Lenovo Launches Three Value Notebooks At Tech World
We don’t have the full list of available models of these devices yet, but let’s start with the ideapad 100 first. At just $249, it certainly is going to be easy on the wallet. It is available in a 14-inch model which is 20.2 mm thick, and a 15-inch model which is 22.6 mm thick. It is powered by the Intel Pentium N3540, which is a BayTrail-M class part. This is a four core model which has a base speed of 2.16 GHz and a turbo frequency of 2.66 GHz. The specifications do say “up to” the N3540 though, so the assumption is that the base model will be something else. The display is what you would expect in a budget offering with a 1366x768 resolution, and likely a TN panel. Somewhat surprisingly you can get up to 8 GB of memory, and up to 500 GB of storage through a hard disk drive or 128 GB with a solid state drive. It seems to have all of the connectivity covered with two USB ports (one 3.0, one 2.0), HDMI out, a 4-in-1 card reader, and somewhat surprisingly an Ethernet jack. On the downsides, the battery life from the 30 Wh battery is rated at just four hours, and the weight is hefty at 4.2-5.1 lbs depending on the model.
| Lenovo ideapad 100 | ||
| 14-inch | 15-inch | |
| Processor | Up to Pentium N3540 BayTrail-M 4 core 2.16-2.66 GHz | |
| Display | 14" 1366x768 | 15" 1366x768 |
| Memory | Up to 8GB DDR3L | |
| Storage | Up to 500GB HDD or 128GB SSD | |
| Connectivity | 1xUSB3.0, 1xUSB2.0, HDMI, Card Reader, RJ-45 | |
| Wireless | 802.11n 2.4GHz, BT 4.0 | |
| Battery | 30 Wh, Up to 4 hours | |
| Dimensions | 340 x 237.8 x 20.2mm (13.39 x 9.33 x 0.8 inches) | 378 x 265 x 22.6mm (14.88 x 10.43 x 0.89 inches) |
| Weight | 1.9kg (4.19lbs) | 2.3kg (5.07lbs) |
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 Update | |
| Price | Starting at $249 | |
It is certainly a budget offering, but for many people this will likely fit the bill. It’s surprising they could only fit a 30 Wh battery in though on an up to 5 lb laptop, and a larger battery would make this a lot more appealing for people who need something on the go.
Lenovo ideapad 100 15
The Z41 and Z51 models ramp up the price, but offer quite a bit more potential as well. The Z41 is a 14-inch laptop, and the Z51 is the 15-inch model and both have 1080p panels, but it is not stated whether they are TN or IPS. The processing power on tap is quite a bit more than the ideapad 100 (yes it is written in all lower case in the press release) with Intel Broadwell Core i7 as the top processor available. Once again it is “up to” i7, so expect the base model to come with something less than that. The base models of both use integrated graphics from Intel, but both can be outfitted with a discrete GPU. The Z41 is available with the AMD R7-M360, and the Z51 bumps that up to the AMD R9-M375. Memory is up to 16 GB of DDR3L, and storage is up to 1 TB of HDD or SSHD. The Z models have two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, HDMI, a 4-in-1 card reader, VGA, and once again, an Ethernet jack. Wireless is 802.11ac as well. The 15-inch model will even be available with an optional Intel RealSense 3D camera system which should set it up for Windows Hello login when Windows 10 ships. The integrated 41 Wh battery is once again just rated for four hours though, so this is not going to be the best device for someone on the go. The 14-inch model is also a rather hefty 4.63 lbs, and the 15-inch comes in at 5.07 lbs. It is available in ebony black or chalk white, with the 14-inch model also available in crimson red.
| Lenovo Z41/Z51 | ||
| Z41 | Z51 | |
| Processor | Up to 5th Gen Intel Core i7 | |
| Display | 14" 1920x1080 | 15" 1920x1080 |
| Memory | Up to 16GB DDR3L | |
| Storage | Up to 1TB HDD or 1TB SSHD | |
| Optional GPU (base is iGPU) | AMD R7-M360 | AMD R9-M375 |
| Connectivity | 2xUSB3.0, 1xUSB2.0, HDMI, Card Reader, RJ-45, VGA | |
| Wireless | 802.11ac, BT 4.0 | |
| Battery | 41 Wh, Up to 4 hours | |
| Dimensions | 347 x 249 x 24.4mm (13.66 x 9.8 x 0.96 inches) | 384 x 265 x 24.6mm (15.12 x 10.43 x 0.97 inches) |
| Weight | 2.1kg (4.63 lbs) | 2.3kg (5.07 lbs) |
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 Update | |
| Price | Starting at $499 | |
Lenovo Z41
The idealpad 100 models will be available online and in retail stores in June, and once again starts at just $249. The Z41 and Z51 are also going to be available in June, starting at $499 for both models. The Z51 with Core i5, 8 GB of memory, and the RealSense 3D camera starts at just $599.
| AMD M300 Series GPU Specification Comparison | |||||
| R9 M375 | R7 M360 | ||||
| Was | Variant of R9 M270/M260 | Variant of R7 M270/M260 | |||
| Stream Processors | 640 | 384 | |||
| Texture Units | 40 | 24 | |||
| ROPs | 16 | 4? | |||
| Boost Clock | <=1015MHz | <=1015MHz | |||
| Memory Clock | 2.2GHz DDR3 | 2GHz DDR3 | |||
| Memory Bus Width | 128-bit | 64-bit | |||
| VRAM | <=4GB | <=4GB | |||
| GPU | Cape Verde | Oland | |||
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 28nm | TSMC 28nm | |||
| Architecture | GCN 1.0 | GCN 1.0 | |||
Depending on the prices with discrete GPUs, these could work out to be reasonable priced laptops with some gaming potential as well. We’ll have to wait and see how the pricing works out for those models though.
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Cortana Going Cross Platform And Windows 10 Will Support Android And iOS Devices
This should not be very surprising since the Redmond based company has moved quickly over the last year or so to bring most of its services to iOS and Android, and Cortana is just the next step. Just like with Cortana on Windows Phone, you can use it to track flights, check sports scores, or use the geo-fencing to set location based reminders. Unlike Windows Phone though, the deeper integration with Cortana such as “Hey Cortana” voice activation or the ability for Cortana to perform actions within other applications is not going to be possible on the third-party systems.
This is really an integration piece for using Cortana on your PC. Many of us have PCs, and with Windows 10 the digital assistant will be front and center, but Microsoft is certainly aware that Windows Phone does not have the market penetration to allow Cortana to be used wherever you are. Allowing this capability on any device is actually a pretty smart move. Odds are that it won’t be replacing Siri or Google Now any time soon, but it will allow you to set a reminder from your PC to get milk when you are near the store, and your phone will notify you when you are near, even if you are not 100% in the Microsoft ecosystem.
The other half of this story is the integration of iOS and Android into Windows 10, and for that Microsoft is going to be launching a companion app for Windows 10 which will work with Android, iOS, or Windows Phone. When you launch the companion app, you can choose which kind of smartphone you have, and the app will allow you to download the relevant Microsoft apps to let you sync your desktop world with your phone. We’ll have to wait and see how this app works, but it appears to be a portal to install Microsoft services on your smartphone, which is something you don’t really need an app for. According to the screenshot, it should also support file sync as well.
Once you have the apps, things like OneDrive can be used to store and share your files, OneNote can be used for notes, Skype and Office can be used for communication and documentation, and of course Outlook will be installed for email. Whether or not this is important depends of course on how much you already use these services, and if you already use these services then you likely have the apps, but I suppose this is just one more way to promote those services on the competing platforms.
The interesting one is Music though, which got an update a little while ago on Windows Phone to allow free streaming of your music collection just by saving the files in OneDrive. Prior to this, the only way to stream music was with the Xbox Music Pass, which is a yearly or monthly subscription. This feature will now be coming to an updated version of the Music app on Android and iOS as well, so if you are into music and want to be able to stream for free to your phone, this could be a nice solution for that.
The Phone Companion app will be coming soon to Windows 10 through the Insider Program. Most of the apps are already available for iOS and Android, but Cortana support will be coming at the end of June for Android and later in the year for iPhone. The updated Music app is supposed to be out near the end of June or July.
Source: Windows Blog
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Microsoft Partners With 20 More Vendors To Pre-Install Apps On Android Tablets
Microsoft's list of partnered companies mostly consists of regional manufacturers that serve a specific country. However, both LG and Sony appear on the list, which means that Microsoft's apps will be shipping on future devices to countries all over the world. The press release specifically states that Sony's Xperia Z4 tablet will begin shipping with the apps within 90 days, and states that a future tablet from LG will include them as well.
Microsoft's partnerships represent a new direction for a company that once used their suite of Office apps as a way to lead users to Windows devices. You can view the entire list of new partner companies in the source below.
Source: Microsoft via The Verge
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Microsoft Edge Gains SIMD Support, Dolby Audio, And More
Edge is not a completely new browser. Internet Explorer was based on the Trident web rendering engine, and the Chakra ECMAscript engine, and these continue to be the basis of Edge as well. However Edge will not have any of the legacy compatibility requirements of Internet Explorer, which has allowed the company to strip out a lot of unnecessary code. According to Microsoft, over 220,000 lines of code have been removed to strip out the features that are no longer part of the modern web. This includes things like ActiveX extensions, Browser Helper Objects, IE Document Modes, Vector Markup Language, VBScript, and more. For a full listing, check out their blog post here. They obviously did not just stop at removing old code though, and over 300,000 new lines of code have been added for 49 new features and over 4000 interoperability fixes.
Microsoft is pushing Edge as a standards compliant browser, and they have quite a bit of work to do in this regard since Internet Explorer, even at the latest version 11, did not support a lot of the standards that were upcoming. This is always a moving target, and in the past browser upgrades were slow to happen if they happened at all. IE seemed stuck out of sync with the rest of the browsers. The company seems to want to avoid that going forward, and one of the ways this will happen is that Edge can now be updated through the Windows Store, which should allow them to quickly and easily roll out updates and fixes. One thing they want to avoid if possible is vendor prefixes for experimental APIs. They will still have to support some, since they are in use on many pages, but going forward they want to eliminate any new MS prefixes if they can, and instead will be offering experimental API support through feature flags.
Chakra is the browser’s scripting engine, and it is getting a lot of updates as well. One of the most requested is the addition of Asm.js to the browser. Asm.js is a sublanguage which allows sandboxed execution of memory-unsafe languages. Toolchains are available to convert C/C++ code into Asm.js, and technologies which leverage this are things like WebGL and gaming engines like Unity and Unreal. These new features will also bring Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) support to Chakra, and Microsoft got assistance with this work from Intel, so it will likely leverage Intel’s SSE extensions. Using the SIMD Mandebrot demo, Edge with SIMD support performs 200-300% faster than Edge without the support enabled, so there is a lot of performance potential here. Intel has also helped reduce navigation time and has helped reduce DOM parse times. SIMD support is something that Intel is also bringing to other browsers, but the main point is that Edge will have it as well, which should promote the use of these kinds of features on the web as a whole.
Back in January I was able to run the new Edge browser code (in IE 11 at the time) through its paces and it really was a large leap forward in performance. On May 20th, Microsoft revealed some of the changes they have made to Chakra to make such large gains. ECMAscript leverages Just-in-Time (JIT) code compliation, which means that the script is compiled into code on the fly, rather than ahead of time (AoT) compilation. Enhancements have been made to Chakra’s ability to move external functions into the running code (function inlining) and especially when the code is defined across JavaScript files. This helps reduce the overhead of function calls, which force the system to push relevant data to the stack, and bring it all back when the function returns. All browsers do this in one way or another, but IE 11 was not efficient at doing this across different script files, so Edge has a big edge here (pun intended). Performance improvements were also brought with some of the changes in ECMAScript 2015, which is the latest iteration the scripting language. It brings about a new data type of a constant value, which was not available in prior versions of the language. Chakra’s JIT compiler will now optimize existing code to identify non-constant variable declarations defined globally, but do not change, and therefore they can be identified as constants to reduce the overhead of lookups. Another big change is a how Arrays are handled, and here Chakra in Edge is up to five times faster than IE 11.
Chakra Execution PipelineA new feature that is currently unique to Edge is the ability to support Multi-Channel audio through Dolby Audio. Edge will support Dolby Digital Plus and is supported with current DASH (MP4) and HLS (M2TS) file formats. This means that there will be support for both progressive download content and adaptive streaming content. Dolby has a Dolby Audio Experience demo which leverages WebGL if you want to try this out for yourself.
These are just some of the changes coming to Edge. After years of trailing the browser pack, it certainly seems like Microsoft has stepped up their game. Performance is much better in Edge than their outgoing browser, and it is picking up standards support much earlier. Edge already supports 81% of the ECMAscript 2015 features, which leads all other desktop browsers for the moment. HTML 5 standards support is also much improved. Browsers are one of the most important tools we have on any device, and it looks like Windows 10 is going to bring its best forward. I can't say I love the icon, but that can always be changed.
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The ASUS Zenfone 2 Review
ASUS is not new to the smartphone market. Since the days of Windows Mobile (not the new Windows Mobile) they've been selling smartphones. But when it comes to Android devices they've been primarily focused on tablets. ASUS worked with Google to design and manufacture both generations of the Nexus 7, which was beloved by Android enthusiasts. Their Padfone devices were an attempt to have a smartphone that attached to a tablet shell to make a sort of 2-in-1 smartphone and tablet. But only recently has the company started making a serious push into the Android smartphone space. Their ZenFone line of phones consists of several devices, with the newest being the ZenFone Zoom and the ZenFone 2, the latter being the device I'm looking at today. Read on for my full review of the ASUS ZenFone 2.
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SanDisk Releases Z400s SSD for Mainstream PCs & Embedded Applications
Embedded devices still rely heavily on hard drives because the upgrade cycles tend to be long and the cost of SSDs hasn't been low enough to attract interest over hard drives. Most embedded devices often have only one key function, which is why the market hasn't seen SSDs as a viable solution until recently when low-capacity SSDs have become cost competitive with hard drives. Because the applications don't typically need more than a few dozen gigabytes, SanDisk is offering the Z400s in capacities from 32GB to 256GB in a variety of form factors including M.2 and mSATA. The reason why SanDisk isn't offering any higher capacity options is because the average client SSD capacity is still well below 256GB (~180GB according to SanDisk's own research), so since the Z400s is aimed for the hard drive replacement crowd the company wanted to keep the available options as low cost as possible.
As usual, SanDisk isn't disclosing the controller inside the Z400s, but given SanDisk's history I would guess it's a 4-channel Marvell silicon, although I wouldn't be surprised to see a Silicon Motion or JMicron controller for further cost reductions (Marvell's controllers are relatively expensive compared to others). The Z400s turns out to be SanDisk's, and world's, first SSD to utilize 15nm NAND, which has certainly spent a long time in making. I posted a preliminary analysis on Toshiba-SanDisk's 15nm NAND in last August, but we'll know more once the drives ship and the die is put under a microscope. From what I have heard the supply of 15nm is still very limited, but we should see more products based on it in the coming months.
The Z400s has already been validated by a handful of key embedded PC manufacturers, including Intel's NUC and Gigabyte's Brix divisions that focus on small form factor PCs. That said, despite being focused on the embedded market the Z400s hasn't been validated for industrial use (large temperature scale, heavy vibration, humidity etc), so it's strictly for applications used in normal environments (e.g. a point of sale in a grocery store). While that somewhat limits the market, there are many applications that will certainly enjoy the benefits of higher reliability and performance that SSDs bring to the table. All in all, I don't really follow the embedded space enough to know how big the market is, but I do see it being a growing niche in the future. Given that SanDisk is an SSD-only company, it's logical for it to pursue smaller niches and markets that aren't overly populated yet because it can't rely on other operations for revenue growth (and due to SanDisk's recent stock performance, it's clear that the company needs to widen its revenue base).
The Z400s is entering mass production next month with availability being later in the summer. It will be available through the channel too, but since it's not exactly a retail product like the Ultra II SanDisk isn't publishing any pricing details at this point.
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Charter Pays $56B for Time Warner Cable, in 3-Way Merger Bid w/ Bright House
Malone has crafted a three-way deal worth $66B USD, which would created America's third largest telecommunications firm, if approved
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Report: Ninth Generation iPhones Get Force Touch
New pressure sensitive multi-touch technology may make its way to the iPhone, iOS 9
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