53 replies to this topic

[Dave Burrell]

I said right up front that Microsoft was willing to sell OEM copies of XP to run on netbooks incapable of running Vista with proficiency. But they dont want to keep selling XP on other machines and end up supporting a broad base of new XP clients that can run Vista.

Microsoft doesnt have to sell XP at all. I'm sure they arent being altruistic, they just dont want to lose sales to linux.

So microsoft isnt restricting netbook specifications. Any netbook maker can put vista or linux on the box and make it any way they want.

Riddle me this, Batman. Why dont the linux based netbooks have higher resolution screens?

Its also worth noting that the difference in price between the best discount and full price on a 1.6GHz Atom is about ten dollars.

So all the system builders in the world, in grave fear of their primary hardware and software providers...didnt put out a high resolution linux netbook over ten bucks?

The rest of the conspiracy theory is a couple of web bloggers with no viable sources speculating, and another 20 quoting them, and another 50 quoting them.

What you have here is an actual first person source letting you know that its not only incorrect, if it happened a thousand intel lawyers would have descended upon the people who created and published these "restrictions", diced them into small bits and eaten them.

Where I think the major source of the "Intel restrictions" seemed to come from were complaints by some system builders that the Atom's chipset and reference designs didnt have as many ports, FSB speeds or expansion capabilities to suit them. I've seen some actual quotes from actual system builders that they felt that Intel was artificially restricting Atoms capabilities by not making the supporting components more robust.

Probably so.

I think the bloggers then mistakenly latched that and the microsoft limits on where they'd be willing to sell XP as some sort of nefarious plot against their netbook buyers.

In any case, its not about that. Its simply that on a 7 or 9" screen, you cant read the text when the resolution is any finer than it is. And there IS a good difference in cost in larger, higher resolution screens.

Despite all the hoopla, you can now buy 10, 10.2, 10.4 and 12" notebooks with all sorts of higher resolutions. So apparently the Wintel embargo has subsided.

Some day when we're all in a sharing mood, I'll tell you guys about the stream of absolutely filthy language that came out of an Intel lawyer when she heard I'd put the word "wintel" on a powerpoint slide.

The only other thing I can offer is...

Excellent info - thanks for posting that. I bought an HP 12" laptop 2 years ago that has worked great, only major improvement would be to put Linux on it but this laptop also has a flip screen that turns it into a tablet with a stylus that does really great handwritten text recognition - I don't know of any linux drivers that support that (yet) so for now I'm stuck with Vista - which is dog slow and takes forever to boot.

[Darth Lefty]

What does anyone think of the idea of getting a netbook and then docking it to use it as a "normal" PC? I have external drives, a monitor, USB hardware, etc and I'm sure a new netbook would blow away my ancient home PC.

[webuser]

I said right up front that Microsoft was willing to sell OEM copies of XP to run on netbooks incapable of running Vista with proficiency. But they dont want to keep selling XP on other machines and end up supporting a broad base of new XP clients that can run Vista.

Microsoft doesnt have to sell XP at all. I'm sure they arent being altruistic, they just dont want to lose sales to linux.

So microsoft isnt restricting netbook specifications. Any netbook maker can put vista or linux on the box and make it any way they want.

Riddle me this, Batman. Why dont the linux based netbooks have higher resolution screens?

Its also worth noting that the difference in price between the best discount and full price on a 1.6GHz Atom is about ten dollars.

So all the system builders in the world, in grave fear of their primary hardware and software providers...didnt put out a high resolution linux netbook over ten bucks?

The rest of the conspiracy theory is a couple of web bloggers with no viable sources speculating, and another 20 quoting them, and another 50 quoting them.

What you have here is an actual first person source letting you know that its not only incorrect, if it happened a thousand intel lawyers would have descended upon the people who created and published these "restrictions", diced them into small bits and eaten them.

Where I think the major source of the "Intel restrictions" seemed to come from were complaints by some system builders that the Atom's chipset and reference designs didnt have as many ports, FSB speeds or expansion capabilities to suit them. I've seen some actual quotes from actual system builders that they felt that Intel was artificially restricting Atoms capabilities by not making the supporting components more robust.

Probably so.

I think the bloggers then mistakenly latched that and the microsoft limits on where they'd be willing to sell XP as some sort of nefarious plot against their netbook buyers.

In any case, its not about that. Its simply that on a 7 or 9" screen, you cant read the text when the resolution is any finer than it is. And there IS a good difference in cost in larger, higher resolution screens.

Despite all the hoopla, you can now buy 10, 10.2, 10.4 and 12" notebooks with all sorts of higher resolutions. So apparently the Wintel embargo has subsided.

1. You keep ignoring the direct Microsoft VP quote in the CNET quote regarding Windows restrictions. That is not parroting a random blog. It was a first person interview with someone who is a VP at Microsoft RIGHT NOW and directly involved with this.

2. They do not offer a Linux notebook with higher specs because it would not be cost effective to make a special hardware model that they could only sell with Linux when most buyers are going to choose the Windows XP model or not buy anything. The would not be able to sell enough of them to make it worth their while if they couldn't sell it with XP.

3. Yes you can buy a NOTEBOOK as you typed with higher resolution, but show me "all sorts of higher resolutions" NETBOOKS that are sold by the vendor with XP preloaded.

4. Most probably won't put Vista on to get around the restrictions because it doesn't work as well as XP on the Atom and there is a market backlash against Vista so they would rather live with the restrictions than install Vista and sell fewer netbooks.

5. Why is there not even one Google search result with an official Microsoft rebuttal about the major blogs posting this back well into 2008 if it isn't true? The only information from Microsoft sounds more like a confirmation. http://news.cnet.com...0155943-56.html
He is saying the same thing as what was posted about XP earlier, but referring to Windows 7 Starter edition instead of XP.
That you used to work at Intel in the past and still talk to friends that work at Intel doesn't relate to what is being said about Microsoft presently. This is mostly about Microsoft. The Microsoft issue is the biggest obstacle.

6. A higher resolution screen can work with at least the larger netbooks depending on what you are using it for. Some people would rather deal with smaller icons and text and gain more screen real estate than having big icons, but have to scroll side to side so much like a cell phone browser. Sony has the Vaio P with 1600X768 resolution, but notice it is only available with Vista, not XP.

7. Microsoft wants to sell Vista and the Netbook manufacturers want XP and they are butting heads with Microsoft saying "If you want XP, you need to do what we say because we know you can't sell enough hardware with only Linux"

[Darth Lefty]

I'm sorry for stepping in your flamewar but consider this:
http://www.tuaw.com/...ed-with-iphone/

[webuser]

I'm sorry for stepping in your flamewar but consider this:
http://www.tuaw.com/...ed-with-iphone/

That's an interesting novelty project but seems too big if you still need to use it with the tiny screen. If you could dock the iPhone when at home and output the screen to an external monitor and increase the resolution on the big monitor so it would make sense to have a big monitor, it would be great.
A smaller, foldable keyboard might make more sense to carry around or just get a Blackberry if you like a tactile keyboard so much that you need this with you on the road.

[Dave Burrell]

What does anyone think of the idea of getting a netbook and then docking it to use it as a "normal" PC? I have external drives, a monitor, USB hardware, etc and I'm sure a new netbook would blow away my ancient home PC.

thats what I do with my current laptop, dock it and use it with a large monitor and external USB TB hard drive.

I don't think netbooks are known for being power houses - you'd be better off getting a regular PC or if you go mobile, a laptop.

[eVader]

I'm sorry for stepping in your flamewar but consider this:
http://www.tuaw.com/...ed-with-iphone/

Sheesh! You will hurt popcorn sales

As to docking a netbook to replace an aging desktop....hmmm dunno. Unless your needs are minimal, I don't think it would be a good idea. I am considering the following setup -

- powerful i7 processor desktop for gaming\photo-video editing\email\web\media player
- 16 or 32 GB SSD netbook for being mobile in the house, around town or on travel.
- Repurposed P4-dual core desktop with 1+ TB of HDD space as a home server that the desktop and netbook have local and remote access to from anywhere. Desktop and netbook could access server to watch a ripped DVD, listen to your music collection or watch TV via SlingPlayer or Orb

It would impact notebook sales but where do we really need the CPU power and performance.

[Darth Lefty]

If you could dock the iPhone when at home and output the screen to an external monitor and increase the resolution on the big monitor so it would make sense to have a big monitor, it would be great.

I really think this is the way things are going to go in the near future... I had a docked laptop at my last job and despite it being Navy-mandated crippleware, the hardware approach was great. Go to a meeting, just pop it out.

[Dave Burrell]

I'm sorry for stepping in your flamewar but consider this:
http://www.tuaw.com/...ed-with-iphone/

interesting

it is too bad the iphone cannot be hooked up to a larger monitor because IMO, the iphone does just as much - and more- then a netbook can do.... and the speaker on the iphone sounds better then the ones included on netbooks

[eVader]

I really think this is the way things are going to go in the near future... I had a docked laptop at my last job and despite it being Navy-mandated crippleware, the hardware approach was great. Go to a meeting, just pop it out.

In the business environment your scenario is ideal and one that a well known local chip manufacturer has embraced for several years reversing the 80/20 desktop\notebook ratio. It certainly has its benefits taking notebook to meetings, travel so long as you can keep people from doing email and IM while in a meeting.

[bunny]

I dont speak for microsoft, but I answered most of your points regarding that company at least once. If that was unsatisfactory, then feel free to believe whatever you want to.

Bottom line: Intel does not restrict its manufacturers in any way on the use of its products, nor does it take away anything from customers who dont play the way they want to. It would be illegal for them to do so.

The root article was from Digitimes, who quoted anonymous Taiwanese computer manufacturers who claimed that Intel restricted the use of the Atom to below a certain panel size. Every other article quoted or referred to the digitimes article or another article that did. Internet urban myth.

For an example of a higher resolution netbook, see the Dell mini 12 with windows XP and a 1280x800 screen. Asus and MSI have netbooks coming available this quarter will have the same resolution.

[webuser]

I dont speak for microsoft, but I answered most of your points regarding that company at least once. If that was unsatisfactory, then feel free to believe whatever you want to.

Bottom line: Intel does not restrict its manufacturers in any way on the use of its products, nor does it take away anything from customers who dont play the way they want to. It would be illegal for them to do so.

The root article was from Digitimes, who quoted anonymous Taiwanese computer manufacturers who claimed that Intel restricted the use of the Atom to below a certain panel size. Every other article quoted or referred to the digitimes article or another article that did. Internet urban myth.

For an example of a higher resolution netbook, see the Dell mini 12 with windows XP and a 1280x800 screen. Asus and MSI have netbooks coming available this quarter will have the same resolution.

Well the Dell Mini 12 and other new netbooks will be worth waiting for then.

[bunny]

Docking a netbook can be a decent option depending on your needs. Most if not all have a VGA output, and a couple of USB ports to attach keyboards, mice and USB drives.

Remember that the atom has roughly the same performance as a 1GHz Pentium III, or modern Celeron 900ULV. Its not too zippy, but good enough for web browsing and open office.

The dual core Atom will have a fair amount of juice, but it wont stand up well to a ~2GHz core 2 duo. I wouldnt look for that in a netbook anytime soon though.

What it would be very good for would be a low power use home server that you can unhook from the big usb drive and take with you when you travel.

I took a slightly different route on the home server front. I got an Asus wireless router with a zippy broadcom chip in it, and loaded dd-wrt on it. So its basically a linux based router with a bunch of features. The router has two USB ports on it and I can mount a USB drive or a USB printer to it, and it can run a lot of standard s/w like bittorrent.

Its even slower than a netbook, but I'm not using any more electricity since the router is on all the time anyhow.

[webuser]

I just noticed the Mini 12 on sale already, but for "some reason" they have limited it to 1GB RAM when many previews netbooks were expandable if the user wished to replace the RAM
http://configure.us....top-inspiron-12

1 GB is enough for XP for most people, but RAM is so cheap and would be another way for Dell to make a few extra dollars on upgrades (Dell products are known for being very configurable) and customers to get the most out of the Netbook.

By the way, I finally found an official Microsoft site with the old restrictions since you believe I am making this up or the other websites created rumors out of thin air with no Microsoft rebuttal.

http://www.microsoft...ews_052008.html

It has been since updated with "less restrictive" restrictions (they have eased on hard drive size to 160GB and apparently resolution now based on the Mini 12 etc), but Microsoft did and still has restrictions regardless of what Intel is or is not doing.

[DougP]

I just noticed the Mini 12 on sale already, but for "some reason" they have limited it to 1GB RAM when many previews netbooks were expandable if the user wished to replace the RAM

One thing that you've got to keep in mind is that the Mini 12 is using the US15W chipset. This chipset has awesome performance when it comes to its super-low power consumption and its ability to decode HD video. Previous netbooks used the 945GSE chipset which is much more power hungry and cannot decode HD video when paired with an Atom processor.

The US15W chipset was not originally designed to go into a traditional laptop form factor. It was meant to go into a "MID".

As a result it has several design limitations such as 1GB of total memory. This wasn't some nefarious plot, but an engineering decision to reduce the cost of the product. The expected market for the chipset was small internet tablets. The concept of a netbook didn't exist when the design was started.