CES 2009: Seeking The Secrets Of Diminutive Widgets

Last week’s writeup assessing Intel’s short- and long-term fortunes in the netbook and nettop era specifically mentioned several systems based on both Intel and AMD microprocessors. I got a chance to see them (along with others…keep reading) on the show floor, but I’ll begin with an Atom-based system I didn’t mention before.

Sony’s VAIO P is a 1.4 lb notebook PC containing built-in GPS capabilities and a 8-inch widescreen LCD with a 2.08:1 aspect ratio and 1600×768 pixel resolution. In striving to differentiate the product from sub-$300 netbooks, Sony wasn’t forthright with the CPU details. But when the booth representatives were looking the other way, a few deft minutes with my new Panasonic digicam and Windows Vista’s Device Manager surmounted the porous PR barriers and revealed the unit’s predictable Atom nexus (though I confess I was far less impressed with my stealth after I learned that someone’s already done a product teardown):

As you can see, the VAIO P is based on a dual-core Atom CPU, Intel’s Z520 variant. It runs at 1.33 GHz, versus 1.6 GHz with the Atom N270 that I tested in last week’s cover story. Unlike the N270, it also mates up with a single-chip graphics-inclusive core logic product known as the System Controller Hub. Intriguingly, Sony was able to shoehorn Windows Vista Home Premium into a 2 GByte system memory footprint. See for yourself, though, the resultant Windows Experience Index rating.

Here’s another Atom Z520-based notebook PC, the 13.4" widescreen LCD-inclusive MSI X-Slim X320 (which I referred to last week as the X-Slim 320). Its commonality with the MacBook Air is apparent, I think, although amusingly the booth representative claimed that Apple "stole" the Air design from MSI as a result of Steve Jobs’ visit to the company (and perusal of an early X320 prototype) 1.5 years ago. When I asked the booth representative why it’s taken so long for MSI to get the X320 into production, considering the first-generation Air was introduced a year ago, he was speechless To that point, the X320 won’t be in production until next quarter; among the still-to-be-determined factors is whether the final design will retain this prototype’s aluminum chassis or will instead be swathed in plastic skin.

Unlike their Sony counterparts, MSI’s booth representatives were quite accommodating with my Device Manager perusal request; they even removed the clear plastic ‘box’ surrounding the sole product sample for me As with Sony’s VAIO P, the X320 is chipset-constrained to 2 GBytes of system memory; for this reason, MSI stuck with less resource demanding Windows Vista Home Basic. As I’d previously indicated, Windows 7 shows every indication of being a much more appropriate operating system for memory-constrained system configurations than its Windows Vista predecessor (see, for example, Engadget’s thoughts after putting the Windows 7 public beta build on the VAIO P).

Now let’s switch gears and see what AMD’s Neo partner, HP, is showing. I’d already fondled (albeit briefly) the new Pavilion dv2 during my briefings with AMD the day before; the HP representative staffing the booth let me play to my heart’s content, and I came away cautiously impressed (more on that in a minute). There’s no system memory cap on this design, which was exemplified by two variably optioned representatives. The model above relied on the graphics core integrated within the core logic, while a not-shown version included discrete AMD/ATI graphics.

Here are the stat screenshots for the low-end version; particularly note the 2 GBytes of system memory, the integrated graphics core, and installation of Vista Home Basic. Note, too, the higher Windows Experience Index than the prior 2 GByte-based Sony and MSI systems, a probable reflection of the beefier graphics capabilities of AMD/ATI’s core logic-housed graphics…

And here are the results for the higher-end model: 4 GBytes of system memory, discrete graphics, Vista Home Basic (still), and an even higher Windows Experience Index rating. Note that the dv2 houses a single-core 1.6 GHz CPU; the HP representative admitted that he’d gotten a notable amount of negative feedback from booth visitors regarding the lack of dual-core support, especially since HP insists on calling it a notebook, not a netbook. Is the resistance to a single-core system a reflection of perception, reality or a mix or both?

In closing, here are a few shots of the partner-developed netbooks (Via, unlike AMD and Intel, doesn’t cringe when I use that word) that were on display at Lunch@Pieros on Thursday. Most of ‘em were geriatric C7 CPU-fueled, although I was happy to find a few Nano-based offerings in the mix.

Here’s the Nano-based ‘Trinity’ platform that Via’s positioning against Nvidia’s Ion.

And this table holds several notable goodies. In the bottom right corner is the Nano-based mini-ITX board that I tested in my recent cover story. In the bottom left corner is the pico-ITX board at the core of the ARTiGO kit that I also put through the wringer. And behind it is the similarly (albeit, at 1.5 GHz, faster) C7-equipped ARTiGO A2000, which Via hopes numerous NAS companies will adopt. Via’s promised me that an arriving-soon sample unit for evaluation; I sincerely hope that this experiment turns out better than my last one did…