AMD says forget Tablets & Smartphones, Notebooks are the Must Have

[caveman-jim]

With one announced Windows 8 tablet and 125 Windows 8 design wins claimed, is it any wonder AMD are focusing on the Notebook?

I love smartphones and tablets. Their innovation has made as much of a mark on the early 21st century as laptops did late in the 20th century. There is no question that smartphones and tablets are enjoying an amazing ride, and for a good reason. They merge a lot of functionality in one – a phone, GPS, a camera and a whole lot of other things, including entertainment, and make it really simple for users to do bite size transactions on a whim.

I still strongly believe in the need for a PC, however. We live in a multi-device world where we use different screen sizes for different purposes, as each of those screen sizes best serves a specific need. We use smartphones to feel connected all the time, tablets to have access to a suite of on-demand entertainment, and TV for passive entertainment.

I have many friends who are likely going to upgrade their smartphone soon. But there has never been a holiday tech shopping season quite like the one ahead for 2012: there is an amazing array of new technologies and capabilities even in the more established product categories like notebooks. Against a crowded list of new comer devices, it is easy to forget what an incredible device the notebook PC is today. It is the only device that lets us freely consume AND create content, all at an affordable price, with a remarkable set of software programs, peripherals and compatibility. I use my smartphone to take pictures and videos, but use my laptop to edit and watch them. If I have a choice of typing an email on my smartphone or my laptop, I would much rather do it on my laptop – it’s just faster and more comfortable. In addition to this, the PCs are evolving with Windows 8 to bring customers familiar smartphone features like touch screens, apps, instant-on activation, long battery life, and a whole lot of simplicity. Not to mention even more GPU acceleration than ever.

I have been hearing a lot of talk about how smartphones are eating into PC sales and how people will not need PCs because smartphones now have enough computing power for all our needs. In my opinion, that belief is misguided given the different purposes they serve. To that end, I put together this technology comparison chart that shows the difference between the latest smartphones and the latest AMD based laptops in terms of computing power, screen size, connectivity, storage space and price. As a bonus, my attempt at a list of 10 reasons why someone should buy an “old fashioned” notebook in addition to upgrading their smartphone. You might find it entertaining and educational at the same time.

See the comparison charts at AMD.com

[teiva]

I find my Motorola Droid RAZR handy to use by I much prefer using a laptop for extended periods. Smartphone screens are still too small, tablets are better because they are bigger but I still prefer a proper keyboard for both text and games. I can't see that changing for me for quite a while.

[metroidfox]

Wow. That seems like a stupid move to me regardless. Hopefully I'm proven wrong.

[Zoolok]

I don't get the point of the article at all... A laptop is better than a phone because it has a bigger screen? Duh? How can those two types of device be compared in the first place?

[Skynet]

AMD says forget smartphones and tablets because we don't have silicon for these markets.

[Sazar]

Wasn't AMD working on mobile device silicon not too long ago?

[Sasquach]

Wasn't AMD working on mobile device silicon not too long ago?

AFAIK they didnt after they sold their imageon stuff to Qualcomm.
Once the whole smartphone/tablet sector blew up theyve been trying to get their low end x86 APU's down to fit the power/cost/performance requirements of a tablet design. But they havent really been able to scale down the trinity design close to an ARM SoC.

I think the trinity Z60 is the only one they have that won a tablet design......

[caveman-jim]

AFAIK they didnt after they sold their imageon stuff to Qualcomm.
Once the whole smartphone/tablet sector blew up theyve been trying to get their low end x86 APU's down to fit the power/cost/performance requirements of a tablet design. But they havent really been able to scale down the trinity design close to an ARM SoC.

I think the trinity Z60 is the only one they have that won a tablet design......

Quite a lot wrong in this post, after the initial correct statement - AMD sold off the ATI hand held division which included TV's.

Low end APU's aren't Trinity, that's high end. The low end is the Bobcat architecture, and is found in the Brazos boards. These are E, C, Z series APU's. The first tablet APU, Z-01 wasn't as popular as you'd have thought, mostly because configurations like C-60 were only a little more power but a lot more capable. The Z-60 APU takes the performance of the C-60 and pushes it's power 1W less than the Z-01, quite a nice improvement. There are a dozen or more Brazos tablet designs out there, including the latest Z-60 based one announced recently - which still is nothing to do with Trinity, as it's Bobcat architecture made at TSMC on 40nm process.

[Zoolok]

I have the impression that the author of the text thinks that cellphone makers are promoting cellphones as replacements for laptops and desktops, and here he is trying to prove them wrong? I haven't heard any major cellphone maker promoting their devices as replacements for computers?

[ET]

Lots of things wrong with that post.

First thing, what about the desktops? The way he's talking, the laptop is the only device which can be used for general purpose computing, and therefore you need one alongside your smartphone/tablet. Quite the contrary, IMO. With a smartphone/tablet serving the mobile needs, the need for a mobile PC is lessened.

Secondly, why compare to a smartphone and not a tablet? The tablet is cheaper than a high end phone, has a larger screen, and when paired with a keyboard (and there are quite a few cases with a keyboard) is much closer to a laptop than a phone can be.

Mobile CPU's are now reaching the power of an AMD E-350 APU, both for the CPU and GPU side. (That's based on the latest Exynos 5 5250 information and benchmarks.) Sure, AMD is still slightly ahead of the curve (when you can discount power use, as you can in notebooks), but the ARM ecosystem is not far behind.

The thing is, the general message is okay, there's still need for more powerful machines and larger screens. But the message as it is written looks so bad that it feels like a panic response and nothing else.