Intel’s first foray into hybrid processors using Foveros 3D stacking technology did not end well with the company just announcing the end of the life for Lakefield hybrid processors. But the company is not giving up on hybrid technology, and a recent leak shows the Intel Alder Lake family comprised of more powerful mobile hybrid processors will be offered for a wide range of applications from tablets with 5-7W M5 processors and up to “muscle laptops” or mobile workstations (MWS) with H55 processor at 45-55W TDP. Alder Lake hybrid processors will be comprised of high-performance CPU “Golden Cove” cores and energy-efficient Atom-based “Gracemont” CPU cores, in a way that’s similar to Arm’s Cortex-A7x big cores and Cortex-A5x LITTLE cores with big.LITTLE or DynamIQ processing with the goal of optimizing power consumption. The Intel Alder Lake Mobile SKU stack includes processors for 6 market segments including three “new” segments/TDP ranges according […]
Linux 5.13 Release – Notable changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V architectures
Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.13: So we had quite the calm week since rc7, and I see no reason to delay 5.13. The shortlog for the week is tiny, with just 88 non-merge commits (and a few of those are just reverts). It’s a fairly random mix of fixes, and being so small I’d just suggest people scan the appended shortlog for what happened. Of course, if the last week was small and calm, 5.13 overall is actually fairly large. In fact, it’s one of the bigger 5.x releases, with over 16k commits (over 17k if you count merges), from over 2k developers. But it’s a “big all over” kind of thing, not something particular that stands out as particularly unusual. Some of the extra size might just be because 5.12 had that extra rc week. And with 5.13 out the door, that obviously means […]
Topton L4 mini laptop comes with a 7-inch 1024 x 600 display
I remember many years ago, I had an Acer Aspire One D255E netbook with a 10.1-inch display with 1024 x 600 resolution. I liked its portability, but the performance was rather poor and I got headaches with the 600-pixel vertical resolution, and some badly designed programs, such as USB firmware flashing tools, would not show fully on the display and be unusable. Well almost ten years later, I’m happy to report you too can experience the same pain, with Topton L4 mini laptop equipped with a 7-inch touchscreen display offering a 1024 x 600 resolution. On the plus side, it comes with an Intel Celeron J3455 processor, 8GB RAM, and up to 1TB SSD storage, as well as a webcam and Lenovo TrackPoint-like pointing stick both of which are pretty rare on 7-inch laptops. Topton L4 mini laptop specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron J3455 quad-core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.50 […]
Intel Core i7-1195G7 Tiger Lake mobile processor reaches up to 5 GHz
Intel introduced the Tiger Lake family of processors last September with the 7-15W UP4-Series SoCs, and the more powerful 12-28W UP3-Series processors. The company has announced two new Tiger Lake processors at Computex 2021 with the Core i5-1155G7 and Core i7-1195G7 U-Series with the latter reaching up to 5.0 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost on a single core to compete and in some cases outperform AMD Ryzen 5000-series mobile processors. While reaching 5GHz on a 28W processor is a nice milestone, nothing much has changed as we can see from the table above, except for tweaks in the CPU and GPU frequency. The base frequency has actually been slightly lowered in the new part, but the Turbo frequencies for single-core and all cores have been increased. Intel did share some performance slides comparing a Core i7-1195G7 system to one with AMD Ryzen 7 5800U. The first slide shows casual gaming […]
Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 SoC for laptops and Chromebooks
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 SoC for entry-level laptops and Chromebooks follows the steps of the Snapdragon 7c processor with a slightly higher frequency for the Kryo 468 cores, leading to a 6% performance improvements. As we’ll see below, most of the specifications are exactly the same, except the built-in Snapdragon X15 LTE modem is now listed as supporting LTE Cat 14 up to 600 Mbps, instead of LTE Cat 15 up to 800 Mbps, and UFS downgraded to UFS 2.1 from UFS 3.0. Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 specifications: CPU – Octa-core Kryo 468 (Cortex-A76) processor up to 2.55 GHz GPU – Unnamed Qualcomm Adreno GPU (Note: Snapdragon 7c had Qualcomm Adreno 618 GPU) DSP – Qualcomm Hexagon 692 DSP Memory – 2x 16-bit LPDDR4x-4266 Storage – eMMC 5.1, UFS 2.1 Display On-device display up to QXGA (2048 x 1536) @ 60 Hz External display up to QHD (2560×1440) @ […]
Framework Laptop upgradable, repairable & modular laptop pre-orders opened for $799 and up
Most laptops are not made to be serviced by the end-users or expanded. In the part of the world where I live, I still have a “warranty void” sticker if I open my laptop to add an M.2 SSD. There are very few laptops with full documentation and whose companies encourage users to update and modify the hardware. Olimex TERES-I and MNT Reform 2 open-source hardware laptops do offer modularity, customization, and repairability, but they are based on low-power Arm processors and cater to a rather niche market. However, a new company called Framework is preparing to launch a modular laptop that is easily upgradeable and repairable with a more powerful set of features. The Framework laptop is offered with a choice of 11th generation Intel Tiger Lake Core processor, up to 64GB RAM, up to 4TB SSD storage, a 13.5-inch display, a Full HD webcam, a 55Wh battery, and […]
$300 NANOTE P8 is a 7-inch mini laptop with an Apollo Lake processor
NANOTE P8 is an affordable mini laptop powered by an Intel Pentium N4200 Apollo Lake processor coupled with 8GB RAM, 64GB storage, and equipped with a 7-inch Full HD display. While there are now plenty of mini laptops from companies like GPD or One Netbook they tend to be relatively pricey as they offer hardware with specifications suitable for gaming. Nanote mini laptop launched last year offered a low-cost option for $185, but with an Atom x5 Cherry Trail processor performance was really on the low-side, and the new Nanote P8 offers a mid-range option so-to-speak. NANOTE P8 (UMPC-02-SR) specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium N4200 quad-core Apollo Lake processor @ 1.1 / 2.5 GHz (Turbo) with 2MB cache, Intel HD 505 graphics; 6W TDP System Memory – 8GB RAM Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Display – 7-inch touchscreen display with 1920×1200 resolution, 360-degree hinge Video Output – […]
Huawei Qingyun L410 Linux laptop is powered by Kirin 990 Arm processor
While it’s already possible to purchase an Arm Linux laptop like PineBook Pro, the Rockchip RK3399 processor, and 4GB RAM may be limiting to some, especially when wanting to multitask. But most likely out of necessity, Huawei has unveiled a more powerful Arm Linux laptop with Huawei Qingyun L410 powered by a 7nm Kirin 990 octa-core Cortex A76/A55 processor, coupled with 8GB RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and a 14-inch display. Huawei Qingyun L410(L410 KLVU-WDU0) preliminary specifications: SoC – Hisilicon Kirin 990 octa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.86GHz, 2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.09GHz, 4x Cortex A55 @ 1.86GHz, Arm Mali-G76MP16 @ 700 MHz, DaVinci NPU System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4-4266 Storage – Up to 512 UFS of storage (SSD or UFS 3.0 TBC) Display – 14-inch 2K display with a 3:2 aspect ratio Camera – “hidden camera” Video – 4K 60fps video support Misc – Fingerprint sensor Dimensions – […]