Apple’s MacBook Air laptops sold over a million units in the last quarter of 2011, and these numbers have the PC industry salivating over the prospects.  Intel has recently begun promoting their own brand of these thin and light portables they call Ultrabooks.  And all the major manufacturers either have climbed onto Intel’s bandwagon and have their models for sale now or are in the planning stage for having one soon.

But, early sales of Ultrabooks have generally been disappointing.  It is said that both Asus and Acer, the two early entrants,  sold only about 100,000 each, while their expectations were nearer 200,000 to 300,000.  No other sales data are available at this time, so is isn’t known if the prospects have improved since the initial sales data were reported.

The lackluster sales have not deterred the industry, however, and they remain behind these new ultraportables.  Industry estimates are that by 2013 ultraportables will account for about 20% of all laptop sales.  The reason the adoption will be this slow is the price of these sleek new machines are too high.  Most retail in the $1000 to $1500 range which is twice to three times the price of a conventional laptop. 

Fortunately there are realistic hopes that the costs and pricing will come down as production is ramped up and some of the newer chips like Ivy Bridge from Intel and Trinity from AMD begin finding their way to volume production.

For now, however, if you want a thin and light portable, your only option is one with an Intel Sandy Bridge system on a chip (SOC)  The MacBook Air uses Sandy Bridge as do all the Windows machines.  There are no competitors in the chip world that make a comparable SOC.

There are, however, two new possibilities that are nearing completion:

• AMD has its Trinity design ready, and it will reportedly be as low in power consumption, equally fast CPU (AMD calls theirs an APU—Application Processing Unit), with even faster graphics.  Rumors are that AMD will launch its next-generation accelerated processing unit, codenamed Trinity, in second quarter 2012. The Trinity will start with its quad-core A10 and A8 processors in the second quarter then followed by dual-core A6 and A4 processors in the third-quarter of 2012.

Clock speeds for the A10 model are 3.87 GHz and 4.0 GHz in turbo mode.  Speeds for the A6 and A4 dual core versions have not been leaked.

Confirming earlier rumors, AMD’s said Trinity-based thin-and-light laptops will be priced between $600 and $800 by the middle of the year.

• An even more radical design will probably be available later this year after Microsoft releases Windows 8 for ARM chips.  There is much to be said for the reduced instruction set machines (RISC) of ARM.  Almost all cell phones, smartphones and tablets use a variant of ARM designs.  By reducing their instruction set they can be made to do some things well, such as graphics or WiFi, and not do other things at all or at least not well.

Also, designers have learned to add multiple cores as well as to link many individual ARM SOCs, in which each unit is dedicated to specific chores. 

The multi-core ability of ARM designs make it feasible for use as a central processing unit for a laptop.  Otherwise, it would probably be confined to the phone and tablet market.

Apple, for example, has tailored the A9 ARM to run its iPad, iPhone and iPods. But its full-fledged computers use a full instruction set CPU from Intel. Texas Instruments has tailored the same chip to run the BlackBerry Playbook and other tablets. Qualcomm has done its thing with its Snapdragon SOC, and Nvidia is using a different model as the basis of its Tegra 3 (quad-core) design.

Although the ARM A9 is a 32-bit design, it can be tweaked to do a good job for many different uses.  And a 64-bit design is being developed now.  It is certain that the same manufactures who are working on Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks will also offer an ARM-based laptop, probably later this year. 

It will be most interesting to see if a RISC machine will be able to go head to head with the more powerful designs of Intel.  Intel, itself, uses RISC technology in its Atom line of processors, but they are not as power-efficient as ARM designs, and the Atom was designed specifically for netbooks, a category of PC that is rapidly losing market share.

AMD has christened their new line of ultraportables as Ultrathin.  No code name has been assigned the ultraportables that use ARM chips, yet, but you can bet they will have one soon.  Overall, the industry sees ultraportables as the wave of the future, and everyone is anxious to cash in on the trend.

The good news is that AMD has purposely aimed at lowering the prices of their Ultrathin models.  They want to be at least $200 below the price for a comparable Ultrabook that uses Intel hardware.  ARM SOCs may be even lower.  Lower prices will stimulate a higher demand and put price pressure on everyone else who supplies this new market.  Ultraportables seem headed for more affordable prices within the next few months.

It seems only a short time ago that Intel introduced the Sandy Bridge family of microprocessors for thin and light laptops.  They were welcomed warmly by those wanting utra-low voltage laptops with high performance characteristics. 

All of the new breed of Ultrabooks use Sandy Bridge chips, as does the Apple MacBook Air.  And even though the initial reception of the Intel Ultrabooks has been  muted, there is no doubt that smaller and faster is the way system on a chip (SOC) design is headed.

A significant limitation of the Sandy Bridge design was it size.  Intel used 32 nanometer dimensions for Sandy Bridge, which was an improvement over the former 45 nanometer size, but late last year Intel began producing Ivy Bridge chips using the newest 22 nanometer dimensions.

The reduction in size for the Ivy Bridge family has positive implications for both speed of execution and lower power drain.   And, of course smaller is always better than larger for those who lug laptops around much of the time.

To provide some perspective on the size of the 22 nanometer design, one million nanometers is slightly less than one half an inch.  The new designs are thin.

Indeed, the basic reason for the Ivy Bridge SOC was more efficient power management and better/faster graphics performance.  The increasing popularity of high definition video requires a more robust graphics processing, and Intel is providing this with its new integrated graphics chip on the same die as the Ivy Bridge CPU, the Intel HD Graphics 4000.  The 4000 model replaces the HD 3000 used by Sandy Bridge.

The performance boost of Ivy Bridge will be around 20% in CPU speed and from 30% to 100% for graphics operations.

Plans for the Ivy Bridge implementation are dependent on Intel’s projected delivery date, and this is not yet announced, but the expectations in the industry are for the second half of the year. 

There are two problems that must be dealt with before production is ramped up to retail demands, however.  The first is that the existing Sandy Bridge inventory must be sold, and this is not happening as fast as Intel had hoped.  The first generation of Ultrabooks is not selling fast—the prices are far too high to move large quantities, so we should expect blow-out prices on the current crop of Ultrabooks.  The second problem is getting their production ramped up, and here, again, Intel may be experiencing some early problems—not unexpected for new products using a new technique.

Once these problems are behind Intel, Ivy Bridge processors will begin showing up in all the currently branded Ultrabooks.   

The pictures at left will give you some idea of what to expect.  Acer, Asus, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Apple, Samsung, Toshiba and others will be converting their existing line of ultras to the new chip set.  We can expect a visible and noisy fanfare for their introduction some time before  the holiday selling season begins in October.

Intel will offer the Ivy Bridge SOC for all of its regular models of processors.  Core i3, i5 and i7 models are planned.

There will probably be less of an impact on desktops and large-screen laptops, but there is little doubt that thin and light are the future of much of the portable computing landscape.

Ray Hendon

Mr. Scott Seiber, shown in the video below, is Windows Program Manager for Microsoft—the man in charge of developing Windows 8.  In this video he has put to rest questions about whether the ARM version of Windows 8 would run the Office Suite of application programs.  Mr. Seiber makes it clear that a full-featured version of Office will run on ARM processors, and run in the exact way it will runs on Intel x86 equipment.

As a background to the story, Microsoft had announced months ago that they would develop a new version of Windows for ARM at the same time they were upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

This was and is big news.  It completely broke the tradition set by Bill Gates in Microsoft’s early years of existence that Microsoft’s OS would run only on Intel processors.  The agreement was central to Microsoft’s and Intel’s quest to leave their competitors behind.  Apple, Atari, Commodore, Osborne, Teas Instruments and Motorola, all had their own hardware and OS.

This partnership was enormously successful, as PCs based on the Microsoft/Intel configuration dominated the world for decades.  Part of this success must also be attributed to IBM, who based their PC design on Microsoft/Intel specifications.  The combination is still successful though not not as much as it was a few years ago. 

One of the primary reasons these two pioneers have lost share is the spectacular popularty of the tablet computer (primarily the iPad) and super powered smartphones.  Both of these form factors have left Microsoft and Intel in the dust.  Think of a sports car versus a long-haul truck.  Intel x86 chips can haul any load, whereas Apple has tailored its OS and CPU to do some things (graphics, e.g.) exceptionally well.  On the chip side, ARM has always specialized in fast and furious graphics and supreme low power operations.  This was a perfect combination for the iPhone and iPad, both of which need strong visuals and low power drain.

Although Microsoft had a version of Windows they called CES that ran on some of the early Motorola smartphones, it was poorly done and was swept into oblivion by the Apple’s and Google’s superior products. 

Complicating the picture further is that ARM-designed chips have come to dominate smartphones and tablet products.  A few Windows tablets are made, but they run a version of Windows 7 that was kludged for touch operations, and it has not been well received. 

This left Microsoft no option but to formulate a Plan B, and Plan B was to develop a new OS that accommodated touch operations as the primary means of controlling the computing functions and that would work on small as well as large screens.

The first fruits of this effort is seen in Windows Phone 7 which was written for ARM-designed chips.  The look and feel of Windows 8 and its finger-friendly operations show that Windows Phone 7 was the basis for its design. 

Of course, Windows 8 is also being written for screens larger than a cell phone or tablet, and in this domain (laptops and desktops) the Microsoft/Intel partnership dominates the industry.  This means that Windows 8 should embody not only finger-friendly gestures, but also accommodate mouse pointing and clicking.

Windows 8 thus takes on a huge role for keeping Microsoft in the picture for the future.  It is a vitally important project, and it seems clear that Microsoft is betting the company on its success.  From the looks in the video above, the efforts of Microsoft have been worthy. 

There is no way to predict that tablets on ARM designs running Windows 8 will be successful.  That is a decision to be made in the marketplace, and the first returns will not be in before the end of the year. But, it is clear that Microsoft is serious enough about solving their problem by seeing that their legacy applications, Office’s Word for Windows, Excel, etc. will run and run well on the new platform.

Ultrabooks are Intel’s way of making itself relevant in the thin and light world of laptops.  In doing so they have set the limits on what can be called an Ultrabook. 

The list starts, of course, with an Intel CULV (ultra-low voltage) processors with integrated graphics, solid state drives for fast loading times, and a unibody chassis.  Because of their minimal size, the ability to have full-size ports (USB, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, etc) is limited.

Qualifications also include a maximum thickness of .8 inches, 3.1 pounds of weight, battery life of from five to seven hours, and Core i5 or i7 processors.  SSD flash memory for storage is an option but not mandatory. The price is supposed to be in the $1000 range.

Thus far the vendors who have entries in this new market include Acer.  with four 13.3-inch model, Asus with two, an 11.6-incher and a 13.3-inchers, Samsung, Toshiba and HP also have models that fall within the narrow definition. 

Some vendors are planning on 14-inch and 15-inch screens, although it will be difficult to keep them within the weight limit with screens that large. 

The one HP entry that (almost) meets the strict limits is the Folio 13, pictured above.  Technically the Folio 13 comes in at 3.3lbs, so it is 0.2 pounds overweight.  The extra weight comes from the built in 4-cell battery which gives the Folio 13 a seven hour battery life.  To say within the weight limit, the Asus limits the battery to three cells, but it suffers about an hour or hour and a half shorter battery life, according to actual user tests done by Engadget.

The thickness of the Folio 13, at .71 inches, is near the top of the limits set by Intel.  But the thick sides allow for full-sized ports for Ethernet, USB 3.0 and 2.0, and HDMI out.  It also has a microphone/ headphone jack.  This the only Ultrabook I have seen with full-sized ports.

The most prominent complaint of the Folio 13 is its screen.  At 1366 X 768 it is on the low-end for a screen that size, and the lack of brightness of the display was noted by the reviewer at Engadget.

The keyboard is one of its stronger suits.  The keys have a full travel and don’t suffer the Chiclet syndrome so common on other brands.  Many Chiclet keys have such a short travel that they fail to register some strokes.  The Folio’s keyboard is also backlit, if you toggle it on.

The touch pad also gets good marks.

Pricing is set officially at $999, and that is the listed price on HP’s website.  This price is below most other 13.3-inch screen Ultrabooks with SSD drives and i5 processors.

On the technical side, the specs are listed below:

§ 6 cell Lithium Ion Battery

§ 13.3-inch HD Brightness LED-backlit Display (1366 X 768)

§ No internal DVD or CD Drive

§ HP Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone

§ Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth with Wireless Display Support

§ Full-size backlit keyboard

§ Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

§ 2^nd generation Intel Core i5-2467M (1.6 GHz) Intel HD Graphics 3000

§ 4GB DDR3 System Memory (1 DIMM)

§ 128 GB SSD Flash Module

Other chip fabricators are also working on new versions of thin and light ultraportables.  AMD has said it is developing its own version of a processor they will call the Trinity chips.  Trinity will come in dual and quad-core configurations, and the starting price of their Ultrathin laptops would be in the $500 range.

AMD also says that the Trinity chips will draw around 17 watts of power, about the same as the upcoming Ivy Bridge microarchitecture from Intel.  Both of the new generation of chips are expected in summer or fall of this year.

Apple also has an entry into the field, its MacBook Air, although they do not call it an Ultrabook.  The Air is produced in both an 11.6 and 13.3-inch versions, and are priced from $1100 and up.

Sales of Ultrabooks have been slow thus far.  They are being priced at near to just over $1000, so this should not come as a surprise.  Prices are expected to fall this year, and there are already some promotions with a $100 to $200 price cuts.

1/30/2012:  Kindle Fire Outsells Estimates

Now that the bean counters have finished their tally sheets, it appears that Amazon actually sold 6 million of the $199 Kindle Fire in the fourth quarter.  This estimates comes from Stifel Nicolaus, an analyst, who put this in his recent note.  Earlier prediction of Kindle Fire Sales were in the area of 5-million units  for the period.

This is an impressive figure given that Amazon came from nowhere in the tablet market, and its sales didn’t start until mid-November.  Apple last week said it had sold 15.4 million iPad tablets in the last quarter, more than double the number it sold for the same period in 2010.

Some have estimated that the Fire accounts for up to 40% of Android sales during its first month and a half of its existence.

1/29/2012:  ARM Ultrportables on Windows 8

The ultraportable laptop category of PC is soon to get a major boost.  ARM chips, which began their life in America primarily as the brains of cell phones, has since graduated to tablet computers, running both iOS and Android designs.  But soon, beginning in February, ARM designed for laptops will be enabled to run Windows 8. 

An ARM based ultraportable will not be seen immediately on dealer shelves—I would look for that much later in the year.  But it is strongly rumored that Microsoft will release an ARM-based version of Windows 8 to developers in February.  This release is enabled by the fact that, again, according to reliable reports, Windows 8 has become stable on the new platform.

Some laptops and tablets running Widows 8/ARM designs were shown at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but they were shown only behind glass walls, and nothing moved on the screens other than a fixed display sequence.  No hands were allowed to touch these devices—Win 8 was not yet stable enough to allow such liberties.  But, now, the project moves to the next stage where developers can begin testing the new OS on tablets and laptops of their own design.

The picture at right, taken at CES, shows Windows 8 running on an ARM designed device.

For those of us who use these types of machines, this is unambiguous good news.  ARM chips were originally designed to run by sipping only the slightest amount of juice—extended battery life was their reason for existing.  The only way this could be achieved was to reduce the instruction set that powered the functions of the chip.  Reduced Instruction Set Chips (RISC) were not new, but they found new life under the ARM design by being adapted for cell phones, smart phones, and, more lately, on tablets.  The iPad, iPhones, iPod and Android devices all use ARM designed chips.

What has given this design new life is the expansion of the RISC concept by introducing multiple cores in the central processing unit.  Apple’s iPad and iPhone ARM design use dual cores now.  And late last year quad-core designs were perfected, opening the larger tasks required by PCs to its domain.  Nvidia was the first fabricator to make a commercially available quad core design, and Asus was the first to market with its Tegra 3 ARM on the their Transformer Prime tablet.  Many other tablets will be seen in the coming months running Nvidia’s and other quad core ARM designs.

It is thought now that using an ARM design will reduce the price of a laptop by a couple of hundred dollars per unit.  Thee savings will be about the same whether the chip is fabricated by Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, or Apple.  This means we could see fully functioning Windows 8 apps on ultraportables for $800 or less and even further as production costs are reduced by the economies of scale that invariably follow wider use.

Although there is no official announcement that Microsoft’s Office suite of apps will run under the ARM based version of Windows 8, unofficial reports say that all the Office apps run fine.  This development will be, I believe, one of the larger tech stories of 2012.  The practical implications are huge.

1/27/2012:  Moto Moves a Million

Motorola, in its quarterly statement released yesterday, assets that it shipped one million Android tablets during 2011.  The only tablet they sold during the year was the Xoom—their newer tablet, the XYBoard did not begin selling until 2012, although some could have been shipped in December.  The last quarter saw 200,000 units shipped, according to the report.

One million units is not great when compared with the 10.5 million Android tablets shipped during the year, but it may be enough to keep Motorola in the game.  Perhaps the XYBoard will sell better.

1/26/2012:  Android Tablets Close the Gap With iPad

At last there are real numbers that show the Android assault on the iPad is beginning to take effect. Although the data provided is of shipments—not sales to consumers—it can reasonably be assumed that the items shipped will eventually be sold. The shipments reported are for both the iPad and Android devices. The weakness in the data is that no distinction is made between shipments of 10-inch tablets and those of 7-inches. This is, in my view, an important distinction, since there is little basis for comparing a 7-inch screen with an iPad or 10.1-inch screen.

Regardless of the weaknesses of the data, it is all we have for now.  It is supplied by Strategy Analytics, a firm that advises Global 500 firms on technology issues. They specialize in tracking, analyzing and forecasting technology markets including consumer electronics and wireless devices.

According to their report, about 26.8 million tablets were shipping in the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple iOS devices accounted for 15.4 million units and Android about 10.5 million. Therefore, for the last quarter of 2011, the iPad had about 57 percent of the tablet market and Android at about 39 percent.

This is impressive when the same shipments are compared with the fourth quarter of 2010. In that year, as can be seen in the table below, Apple iOS shipments were 7.3 million units and Android 3.1 million. So, last year Apple’s share of the market was 69 percent and that of Android 29 percent.

For total units sales, Apple more than doubled its shipments and Android more tripled theirs.

This is good news for both Apple and the Android vendors. Android can compete with the iPad, but probably at lower prices overall, and the more capable Android 4.0 will probably help them compete with iOS.

Tablet Shipments Q4 10 vs Q4 11

It also convinces me that there is room for a Windows 8 tablet in the market. Windows 8 tablets are slated to debut later this year, probably in the third quarter, so the new OS will have only three or four months to work out the bugs before the 2012 Christmas selling season begins. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slow start for Windows 8, because no matter how much in-house testing is done on a new OS, consumers always find ways to foul the best laid designs on engineers. Quick fixes are a fixture in this type of business, and wise buyers will be aware of early and unexpected problems. This may slow their initial adoption.

1/23/2012:  RIM Makes a Management Move

RIM has provided a press release that former co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are passing the reigns to the company’s former co-COO Thorsten Heins.  Mr. worked with Siemens AG before joining RIM in 2007.

The announcement is not a surprise.  It is clear that Mr. Lazaridis and Mr. Balsille failed in their attempt to turn BlackBerry around.  Last year RIM owned about 35.8 percent of U.S. smartphone market. By November of 2011, that number had dropped almost in half to just 16.6 percent.  The stock value has faired even worse.  RIM is in deep trouble, and there are many within the industry who doubt that the latest move will be enough to turn things around.

1/21/2012:  eBook Borrowing Doubles

The demand for e-books at some major public libraries more than doubled in December and January compared to a year ago.  The Boston Public Library, the nation’s oldest, reports eBook borrowing more than tripled in December, compared to December 2010. For the first half of January, more than 700 people a day tried to borrow an e-book, or added their name to a long waiting list for some of the more popular titles.

At the New York Public Library, 2,907 e-books and materials were checked out on Dec. 26, 2011, nearly double the 1,523 checked out on the same date in 2010.  The New York Public Library carries over 20,000 eBook titles.

The increase in demand is closely tied to so many eBook readers as gifts during the Christmas season.  And this last season saw a record in eReading device sales.  It is estimated that the Kindle Fire sold over f.5 million units this last season.

Public libraries are stressed with the influx of orders.  First, they are restricted to lending of their electronic titles.  Different publishers limit the number of times an electronic title can be loaned, and some publishers do not have electronic editions.  There are some publishers who publish electronic editions but refuse to sell to libraries.  

Waiting lists for popular titles are long.

1/16/2012: Windows 8 for October?

A Microsoft executive, in an interview at CES, mentioned that it is generally three years between major upgrades to Windows, implying that October of this year is a likely time for the final release of Windows 8.  He was careful to note that this was not an official statement, but one of historical continuity, more or less.

This is important to Microsoft, of course, but it is important to the entire industry, because Windows 8 will feature a touch-screen orientation written from scratch for the first time.  Although Windows 7 was patched to add touch operations, it remained a mouse-centric OS, and the touch interface was a kludge and clumsy add-on.  Windows 8, it is hoped, will remedy these deficiencies.

But on an even larger scale, Windows 8 will also be written to run on ARM chips for the first time.  ARM is the family of Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC) that has taken over the cell and smartphone markets as well as tablets.  Apple uses a dual core ARM design for the iPad3, and iPhone.  Samsung, Toshiba, Motorola, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Acer, Asus and many others produce tablets or parts for tablets that use ARM architecture as the CPU on their devices.  Plus, the new generation of quad-core ARM chips brings its raw processing power up several notches to where it can now match the Intel designs in horsepower, at least ways important to tablet and general PC use

Of course none of the existing ARM-based tablets can run Windows.  Rather they operate on iOS, Android or QNX.  This means that owners of tablets of these devices will not be able to run any of the Windows’ Office Suite of productivity applications– Word for Windows, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.  And this limitation is the major stumbling block for making the tablet a computer capable of producing content rather than merely consuming it.

Microsoft apparently has its collective mind set on having a new generation of tablets using ARM designs but running Windows 8 as the operating system.  Owners of such a tablet could purchase an ARM-compatible Office Suite and thus not have to give up using their familiar productivity applications.

I would prefer to see Microsoft write a special version of the Office Suite for ARM chips using Android or iOS, but this probably won’t happen at first if ever.  Microsoft does sell operating systems as well as specific applications for productivity, so it seem reasonable to expect them to keep their legacy apps for their own customers. 

For now, and for the near future, iPad and Android tablet owners will have to be satisfied with working around the problem with Dropbox or other cloud solutions, but none of these solutions allow for easy creation or editing of Word, etc. documents.  However a new entry into the Office-Suite-for-iPad  category of cloud computing, Onlive Desktop, offers the most complete solution to this problem.  I will have a review of this new app in the next few days.

1/15/2012:  Sony Shows Ultraportable at CES

Sony is thinking ultrabook.  But, it doesn’t have one ready to sell yet.  It did show a preproduction model, however, but no one could put their hands on it.  From the view provided the ports can be seen: 2 USB ports including 1 USB 3.0 port. There’s also an HDMI port, VGA port, headphone jack, Ethernet jack, and a card reader which supports SD cards and Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo.

The thin laptop is also the same thickness front and back, abandoning the MacBook Air’s design of sloping to a near razor’s edge at the front.

Sony would not provide any pricing or availability information on their new ultra, so we can only surmise that it will come in a 3lbs or less, given its 13.3-inch screen.  Other specs will follow when they become available.

1/5/2012:  Acer has a New Iconia Tab

Acer is updating the 10.1-inch tablet with their new model, the Iconia Tab 200.  Their new entry into the crowded Android tablet market has graphics with a 1280 X 800 pixel screen and an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor that runs at 1 GHz.  These are fairly average numbers for tablets on the market today.

Acer insists the new model will be available in stores on January 15th, and, happily, its price will start at $329 at the low end with 8 GB memory.  The 16 GB model will sell at $349.

  This is good news for those looking an Android tablet.  The first wave of Android 10.1-inch tablets were priced at $499, and none sold well.  But, those prices have begun to fall.  It seems to me that a $300 entry price may have some chance of selling a significant number of units.

The Iconia 200 will not ship with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but it will be up-graded from Honeycomb 3.2 to the newer Operating System in February. 

Lenovo Revamps Their ThinkPad Line with Thin and Light and a Hybrid Intel/ARM Model

Lenovo is redefining the ThinkPad line of notebooks, going with thinner, lighter models and instant-on features that are generally redefining notebooks in the new year.

A most interesting model is their X1 series of notebooks.  The X-series has always featured  ultra-small designs, and usually featured the most powerful ultras one could find.  Expense was never an objective for this line. 

The new X1 Hybrid is well within this tradition.  It features a fanless “Instant Media Mode” of operation that does not load Windows or rely on an Intel processor.  Rather Lenovo has put a Qualcomm dual-core processor on the motherboard that runs on a version of Android when the Intel processor is not running.

This feature allows many functions to be completed without using the more powerful Intel i5 or i7 capabilities.  Web surfing, video and picture viewing, check email or listen to music—all can be done using the Qualcomm ARM chip while the Intel chip is turned off.

Among the benefits of this configuration is that the battery life is doubled to 10-hours, and an instant awakening from an idle mode.  If more heavy duty work is required, Windows apps can be invoked by starting up the Intel engine.

The weight of the new X1 is 3.7-pounds chassis,  a 13-inch (1366 x 768) Gorilla Glass display. It’ll be offered with Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, a 3G radio and a slice battery that adds up to five more hours of battery life. It’ll be available sometime in the second quarter for $1,599 and up.

The dimensions are not published, but it will probably about the same thickness of last year’s model, so it cannot bear the new definition of Intel’s Ultrabook specifications, but it will be still be thin compared with the older line of Thinkpads.  It will also have the fabulous keyboard that is unique to Thinkpads.  The Android Marketplace will not be available to this version of Android.

There are many new Lenovo models announced that do qualify for the Intel definition of Ultrabooks, and they will be detailed in another post.

1/3/2012:  Asus to Debut New 7-inch Tablet at CES

Asus has released the picture at left of their new Eee Memo Pad, a 7-inch tablet that is run by a 1.2 GHz Snapdragon dual core processor and supports 16GB to 64GH of internal storage.  It will have a built in 3G and WiFi, with a screen resolution of 1,280 X 800. 

No word on pricing yet, but it will most likely be shown at the up-coming CES in Las Vegas on January 10th.  The new tablet is slated to be introduced in Asia before making it to America.

RIM puts BlackBerry Playbook on Sale

Research in motion has put its Blackberry Playbook on sale from its web site for $299.  The odd part of this story is that the price of the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB units all sell at the same price.  They are probably looking to sell out their existing inventory, so the larger memory units will probably go first. 

It makes me wonder if RIM will stay in the tablet business given their terrible experience with their first try.  But, they have a large installed base of business accounts that want tablets, so they may feel the heat to come out with a new, improved tablet to satisfy this critical part of their market.

1/1/2012:  Sony’s S Tablet Price is Cut $100

Happy New Year!  I look forward to an exciting 2012, with hundreds of new products slated for introduction over the next twelve months.  I also look forward to lower prices on many products that help readers in their quest for convenience in pursuing their hobby.

To start the new year off, Sony is reducing the price of their S Tablet by $100.  A brand new 16GB model of the S will now retail for $399, and the 32GB model will hereafter sell for $499.

Their Android S Tablet has generally had good reviews.  It is often the second choice to the iPad2, coming in ahead of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.  Some of the reviewers put it just behind the Galaxy.

The screen size of the S Tablet is an odd 9.4-inches, but its operation is similar to the 10.1-inches of most Android devices and the iPad2’s 9.7-inch screen.

With its ability to play PlayStation games, it was expected to sell well, but has not generated the revenue Sony anticipated.  There is a review of this model here at ereadersreview.net(Click here for review)

Ray Hendon

Ultraportables, which include the newest incarnation of thin and light laptops, the Ultrabook, are thought by some to be a threat to tablet computers.  The instant-on capability of Ultrabooks are believed to be especially attractive to those who have been buying tablets because of this feature. 

It appears likely to me that Ultrabooks and other thin and light laptops will do well in the market place, especially when their prices fall a few hundred dollars.  But whether they will dampen any of the enthusiasm for tablets is another matter.  Personally I think both form factors satisfy separate needs for different users.

One feature of the new Ultrabooks that will help resolve the question is whether they will serve their owners as competent eReaders.  Surely there are some prospective buyers who would prefer to own only one device rather than two—but only if the one could do the work of two.  Can an Ultrabook do both heavy duty computing and convenient eReading?  Can one design satisfy both these needs?

Certainly a dedicated eReader or a tablet have some advantages over a laptop, even a thin and light one.  Reading electronic books, for example is probably done best by a device that closely emulates the look and feel of a book.  The popularity of the Kindle and Nook are thought to owe much of their success to their similarity to printed books.

How essential is the look and feel,  though, to those who read a lot.   This article takes a look at the possibility of using these new, thin and light computers as an eReader.

To put this question to a practical test, I loaded the top three eReading applications to an 11.6” screen Asus UX21 to see how they worked.  The applications chosen to test are:

Amazon’s Kindle App for PCs, Macs, iPad, iPhone and Android devices

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• Barnes and Noble’s Nook Application for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone  and Android devices
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• Sony’s Reader Application for PC, Mac and Android devices

  

To give you a taste of the difference, I have taken screen shots of random pages from eBooks on the three applications I mentioned.

Beginning with Amazon, a screen shot of George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, is displayed in the two column format for laptop viewing. The screen shot is taken of the Kindle application for PCs.

Screen of Kindle Reader in Two Column Format

The Kindle app is widely praised for its versatility of layout options, underlining, comments, bookmarks and especially its syncing abilities.  This app also has go-to options that ease navigation, and dictionary lookup for a highlighted word.  All these features work on Ultrabooks. 

Amazon also has a user friendly policy of allowing you to direct any book in your library to be sent to any device on your registered list of devices. Amazon is indifferent as to which device or how many you use for any their electronic titles.  It treats them all the same and syncs them in an effortless way. The moment I registered my latest laptop, the Asus ZenBook UX21, all books in my library were immediately available for reading.

The strongest features of Amazon is, in my view, the ease of use of its website.  It is easy to find books, send them to the device of your choice, and generally navigate their vast site.

Equally strong is the selection of books, magazines and newspapers. They claim over a million titles, but that includes some categories such as “Singles” that represent a new class of literature that is generally shorter than a book but longer than an article. 

The worst feature of Amazon is that they insist on using a proprietary format for their eBook files.  It has an AZW extension and works only on Kindle software or hardware.  Although all the free sites I use give the option of downloading their books in the AZW format, in practice it is not terribly inconvenient.  Amazon also can read PDF files, and they will convert your Word for Windows documents to a format that allows you to put them in you Kindle library.

The other downside to Amazon is that they use DRM (digital rights management) on everything, so there is no cutting or pasting using anything in the AZW format. 

The Nook eReader software also provides a good reader experience. The screen shot below is from one of their pre-DRM works. Don’t be fooled by the small typeface. My screen capture utility shrunk it because the Nook takes up more of the horizontal space of the computer screen than the Kindle reader, so it has to cut the size down to fit within the pasted space. In practice, the Nook screen is as readable as any other.

Screen shot from the Nook Reader using the dual pane format

All the formatting and user options are available for the Nook reader–font size, margins, highlighting, lookup, go-to. And the B&N syncing feature is excellent between devices, and they offer their reader software app for a wide range of devices.

As far as eReading goes, it is hard to find much to prefer of B&N over Amazon or vice versa.  Both are excellent and have almost identical features.

The same is true for selection of books. B&N’s inventory is huge, and they have a good selection of free public domain books—as good as or better than Amazon’s.

Nook uses the ePub format, as does Sony, although both will read many other formats as well.  They do not read Amazon’s proprietary AZW file format, however.

Something of an oddity: The Nook reader treats all ePub software as DRM protected, so they do not allow cutting or pasting of non-DRM books.  Even on the iPad, whose own iReader app allows cutting and pasting of non-DRM protected material the  Nook does not.

Sony’s reader app provides a good reading experience. The screen shot below is from an ePub file of a non-DRM version of Sherlock Holmes.

Screen of Sony Reader’s Dual Column Layout

As with the Nook, the Sony Reader software uses more of the landscape screen to display its materiel than the Kindle app, so my clipping software has to reduce it to fit the pasting space. But Sony gives one plenty of formatting options and page control.

Sony lags both Amazon and B&N with book selection and syncing ability.  Their books are generally priced high; they have few free books, and their selection doesn’t match its two larger competitors.

Sony makes its reader software available to fewer devices—no iPad, no iPhone, no BlackBerry, for example.  They have syncing available to the three types of devices they support, but I have not tried it personally.

I like the Sony reader app for its ability to read almost any kind of document regardless of format, except, of course, Kindle documents. I will always have their app installed on my computers in case a particular book is not available in the Kindle format.  And they allow cut and paste options for non-protected books.

I find all three of the reader software about equally enjoyable to use. The differences in layout and options are not terribly important. I find I use the Kindle app more than the others because I find more books on their site I like, and I like to sync the books among all my devices. Still, I maintain active use of the Nook and the Sony Readers.

Summary:

First, the reality of the size and convenience of specialized eReaders and tablets makes it clear that they have the advantage. It is not possible for an ultrabook, weighing in at 2.9 pounds, to be as convenient to use as a 7-inch tablet or even the pound and a half iPad.

However, it is also inconvenient to carry two devices if one will do. So, there will be occasions when a thin and light laptop could be a suitable substitute for a dedicated eReader or tablet. 

At bottom, all of these tested apps work well on an Ultrabook. And they would work just as well with the software from other vendors such as Kobo or Blio. If your eReading preferences include comic books, magazines or children’s books, then you might like a specialty reader designed for the formats unique to these publications.

While all the eReading apps work well on an Ultrabook, it still may not be your preferred way of reading electronic texts.  But they are completely usable as a primary or secondary eReader. The choice of one over another is more dependent on which site you prefer to use because of its particular strengths than to the characteristics of their eReades.

From my experience, I have given away my Kindle reader. I simply do not want to carry another device with me in my travels. Now that I have a 7-inch tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, I use it as my eReader of choice because of its lightness and ease of holding in one hand. I use the iPad for e-reading infrequently, but there are occasions when it comes in handy. Its weight, though, makes it a second choice, especially for long reading times. 

I rarely use a PC or my ultraportable for reading, but if I do it will be on the ultraportable.  Its lightness and instant-on feature does make it a better choice than the older, heavier laptops, but it is not as convenient to carry as a tablet.

An ultraportable may not be your favorite way of reading electronic texts, but it serves as a completely satisfying vehicle for reading if you want to carry only one device with you or if an occasion arises when it is all you have to use.

My needs for a laptop computer, after years of trial and error, are precisely defined. I don’t like carrying bulky, heavy laptops, so light weight is my first consideration. I want it under four pounds, and, if possible, under three.

The Asus UX31, the big brother of the UX21  is pictured below.

Given lightness, it follows that the screen must be small, and over the years I have settled on an 11.6-inch screen as my optimal. I tried 14-inch screen years ago and it was too bulky and heavy. I tried a netbook with a 10-inch and it was too small to view a webpage comfortably. 13.3-is OK, but it adds weight, so the 11.6-incher is my choice. There are a few brands with a 12-inch screen, and I would like to try one, but there are no ultrabooks with that dimension, at least not yet.

Another top priority, although not entirely definitive is a Windows environment. All my writing is done with Microsoft’s Word for Windows. I have used it since the DOS days and have followed it up each iteration to Windows 7. I could go for an Apple-based OS, the MacBook Air, but I would have to factor in the extra cost of buying an Apple versions of Microsoft Office or at least Word for Mac. Using a MacBook Air would also introduce another inconvenience, that of moving files between its formatting and that of Windows on my desktop. Although this would not be a killer, it does put a barrier to an Apple or Unix environment.

Another consideration of lightness is the thickness, and here the ultrabook and other versions of thin and light have recently opened up the ultrathin design. It is appealing in looks, but for the most part it is good because it reduces the weight.

Quickness is also important. I have had an iPad for almost a year, and I have grown to like “instant on,” so SSD storage memory is a must. Some light and thin models of laptops have a hybrid approach with a small amount of SSD plus a spinning hard drive. This is not for me. Vast storage is not required for my uses of a portable computer. And adding a spinning drive increases weight and slows down data storage and retrieval, and shortened battery life.  Although SSD is expensive, it is getting less so, and I will pay the difference.

Long battery life is on the list of many laptop users, but it is a low priority for me. When I am at my desk, I use a desktop.  When I go to the coffee shop, I am there in order to change environments and do some serious work. But working more than two hours at a time is a rarity when I am there. So if my laptop lasts that long, that is enough. I’ll put it on the charger once I get home.

There are times, of course, when I am on the road, for example, when a longer battery life would be handy, but again, if one wants long battery life then a larger battery is required.  Larger batteries mean, of course, more weight. For me it is an easy tradeoff to carry a charger, although at times it is inconvenient. If I had the habit of using my laptop like I use my iPad, off and on all day, then I would want more charge-free time. But that is not how I generally use my laptop, so a three-cell battery does the job for my purpose.

From the criteria above it should be clear that I wanted a ultra-portable, variously defined as an ultrabook by Intel, Ultrathin by AMD, MacBook Air by Apple and just plain ultraportable by everyone else. So, getting closer to a decision I took the 3-hour drive to Houston so I could see the MacBook Air in person again, and see if my itch would demand a $1000 scratch.

My first stop was at the Apple Store in the Galleria Mall where I could have some time with the beautiful and talented MacBook Air. I had seen the new model before, but I wanted a fresher look. I got the look, and left without spending anything. My itch was not that demanding.

On the way out of the Galleria I ran into the Microsoft Store, so I decided to check it out, never having seen one before. Naturally I gravitated to the laptop section and an Asus UX21 and 31 were on display. Their display prices were $999 for the 11.6-inch UX21 and $1099 for the 13.3-inch UX31, but the salesman told me of their special offer of 25% off if the ticket price was at least $1000. That price would put the UX21, my preference, at $750 if I added a carrying case, so I was interested. But, I didn’t buy it that day.  I should have, though, because it would have saved me another trip to Houston the next day when I decided to buy it.

The UX 21 is shown immediately below.

It’s been about a month now, and I have had plenty of time to check out the Asus machine–I love it. It meets every objective I had in mind. It looks good, weighs less than 3 pounds, and has an 11.6-inch screen with a 1366 X 768 resolution. It boots from scratch in about 15 seconds, loads Word for Windows in less than 2 seconds and awakens from sleep mode in less than 2 seconds—it is fast, thanks to the Core i5 processor that powers it.

It also caters to one of my working quirks—I dislike using a touch pad for moussing, and the UX21 can be configured to turn off or to automatically disable the pad when a mouse is plugged into a USB port. On those occasions when I use the pad it works fine and has some pad options that are convenient—pinch to zoom, three finger scrolling and that sort of thing.

The function keys are well laid out, and Asus has adopted an intelligent attitude about making the delete/insert, print screen/sysrg, and pause/break keys usable without holding the function key down. A WiFi on/off function key is quite handy on F2 and an instant “sleep” function on F1.

I am impressed, too, by the Bang & Olufsen speaker system that hinges at the bottom of the screen. I have never heard a better internal speaker system on a laptop computer. But, I confess I haven’t heard that many, so there may be some other good ones available.

Included in the external ports is a mini-USB port that is used to attach an external monitor, and the adapter for this operation is included in the box as well as an Ethernet connecting adapter that fits into the USB 3.0 port. There is another full sized 2.0 USB on the right side with a mini HDMI out.

The one thing about it I do not like is the keyboard–a Chiclet design with a short travel. At first I missed making contact with certain keys when touch typing. The “a” key and “m” key were commonly missed at first. I have had to adjust my typing to the needs of the keys to be hit more or less in the center and with sufficient force to register. I confess I have been spoiled by using the Lenovo ThinkPad X120E keyboard. Lenovo inherited the fabulous ThinkPad keyboard from IBM when they bought the PC division some years ago, and in my mind there has never been a better keyboard for a portable computer. But, I don’t think that that type of keyboard is feasible on an ultrathin laptop. There isn’t enough depth for the travel required by that design.

The upside is that I have learned to adjust to the demands of this keyboard, but it did take some time and I still miss a key every now and then. I have kept it past the return time, and I plan on keeping it for four or five years—my usual horizon for a new computer.

There will be better models introduced later in the year. Apple is expected to up-grade the Air when Ivy Bridge processors are released by Intel, probably in the second quarter. The Windows laptops are expected to do the same.  Ivy Bridge will be a processor chip of 22 nanometers rather than the current 34 nanometers. So we should expect faster execution and longer battery life from the new models.

There are also expectations that prices will fall. Intel, which has big plans for Ultrabooks, has mentioned prices for the finished products at around $750 by the end of the year. And AMD is readying their thin and light processor for later this year, at prices lower than Intel charges. So there will be price pressures from more than one source.

If I hadn’t needed one now, I would probably have waited until summer, but I couldn’t. I have no problem with accepting what I bought will soon be displaced with something better. It has been that way since I began buying computers since the late 1980s, and I don’t expect it to change. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A new category of laptop computer is beginning to appear on dealer shelves in the United States: the Ultrabook. This new category, only recently defined by Intel, is different than the older types of “ultra-portables” that in the past fit into a niche market of small screens that swiveled and that accepted screen input from pens. They were expensive and of limited functionality because of their dual nature and limited space.

Today’s new breed of ultras trace their heritage, as many innovations do, to Apple, and more specifically to their MacBook Air, an ultrathin laptop introduced several years ago. It was the original Air that was razor thin, featured hard disk storage consisting only of SSD memory rather than a spinning drive, and, consequentially ultra-fast boot times. But the original Air was severely underpowered, and its sales were anemic. It had to await a few other developments in processor design and battery management before taking off, as the new models have done.

This year, thanks to these new advancements, which include multi-core processors made on smaller dies and with better graphics handling, thin is in like never before. Everyone, it seems, is trying to get in on the action, and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will see many new models introduced. All major and many of the minor manufacturers that sell Intel/Windows machines in the United States are working on their own versions of this new innovation

Although as many as fifty new ultraportables are expected at CES, most will not be for sale until late in the first or second quarter of the year.

Below is a list provided by Intel of those devices that met their standard at the time of the

posting and that are available now.

I am writing this article on the Asus UX21 I bought only three weeks ago. The UX21 has an 11.6-inch screen, and its larger sibling, the UX31, has a 13.3-inch display. Both meet Intel’s strict definition of weight of less than 3.1 lbs, less than .8-inches thick, SSD drive, fast boot times and special BIOS that allow enhanced security and off-line processing.

There are few others that meet the standard set by Intel. Asus has the two I mentioned above, UX21 and UX 31. The smaller screen UX21 starts at $999 and add a hundred more for the larger 13.3-inch screen UX31. As can be seen from the table below, it costs about $200 to move from the i5 to the i7.

Note the weight, a critical feature for my use of a portable computer. Both models come in at under 3 pounds. Screen resolution is excellent. The smaller units features 1366 X 768 pixels. The 13.3-inch screen jumps to 1600 X 900.

I bought mine for $750 at the Microsoft Store in Houston’s Galeria. Microsoft was offering a 25% discount if the ticket was over $1000, so adding a carrying case to the ticket qualified my purchase for the discount.

Many observers of the industry expect prices to fall throughout the year, but that has yet to be seen since so few are on the market yet. A picture of the UX21 is shown above.

For a review of the UX21, Click Here.

Acer has also jumped into the market quickly. They now have the Acer Aspire S3 available. It comes only in a 13.3-inch version, and it is priced below $1000 if you settle for a spinning drive. Acer has a configuration that include a 360 or 500 GB hard drive along with a 20GB SSD. They also offer an SSD-only option, but the price is $1199.

Acer is taking a different tack with their Aspire S3.  To include a spinning drive in an ultraportable is a feat in itself, but it ads to weight and battery drain.

Lenovo has moved quickly into the arena by redesigning their consumer line into the ultrabook category. The U300 looks to be a excellent implementation of the ultrabook design.  The specs are listed below:

System Components

Processor 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2677M Processor ( 1.80GHz 1333MHz 4MB )

Graphics: Intel Integrated HD Graphics 3000

Total memory: 4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz

Display:13.3″ HD Glare with integrated camera 1366×768

Camera: Integrated 1.3MP Camera

Hard Drive: 256GB SSD

HP has shown pictures of their ultrabook entry, the Envy 14 Spectre.

The Spectre is a 14-inch screen, and is quite heavy at 3.8 lbs. The HD screen displays 1600×900 pixels and includes HDMI out, Ethernet, USB 3.0, and mini Displayport ports.

The glass on the back of the laptop is Gorilla Glass, which means it probably won’t break if you drop it. It includes a fat 128GB SSD drive for $1,400 and an optional 256GB upgrade. It runs a Core i5 or i7 processor and ships in February.

In a technical sense the Spectre does not qualify as an ulrabook because its weight is too close to 4 lbs—it runs a little over half a pound past the limit.

For a review of the HP Sceptre, Click Here

Dell also has a February launch date for their ultrabook entry, a 13-inch screen. The XPS 13 is shown below and right. 

The display is 1366 x 768 using Gorilla Glass display (which, similar to the HP Spectre, fits inside a chassis that’s an inch smaller).

The XPS 13 comes with a Core i5 CPU, Intel HD 3000 graphics, a 128 GB SSD, 4 GB of RAM, Bluetooth 3.0, Intel’s Smart Connect and Rapid Start technologies, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, a MiniDisplay port, and a battery life of eight hours.

The XPS 13 measures in at 18-mm at its thickest and 6-mm at its thinnest. The whole thing weighs in just shy of 3-lbs and is wrapped up in a sleek aluminum finish.

As far as pricing and availability are concerned, the XPS 13 is set for release at the end of next month and will start at $999. Upgrades to Core i7 and more storage space will push that up quite a bit, though.

It will be exciting to see the new ultras as they come out.  Beside thin and light, the outstanding feature is the almost instant on and awakening from sleep that characterize them.  If you are used to an iPad or Android tablet, anything than near instant is too slow.  The new breed of ultras addresses this old problem but still give the user plenty of processing power to go with the smallness.

The honor of being the first tablet running the new generation quad-core processor belongs to Asus.  Using the brand-new Tegra 3 (you remember, the Tegra 2 had two cores, so the Tegra 3 has four?), the new Transformer Prime blows away all other tablets running on an ARM-based chip.

There are several preliminary reviews out, and all of them remark on how blazingly fast the new chip is.  J.R. Raphael, reviewing the new Transformer for Computer World said: “. . .at first impression, the Transformer Prime just flies. I mean, this tablet is fast. I’m honestly not sure quad-core is something an average tablet user truly needs at this point, but for a power-user, gamer, or anyone who just wants top-of-the-line technology, the added processing muscle puts the Prime in a league of its own.”

Other reviewers have said about the same thing.  There will be other quad-core tablets coming out by the beginning of the year.  The iPad3 may have one, too.

But that is not the entire story of the Transformer Prime.  It has been significantly slimmed down from its earlier form, and the build quality is uniformly praised.  Android 3.2.1 is the version it is shipping with now, or will on December 19th.  But Asus promises an early upgrade to the newer version 4.0 soon.

Notice from the picture above that the tablet part of the Transformer docks with a keyboard and becomes an almost regular notebook computer.  The picture below is blown up a bit to give a better picture of how the two items work together. 

Of course, it is not mandatory that a buyer of the tablet purchase the keyboard dock.  It runs an extra $150, but it includes both a full sized USB 2.0 port and SD slot.  It also included an extra battery that adds an extra six or so hours to the otherwise long battery life of the tablet.  The tablet itself has a mini HDMI out and mini SD port.

The full review can be read by clicking on this link.

The new Transformer has a suggested retail price of $499, which puts is squarely in the iPad2 camp.  Quite obviously Asus feels that with its full slate of attributes it can go head-to-head with the Apple product.

Asus does not have a full monopoly on a transforming system.  Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and Toshiba all have special keyboards that fit their tablets.  But, these are simply keyboards.  The Asus product is a full-fledged dock.  It has all the docking facilities we expect, including enhanced battery life and other ports.

This development also points out another problem that is infecting all of today’s tablets, except those that run Windows.  The problem is that there is not a full-fledged word processing application that runs on the ARM systems. 

Microsoft has promised that it Microsoft Office suite will soon be re-written to run on the ARM architecture, but no specifics about features, prices or when it will be available. This leaves tablet owners with the distinct disadvantage of not being able to bring full production capabilities to this form factor.  And with the power of a quad-core processor, surely ARM could handle the Office suite’s heavy processing requirements.

Once these legacy applications are brought to the tablet, then an entirely new group of buyers will be drawn to this new phenomenon, and tablet sales will become stratospheric compared to what they are today.  At that point, a transformed tablet will be the equivalent, or at lease near-equivalent, of a laptop computer.

The iPad at least has Pages, its native word processing application.  And, it sells for $10.  Although it is anemic compared with Word or Word Perfect, it does allow a reasonably competent system of creating a text document with graphics, too.  But getting Pages data into a Word document requires multiple steps.  A native Word for the ARM world will solve many problems, and I am sure the hardware folks are licking their chops at the prospect.  It will probably be done sometime in 2012.

Ray Hendon

I use my iPad2 everyday, and I love it. No, a 7-inche tablets will not replace it. But, a few months ago I bought a 7-inch Galaxy Tab 7 solely because it had a 3G/4G hotspot capability. I needed a hotspot, and another alternative was to pay Verizon $100 for their stand-alone hot spot device-which was nice.

But, for an extra $100 I could get a full-fledged tablet with all its attendant benefits, so I decided to with the tablet. I was using the hotspot a lot then, being several thousand miles from home and having only Wi-Fi on my iPad2 and on my Windows ultraportable. But, I began playing with some of the Tab 7’s other capabilities: I downloaded some free apps for weatherbug, file management, video players, screen-writing (DRAW) that allows me to use my finger to make lists and memos, etc..

For the first month I used it mostly for hotspots, but I found that the screen writing program was nice for writing to-do lists for the day and for grocery shopping lists. It fit in my back pocket, and I could whip it out at a moment and view my lists. When the item was completed or purchased I could swipe a line through it and that way work my way through it. This was handy, but questionable as being worth $100. Still, I shouldered on.

The next big thing I discovered was how robust the email application on the tablet was when compared with all my other email applications. The Tab 7 has the “All Mail” option which keeps a long historical record of the inbox. iPad also has it, but it is not as convenient to carry around, so I find myself using the small tablet for email more and more.

Then, there is the camera. At 5 megapixels it is equal to my Droid’s, but the pictures are displayed on a much larger screen and are, therefore, much more viewable and entertaining. And, it’s easy to have with me; I find I use it a lot.

At first I didn’t like surfing the web on the small screen, and I still don’t for general purpose surfing. The small screen is too small for my poor eyesight, so I much prefer the iPad for this chore. But, I have discovered that when I use the mobile page for many sites, special features make it usable for doing quick updates on headlines. Plus is has a handy Twitter app that is readable on the small screen.

Playing flash video is also nice when I am reading the news online. The iPad does it only with videos accessed through sites that have an iPad app.

The biggest thing, though, is e-reading. The small screen is perfect for this chore, and I can hold it in one hand if I read in bed, which I do quite a bit. I can access all of my Kindle books, Nook library and borrowed books from the public library on it, and I use it now almost exclusively for that purpose.

With everything considered, I have no regrets on buying the 7-inch tablet. I use it for what it does well, and I use the iPad and other computers for what they do well when it is most convenient. It turns out, I couldn’t do what I had envisioned on the iPad when I first bought it, but I discovered many things I could do with it that I had not envisioned. The same is true for the 7-inch device. I end up doing many things with it that I could not imagine at first.

I have seen some reviewers who declare that they can’t make a case for owning an iPad or another tablet.  The lesson I have learned is that you may not be able to make a case for it until you understand its many uses first.  It took me a couple of weeks to learn how to use the iPad, and it has taken even longer for the smaller screen device, but I am quite happy now with both.  The flexibility, mobility and power of a tablet, regardless of its screen size, make them much more usable than you might think.