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• In addition to Skype 4.0, bundled software includes Sun Microsystem’s OpenOffice-based StarOffice. StarOffice includes word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation and drawing applications. StarOffice apps are able to save files in Microsoft Office 97-2003 format. If you and/or your users can overcome any Microsoft Office related biases, StarOffice or other free OpenOffice implementations will easily provide more than enough office computing functionality. Add Mozilla’s free Thunderbird implementation for email, and you’ve got a fully outfitted office computer for around $375 at the time of this writing. Well, there is one catch for business computing environments. The 1000HE comes with Windows XP, yes, but it’s XP Home. Computers running XP Home can’t log into or work easily within MS Windows domain networks. I have been able to access workstations and servers on my large, one segment test network, but I have to travel a tangled and winding road to get there. Because single domain logins are not possible, I’ve got to issue passwords for every device I connect to. Because netbook vendors, including ASUS, see netbooks as simple home computers, netbooks aren’t available with Windows business oriented operating systems, such as XP Professional, that give you full access to domain-based networks. Netbook vendors don’t even offer such operating systems as upgrades. I have installed and successfully used both XP Professional and Vista Business and Ultimate, on my ASUS 1000HA. So, it can be done. If you use OS and application image cloning techniques to setup new business computers, you can certainly get XP Pro or another OS on your netbooks with some ease. The cost of upgrading to a business oriented OS, of course, is another issue. If your company has licenses for your OS of choice, costs should be minimal. If not, upgrades could run you around $100 or more. That is, if you can find XP Pro, given that Microsoft has pretty much stopped selling it. Netbook vendors should work out a deal with Microsoft to make XP Pro available for their products, at least until Windows 7 is available. From my perspective, because its days are numbered, Vista isn’t an option for business-based netbooks. There is, of course, another OS option, Linux. With Windows XP grabbing most of the action, fewer and fewer netbooks are available with Linux. My Eee 701 runs KDE’s very nice windows-based Linux workstation client OS. The 701 is bundled with OpenOffice and a ton of other apps, including Firefox and Thunderbird. Its mini-keyboard and small display aside, you can do serious business computing with it. It’s even possible to access MS Windows network resources, but it’s not always easy. If yours is an MS Windows shop, you and your users will probably find Linux workstation clients a bit daunting, at least at first.

• In most of the comparisons we’ve seen, Ion has been pit against either a low-cost Intel G45-based desktop setup or a 945G-series Atom configuration. Given the strength of its IGP, we took it as a foregone conclusion that this setup would outperform Intel’s own mini-ITX D945GCLF2 Atom board (which incidentally costs $80 to the Ion’s $180). So instead, we built a platform that cost the same amount of money, but relied more heavily on desktop-oriented hardware. We used a Gigabyte MA78GPM-DS2H micro-ATX motherboard (AMD 780G chipset with 128 MB side-port memory), AMD’s recently-released Athlon X2 7850 dual-core CPU, and an Enermax ETK405AST 405W power supply—all of which add up to $187, matching the CPU/motherboard/PSU combo being offered by Zotac. Now, the contention from mini-ITX purists is going to be that our micro-ATX build can’t go into the same places. This is true. And we have a recommendation for the folks who just have to have mini-ITX coming up. It’s more expensive, though, and doesn’t make for an ideal performance comparison to Ion as a result. And just to be clear, we would not recommend our AMD-based build as a better HTPC solution. Its lack of multi-channel LPCM audio (we haven’t even been able to get it to pass-through DD or DTS in Windows 7 with the Reaktek HDMI driver) precludes it from most semi-serious home theater efforts. Test HardwareProcessorsIntel Atom 330 (Diamondville) 1.6 GHz, 441-ball FC-BGA, 533 MHz FSBAMD Athlon X2 7850 BE (Kuma) 2.8 GHz, AM2+, 1,800 MHz HT, 2 MB L3 Cache, Power-savings disabledMotherboardsZotac ION-ITX-A-U Nvidia Ion Graphics Processor, BIOS N0508WZTGigabyte MA78GPM-DS2H (AM2+) 780G/SB700, BIOS F4MemoryCorsair 4 GB (2 x 2 GB) DDR2-1066 5-5-5-15Hard DriveIntel X25-M 80 GB SATA 3 Gb/s Flash SSDGraphicsNvidia GeForce 9300ATI Radeon HD 3200 w/ 128 MB Side-Port MemoryPower Supply Enermax ETK405AST 405W ATX12V v.2.2System Software And DriversOperating SystemWindows Vista Ultimate Edition x86, Service Pack 1 / Windows 7 Release Candidate x86DirectX DirectX 10Platform/Graphics DriverGeForce/Ion 185.85 for Vista/Win7Catalyst 9.4 for Vista/Win7 Benchmarks and Settings3D GamesLeft 4 DeadQuality settings set to Low, 1280x720/720x480, latest Steam version, timed demo.World of WarcraftQuality settings set to Fair, 1280x720/960x600 (Ion) and 800x600 (780G platform), Patch 3.1.1, Ironforge circuit, Fraps (120 seconds).Audio EncodingiTunesVersion: 8.1, 32-bit, Audio CD ("Terminator II" SE), 53 min., Default format AACLame MP3Version: 3.98 (32-bit), Audio CD ""Terminator II" SE, 53 min, wave to MP3, 160 Kb/sVideo EncodingMainconcept Reference 1.6.1MPEG2 to MPEG2 (H.264), MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG2), Audio: MPEG2 (44.1 KHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Mode: PAL (25 FPS), Profile: Tom’s Hardware Settings for Qct-CoreApplicationsWinrar 3.80Version 3.80, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334 MB)Winzip 12Version 12, Compression=Best, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334 MB)Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings3DMark VantageVersion: 1.02, GPU and CPU scoresPCMark VantageVersion: 1.00, System, Memory, Hard Disk Drive benchmarks, Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3CPU Test=CPU Arithmetic/MultiMedia, Memory Test=Bandwidth Benchmark

• We were not able to get more details how far Silverthorne will scale in the end. Intel said that the CPU is expected to stay with us for at least five to six years, supported by several fine-tunings over time. When asked directly what clock speed the processor will actually be able to handle, we were simply told that the "silicon is capable of high frequencies." We leave it up to overclockers to determine what this exactly means, but there appears to be lots of headroom for Silverthorne. We saw a non-cooled CPU running in Intel's labs at 1.2 GHz with a 100% application load, showing a temperature of 43 degrees Celsius. Admitted, this was a test environment without cases and the chip will certainly run hotter inside a MID enclosure. But we also saw the 1.2 GHz chip running without trouble at (an artificially increased) temperature of 90 degrees Celsius - which indicates that overclockers will have a lot of fun with this CPU (which, by the way, looks like a great processor for small form factor systems as well). Power consumption as low as 80 milliwatts Silverthorne is not a chip that aims to set new performance records, but rather to provide good-enough performance in MIDs. The focus of the development was a power-efficient design. Aside from the plain specs, Intel loaded the processor with power reduction technologies, which ultimately achieved the 2 watt-goal (we discuss the 2.4 watt version in the software technology section below). Atom comes with dynamic L2 cache sizing, power-efficient specialized execution units and the same fine-grained power management that is used in the Core 2 Duo. There are five different power states, ranging from a reduction of the core voltage to shutting down the core clock as well PLL, L1 and L2 caches. In idle power (C6 power state), Intel claims that the Z500 will consume just 80 milliwatts (all other versions: 100 milliwatts). Since these communication devices will remain in idle state most of the time in typical use patterns, Intel estimates that the average power consumption of these processors will end up at 160 milliwatts (Z500) or 220 milliwatts (all other models). How much these chips will actually consume and how long your MID battery life will be, depends on how you use such a device, of course. What Intel has achieved with Menlow is impressive on the one side, but there will be many people who will argue that it has not been enough. In a lab environment, we saw Silverthorne running the Windows Pinball game in idle (C6) mode - which means that playing this simple game will still yield low power consumption. But we are certain that battery time will be one of the major roadblocks for MIDs. If you think about the fact that first-generation MIDs will come with a battery capacity similar to that of the iPhone, but a 5" screen and more powerful hardware, it is only logical to conclude that the battery time of these devices will be less impressive. Officially, we were told that these MIDs will not be able to achieve the battery time of an iPhone: If you can empty an iPhone in three hours under heavy use, you may be able to do the same with an MID in two. Intel promises that the battery time will improve in product generations, which includes the second-gen platform "Moorestown" which, by the way, will also target smartphones. Integrated Graphics Chipset: A big System Controller Hub Combined with the Poulsbo chipset, Atom represents the "Menlow" platform, which succeeds the "McCaslin" UMPC platform that was based on the A100/A110 processors. Poulsbo has received the strange name of "SCH" and has its origins in the 915 (including the ICH M7 southbridge) chipset. This chipset was has been heavily discussed in the Windows Vista Capable Class action lawsuit, as it is considered the reason why Microsoft released "Ready" and "Capable" versions of the Windows Vista operating system. It was not an especially powerful technology at the time and certainly underpowered to run all features of Windows Vista. The specs of SCH include a maximum display resolution of 1366x768 (LVDS), hardware accelerated video output (standard definition video output of 1280x1024 and high definition video output of 720p, 1080i), eight USB 2.0 ports, support for up to 2 GB DDR2-533 memory, SD IO v1.1 (for SD memory card support), two PCIe X1 ports, as well as an IDE ATA-100 (PATA) connector. It is a very traditional chipset design overall, but Poulsbo has a big focus on power consumption as well and some unique features in this respect: There is a newly designed FSB-to-memory bridge, which reduces the write traffic to DRAMs in order to keep DRAMs in self-refresh mode as long as possible. Intel's engineers were able to re-use about half of the ICH 7 M southbridge fabric (to provide BIOS consistency). In this version, it runs at only 33 MHz, while the regular ICH 7 M is clocked at 125 MHz. In case you are wondering, the ICH southbridge is maxed out at a front side bus speed of 533 MHz. There are a few other interesting facts about this chipset. First, we were surprised to hear that it is actually produced in a 130 nm production process, which is three generations behind the 45 nm process used for Atom. Intel said that it is actually cheaper for the company to manufacture it in 130 nm than in any other process that was available, but the downside is that the chipset is large in size (22 mm x 22 mm package). While the Atom processor is about the size of a penny, the SCH is larger than a quarter. The SCH's substantial size is one of the main reasons why Atom isn't targeting smartphones at this time - it is simply too large for an iPhone-like device. Also, mass storage is supported only through a PATA interface. This decision was made as Intel did not know whether SATA or CE-ATA would prevail in this class of devices at the time this chipset was developed. So don't expect SATA SSDs in MIDs - which may actually not be a bad thing, as PATA SSDs are not only cheaper, but also consume less power than versions that connect through SATA. Read on the next page: Atom Software: Betting on Linux and dumping Windows, Performance estimates