boost from the architecture. Good luck keeping up, intel !

Power consumption wise, the "original" single core Atom isnt even in the same ballpark, its literally orders of magnitude worse than any ARM chip. I assume you meant Moorestown, which is a stripped down single core atom. Its a brand new design specifically made to compete with ARM in the sub 1W space. Its getting closer but still isnt there when it comes to battery lifem or even peak power. There is a reason no one is buying these for tablets or phones (Well, no one but cisco who are building a $1000 tablet around it lol).

As for price - I wouldn't be surprised if Atom-based netbooks end off being cheaper, there's about a billion of 'em in the marketplace right now, and almost no decent-performance ARM netbooks.

Yeah for now OEMs will try to milk the ARM advantage and charge extra for the longer battery life and thinner design. On low end x86 netbooks, OEMs have a gross margin of a few dollars. Literally. I saw a cost breakdown of a cheap netbook that left the OEM with $6 margin. On the AC100 and similar ARM based designs, I suspect its north of $100. Cant blame OEMs to want to make a buck when they can.

But the simple fact of the matter is ARM chips and platforms only cost a fraction of intel's and once competition heats up, those retail prices will plummet. There is no way Atom can compete pricewise when ARM chips sell by the billions (again, literally) from a dozen suppliers and Atoms by the millions from a single monopolist that also has to protect its higher margin markets.

In short, ARMs challenge isnt on the hardware side. Its software.

[formaldehyde_spoon]

Power-to-performance, Atom just out-edges ARM when you're talking about the kinds of CPUs you'd find in netbooks. The ARMs are something like 35% slower and use 30% less power than the original single-core Atoms. The newer Atoms with the integrated graphics may end off being more efficient still.

x86 netbooks with extreme energy efficiency (that can run for over 8 hours in between charges) are currently available from at least one manufacturer and are on the drawing boards of several other manufacturers. The rest of the netbook's components are developed for efficiency too. The CPU is not a big part of the computer's power use.

As for price - I wouldn't be surprised if Atom-based netbooks end off being cheaper, there's about a billion of 'em in the marketplace right now, and almost no decent-performance ARM netbooks.

Those figures are just plain wrong, 3rdalbum. There's a nice analysis of a comparison floating around somewhere, I'll try to find it and post the link. EDIT: http://iltsarnews.blogspot.com/2010/...rformance.html

In fact as a ball-park figure ARM chips consume just one quarter of the power an Atom does, while being about 30% less powerful.
Excellent ProcessingPower/EnergyConsumption ratio is ARMs strongest point, and the main factor that keeps them ahead of their competitors.

CPUs ARE a big part of netbook energy consumption. For an Atom netbook averaging about 9W, it's CPU is averaging about 4W. That's a lot. If you were to then cut that down to 1W by replacing it with an ARM processor you've just lowered your consumption by 33%. Even if the netbook were averaging 15W, that'd still be a 20% drop.

8 hours is nothing these days. MSI U110 is advertised as 15 hrs, Asus 1005PE is advertised at 14hr (I have one of these, and can get up to 12 hrs with Ubuntu), and there are plenty of other x86 netbooks up around there too. ARM netbooks will do even better when OEMs decide they want to make a long lasting ARM netbook.

I knew I'd heard this before:

That's a difference of 2-3 watts. Laptops generally use between 15 and 45 watts. My Atom-based netbook got 2 hours out of its battery - so a similar ARM netbook would get 1/5th more (20%) which is a total battery life of 2 hours and 40 minutes.

...

My netbook goes from 5.5W (idle) to 12W.

[tsh]

What P4man said.

OpenPandora is designed to be a portable gaming device, and at 4.3'' I wouldn't want to type more than my name

I use mine mostly for web browsing, and the keyboard (once you get used to it) is fine for forums and stuff (and even for editing scripts). It is far better for example than using an android phone to reply to stuff on a forum.

I've not succeeded in getting an ubuntu image to run on it yet though (10.10 beta didn't load X, the omap-fb driver seems to be missing)

[P4man]

Those figures are just plain wrong, 3rdalbum. There's a nice analysis of a comparison floating around somewhere, I'll try to find it and post the link. EDIT: http://iltsarnews.blogspot.com/2010/...rformance.html

I really wouldnt read too much in to those tests. At least not by just looking at the charts. Ive seen them before, and the author used what was available to him, but for the ARM chip it paints a terrible picture because that freescale chip is as bad as it gets (no wonder you dont see it used anywhere), and the platform they used even worse. Look at that memory subsystem, that just doesnt show what ARM cores are capable off. Thats like booting ubuntu from floppy disks to determine its a slow OS.

The only test that is not affected by the abysmal memory controller on that pegasus system is coremark which runs almost entirely onchip. No surprise on that test even the old Cortex A8 is rather competitive. Ignore the rest.

CPUs ARE a big part of netbook energy consumption. For an Atom netbook averaging about 9W, it's CPU is averaging about 4W. That's a lot.

Not all Atoms are equal. I think 3rdalbum was referring to Moorestown, which has a TDP (therefore maximum realworld powerconsumption) below 1 watt. That is approaching ARM solutions which are typically in the 6-700mW range. Again TDP.

For battery life, idle and standby power consumption is at least as important though. ARM chips idle at sub 10 mW and in standby their powerconsumption is expressed in mircowatts (hence instant on, weeks long standby); Atoms, even moorestowns, just arent there yet.

One last point; ARM SoCs integrate almost everything on the chip. The cpu cores, but also the GPU, the I/O, special encode and decode units, power and system management, camera controllers, audio controllers, touchscreen controllers, in some cases even RAM.

Atoms are not nearly as integrated. Not even moorestown, which still requires 7 chips before it becomes a basic mobile phone. So you have to compare complete platforms, not just the cpus.