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NOTEBOOK PC PC : DISCUSSION

Everybody Wants Instant-On Laptops, But What We Have Today Is Not Good Enough
Posted in Notebook PC | March 31, 2009 12pm

Most people would agree that the process of booting is annoying. At home, users are ready to leave their PC on all night so that they won't boot for a minute or two in the morning. On the go, it's even worse: waiting for the laptop to boot can take as little as 40 seconds if you're lucky to a few minutes. While this is not "unbearable" by any means, it is very frustrating.Ideally, what we want is to have laptops that can be turned on and "off" just like we do with cellphones. In reality, we know that phones aren't ever really OFF, but rather in a low-power standby mode. That's the trick because just look how long it takes Windows Mobile or BlackBerry OS to "boot", it's slower than a PC/Mac. Anyhow, as fast as switching a phone "on" would be totally acceptable to laptop users: At a flick of a button, your email and web browser would appear instantly (less than 1 second). That is something that would "sell", right?Instead, look at what we have today: neither sleep mode or hibernate can remotely pretend to be instant-on. The wake-up time is still too long and the "going to sleep" phase involves dumping the memory on disk, which takes time too. Finally, these modes are known to be crash-prone - oh joy. The truth is that personal computers didn't evolve with "instant-on" in mind, so the hardware and software architecture is inadequate. It should be possible to design a system that can go into ultra-low power mode and back quickly. It's just very hard to simply "shut down" something that you don't need now, because you will have to re-initialize it later back to the same state - that explain the dumping on the disk. Realistically, this won't get better fast.So what do we do? One alternative is to use an alternate OS like a mini-Linux to boot in 30 seconds, instead of 50 or 120 seconds. Depending on your "real" OS boot time, it might or might not be worth it - but it's fair from being "instant", even if these solutions are marketed using that word. Another alternative that stays unexplored commercially is to  use a secondary OS derived from mobile phones. What if your laptop had Windows Mobile, Android or Mobile Mac OS as a quick, truly instant, boot? That would give you access to whatever these platforms can support (web, email, misc apps...) - instantly! Now, there are cost issues because you need to add flash memory and even a whole small motherboard with a mobile CPU and all, but eventually, these things become really cheap and could even be placed in a PC Card.Of course, what you really want is to have a full OS that boots instantly... me too. But short of that, which alternative do you prefer? 1/ A better sleep mode and keep your full OS2/ A mini-Linux that provides web access and IM apps3/ A Mobile OS in my laptop4/ None of these, you'll wait for a full, instant-on, OS.

NOTEBOOK PC PC : DISCUSSION

Better Laptop Battery Life: How Bad Do You Want It?
Posted in Notebook PC | March 17, 2009 11am

After years of status quo, laptop makers are finally zooming in on a few "most wanted" features: size, weight, battery life and price! The time of "stuffing laptops" with higher-end tech to increase the price is over. Laptops have been getting "good enough", customers have become much more savvy, and the only way to escape the downwards pricing spiral is to focus on the user experience, and that's ultimately good for all of us.It's undeniable that longer battery life is a user experience "booster" because without juice, there's no experience at all! However, batteries is the area that has been completely left out of the rapid progress of computers. While computers got a 10-fold processing power increase, batteries probably had a 20% increase in efficiency and we're being generous here. That means that there are no miracles to be expected in the short term, but there are solutions to make thing a lot better with what we have at hand.For one, we could make batteries easier to charge. A common charger/connector/voltage would go a long way to help. Look at how USB charging made things a lot better for smaller devices. In Korea, the wireless carriers agreed to enforce using a single charging connector. China is moving towards something similar. Standard battery formats would be very nice too. For wireless carriers, the idea is simple: if users don't worry about battery life, they'll use their phones more and that means more revenues coming in and happier customers. One could also imagine having public charging "pods" that use induction instead of cables. The technology is there, but we're probably a few years away from mass adoption, at least.The issue with charging on the go is how long it actually takes. Right now, a couple of hours or more are required to fully charge a laptop - that's way more that what most of us can afford. Fortunately, there is technology already available to make this better. Last year, Toshiba presented SCIB (Super Charge Ion Battery), a battery that gets a 90% charge in only 10mn. That alone would change the way we think about laptop charging. And the future seems even brighter: MIT researchers think that they can develop cellphone batteries that charge in only 10 seconds.Combine pervasive and (super) fast charging with ever lower-power computing and you have a recipe for a computing experience without energy limitations. The good news is that technology is available today: Induction, Super Charge Ion Battery, Ultra-low power semi-conductors. However, PC makers still wonder if it's worth the time and money to invest in these and some of them are still bent on selling you an additional "power brick" for $50 or so. I'm not even talking about the $200 battery here.How bad do you want these things? Reply below in the "comments" section.More battery-life "Top Ideas":http://www.wepc.com/vo te/view/dream/2062/KINETIC_PO WERED_NOTEBOOK_AND_MOUSEhttp: //www.wepc.com/vote/view/idea /3112/Solar_power_rechargehtt p://www.wepc.com/vote/view/id ea/863/solar_casehttp://www.w epc.com/vote/view/idea/552/24 _Hours_of_Batteryhttp://www.w epc.com/vote/view/dream/3078/ Xsanguinator

NOTEBOOK PC PC : DISCUSSION

Looking back on the top ideas and dividing in 3 categories
Posted in Notebook PC | March 10, 2009 8am

This site has enough ideas to keep its creators, Asus and Intel, busy for some time as they try to turn them into reality. But let's be honest, not all ideas are created equal. Some are straightforward, others require a bit more time and some are very cool, but very much "out there". Here is our selection, divided into three categories: "Should have by now", "Could have soon" and "Wish to have one day".
Should have by now
In the "we should have it by now" category, we see an obvious top idea proposed by WEPC readers: the magnetic power plug. Yes, it's totally doable and even if Apple has patented its implementation (I don't know if they did), someone can probably create a similar feature without infringing, oh and pair that with a universal power adapter, please. Another thing that we should all have is a backlit keyboard. It's unbelievable that laptops costing $1500 to $3000 don't have something that simple. Wouldn't you like to have the option of paying $30 more for a backlit keyboard?
We could have soon
There's a lot to look forward to when it comes to laptop features. Among the "top ideas", we like the following:
Wireless USB: A laptop is definitely not sexy with USB cables hanging from all sides. A little wireless magic would help here. Plus the technology is right around the corner!
Dual display: Let's admit it, there's never enough screen real estate. However, there's also a limit in the bulk and weight that we can tolerate, so while dual-displays laptop do exist now - can someone make then light and sexy in the future?
Pocket-sized: There's a big crowd that wants pocket-sized netbooks. I'm frankly not one of them (I actually want a 12" netbook), but I do like sexy small gadgets. Are you a pocket netbook proponent?
Long battery life: As we said before, it's an issue that everyone agrees on: we need longer battery life, although realistically, it's more likely that we'll get faster charger time (or slower depletion, thanks to solar energy) before real battery improvements. Fortunately, low-power electronics can save the day.
Instant on boot: and by instant-on, we don't mean 20 seconds... we mean instant! That could happen with ultra-low power "cellphone-like" hardware platforms and operating systems. Are you ready to abandon Windows for a true instant-on, ultra-low power laptop?
We wish to have one day
Flexible displays are seen by many like the ultimate solution to small display surface. Imagine unfolding a 30" display from your 12" laptop - wouldn't that be cool? Obviously, there are a lot of details to work out and that kind of unfolding has to be optional (might not work in public transportation and in airplanes...) but it would be nice to have the option, right?

NOTEBOOK PC PC : DISCUSSION

Are Multiple Screens and Touch Interfaces the Next Evolution for Laptops?
Posted in Notebook PC | March 3, 2009 12pm

 
 

The first time that I held a Lenovo W700d, I have to admit that it felt repulsive because of its 11lbs (4.98kg) weight and its (sturdy but) unattractive design. Yet, the Lenovo 700Wd does innovate and it raises a good point: as desktop PC users, we have become addicted to having a large desktop surface and this is something that is dearly missing from my 13.3" laptop. There's no question that having additional screen real-estate would be a good thing. The question is: how bad do we want it? How much would we pay for it and how much bulk would we tolerate to have it. A personal answer to that would be: "paying for it, probably, but carrying 11lbs: no way!".  What's about you? It has been suggested that one practical way of getting more display real estate is to get rid of the keyboard in favor of a touch display with a "virtual keyboard". That basically doubles the display surface and to be fair, it is technically feasible today, if you set aside that it would double the power consumption of the biggest battery killer in a laptop: the screen. If we have a nice pair of tactile displays (think 12" Nintendo DS), there's a potential for a good touch interface. With the graphics capabilities that laptops have today, it could turn out to be great, right?
 

I previously wrote about the "Touch" Bubble and while I recognize that the idea of having a touch interface is visually very attractive, it ultimately needs to make our computing experience better  than what we have today, which is: a keyboard and a mouse. Obviously, it depends on how we use our laptops. For example, I don't really dream of writing this post using a virtual keyboard with a (somewhat) tactile feedback, but if I was looking at photos, I would really enjoy zooming in with a natural gesture instead of going for CTRL and +. Now that the first touch display Netbooks are appearing, and with Windows 7 on the horizon, it seems that mass market touch display laptop might be around the corner. And because "touch" on laptops is largely an uncharted territory, now is the best time to come up with ideas: what kind of applications would you like to see on a touch display laptop? I think that the operating system user interface should be the foundation of the touch interface. There are a lot of things that could benefit immediately from a touch display in a laptop: moving windows around, scrolling, resizing.. but it should be done in a way that doesn't reduce the effectiveness of what we already have: a keyboard and a mouse. And that's really hard on a small display. Finger-friendly apps require more display real estate than pointer-based interfaces (bigger icons, contact points...) and that's precisely what's missing on a laptop. Do you remember how big the displays were in "Minority Report"? Oh, sure, the iPhone's display is small, but the "virtual keyboard" compromise is just not acceptable for some. These are very interesting times, as manufacturers continuously try to add value to their products, they are going to experiment, but the thing is: now you get to contribute, so shoot your ideas in the comment section below.