Month: October 2019

Here’s an interesting Chrome OS change coming up considering that I now use a Chromebook with 16 GB of RAM: A new code commit will change how memory is allocated to the Linux environment on Chromebooks with more than 4 GB of RAM. Those devices will see more memory provided to the Linux container…. a lot more, as it stands now.

The code commit description says it all and I was surprised to see that if you have more than 4 GB of memory in your Chromebook, all but 1 GB of it will go towards Linux.

I understand the specific reason noted above that would require this memory allocation change. But it seems a bit excessive when it comes to running Linux on a Chromebook with more than 4 GB of memory. Or rather, it seems like leaving just a single GB of RAM to run Chrome OS on such a device feels too limiting.

What I’d prefer to see (if anyone on the Chromium team cares about my opinion!) is a memory allocation slider in the Linux settings within Chrome OS. This way, I could choose to allocate, for example, 4 GB of memory to Chrome OS and 12 GB to the Linux container on my Acer Chromebook Spin 13 with 16 GB of memory, prior to starting up a new Linux container.

I suppose if you’re coding in Linux, you could just open up the Chromium browser, rather than use Chrome OS to read and search for development documentation.

Even so, the idea for Project Crostini as I understand it is to provide access to Linux apps within the Chrome OS platform, as in using both software platforms simultaneously. Leaving Chrome OS with a single GB of RAM, in this case, feels like it could be a bit detrimental when it comes to performance.

There’s no associated bug to file feedback on this feature change, so until there is one, there’s no way to let the Chromium team how you may feel about this. But I’m sure you’ll sound off in the comments here!

As far as timing, without an associated bug, it’s difficult to say when this change will go live on the Stable Channel. Given that the feature freeze for Chrome OS 79 passed on October 4, my educated guess is that this will be a Chrome OS 80 deliverable. However, I’ll check and confirm when the next version or two of the Stable Channel arrives.

Micron’s consumer brand Crucial is entering the portable SSD market with the new Crucial X8 Portable SSD. The X8 has a USB-C 10Gb/s (USB 3.1 Gen 2) connection and internally uses a NVMe SSD based on the Crucial P1 with QLC NAND flash. The Crucial X8 is intended for general-purpose consumer storage workloads that are mostly read-intensive; even though it can handle up to ~1GB/s read speeds, the use of QLC NAND means it cannot sustain high write speeds for long and videographers would be disappointed. Instead, Crucial is touting the X8 for transferring or backing up files and photos, or for expanding the storage of a video game console.

The SSD inside the X8 is based on the same hardware as the Crucial P1, but with some firmware tweaks to optimize for the expected use cases of external storage rather than as an internal OS drive. The USB to NVMe bridge chip is the ASMedia 2362. Crucial has worked with ASMedia to ensure that all the idle power management features are working behind the bridge, but the peak power draw of the whole drive still requires a USB host port that can supply 5V at up to 1.5A. The case is a combination of aluminum and plastic, and is rated to survive drops onto the floor but is not ruggedized with any water resistance or dust proof rating.

The Crucial X8 is available in 500GB and 1TB capacities. It is supplied with a USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C to USB-A adapter. The warranty period is only 3 years compared to the Crucial P1 SSD’s 5 year warranty, and the X8 doesn’t come with an official write endurance rating. MSRPs for the X8 are substantially higher than current prices for the P1 SSD, but are in line with MSRPs for other high-end portable SSDs: $189.99 for the 1TB and $119.99 for the 500GB model. We expect street prices to be quite a bit lower, since the P1 is currently retailing for around $96 and $67, and USB to NVMe enclosures for a DIY portable SSD are about $25.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Idaho-based memory chipmaker Micron Technology <MU.O> on Thursday challenged rival Intel Corp <INTC.O> with a new line of hard drives aimed at data centers, just as the two companies are on the cusp of formally ending a joint venture of more than a decade that developed the technology.

Micron and Intel worked together starting in 2006 to bring to market what is called 3D cross-point memory technology. The technology uses three-dimensional features on storage chips to make them faster.

Micron said a year ago that it would buy out Intel’s share of the joint venture, called IM Flash Technologies, for $1.5 billion (£1.17 billion)

in cash and the assumption of $1 billion of Intel’s share of the venture’s debt. The deal will close this month, leaving Micron in full control of a factory built in Utah to make the chips.

Hard drives made with the new chips are faster than previous solid-state drives. That has captured the interest of data center owners carrying out computing jobs like deep learning, where artificial intelligence software ingests huge amounts of data to learn new tasks.

Intel released a second generation of its version of the technology earlier this year. Micron is now jumping into the market, testing it with what a handful of customers.

“This is just the very, very beginning,” Micron Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra told Reuters at a launch event in San Francisco. “These kinds of technologies do take multiple years before are they broadly deployed.”

Micron launched its Intel competitor Thursday, a device it calls X100. The device itself is a hard drive that can be plugged directly into a server, and Micron claims it is faster than its rival due in part to a piece of technology called a controller that take instructions from the server’s computing brain about which data to read or write on the hard drive.

Micron developed the controllers internally and is hoping they will set its products apart in the memory market, where supply and demand dynamics can produce dramatic shifts in prices.

Mehrotra’s strategy since taking over as chief executive in 2017 has been to increase the number of storage products that include technologies beyond just commodity memory chips. About half of the company’s storage revenue now comes from such products, versus 20% when he arrived, he said.

“This is hugely attractive,” Mehrotra said of differentiating features. “We are making strong progress there.”

Hidden underneath the mass of news is a new small Pico-ITX based SoC motherboard from GIGABYTE, the GA-PICO3350. Smaller than the latest iPhone 11 smartphone, the GIGABYTE GA-PICO3350 is 100 x 72 mm and includes an Intel Celeron N3350 Apollo Lake SoC processor, with a single SO-DIMM DDR3L slot, and a Realtek ALC887 HD audio codec.

Slightly larger than a Raspberry Pi 3 B+, the new Pico-ITX sized GIGABYTE GA-PICO3350 is based on Intel’s Apollo Lake SoC with an Intel Celeron N3350 dual-core processor which has a base core frequency of 1.1 GHz, with a burst frequency of 2.4 GHz with a TDP of just 6 W. Users can install up to 8 GB of DDR3L-1866 memory into the single SO-DIMM slot, with a single SATA port and single MSATA PCIe connector. The Realtek ALC887 HD audio codec offers two-channels over the front panel header. It also includes plenty of other connectors including a serial port header, an LCDVVC/MON, an LVDS, GPIO, SMBus, and battery cable header.

On the rear panel are a single DC power input, an HDMI port, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and a single Ethernet port powered by an unknown Realtek Gigabit Ethernet controller. The GIGABYTE GA-PICO3350 does include a single M.2 slot on the PCB for users wishing to install a wireless interface which does share bandwidth with the MSATA PCIe connector.

Currently, there is no pricing and availability information available for GIGABYTE’s GA-PICO3350, but we did locate it for sale without a price on German etailer Rosch Computer’s website.

Looking for a cheap gaming desktop deal? Dell’s had a recent string of killer deals on a number of their desktops and laptops. This XPS Tower normally goes for $1,099.99, but Dell is slashing the price down to $685, courtesy of this killer coupon code: XPSDTAFF0. That’s a $400 savings for a solid 1080p budget system.

The XPS Tower has an Intel Core i5-9400, 8GB RAM (upgradable to 64 GB), 1TB HDD, and a GTX 1660—a nice build for budget gamers who still want the room to upgrade. You can play all your favorite games in 1080p at medium presets without major issues. A larger SSD instead of the 256GB one in the build would have been great, but for under $700 that’s still a good list of components.

What we like about the XPS Tower is how upgrade friendly it is. It uses a swing-out power supply (meaning it literally swings out of the case) that lets you easily upgrade your rig without any tools, and with enough room if you want to upgrade to one of the best graphic cards.

At this price, you can easily upgrade this rig with more RAM or a newer, better graphics card with the money you save for Black Friday. We will be painstakingly tracking all the best deals.

I’ve opened and closed foldable phones hundreds of times by now. But even after reviewing the Galaxy Fold (twice), playing with Huawei’s Mate X and bending slim concept designs, nothing has prepared me for TCL’s prototype dual-hinged phone, which folds in three parts and opens into a huge, 10-inch tablet.

The most remarkable thing about TCL’s phone is that the hinges themselves move in different directions. The DragonHinge fold in, like a book, or like the Galaxy Fold, while the Butterfly Hinge folds the opposite way.

The two hinges create a zigzag shape as you open and close the device, a silhouette in Z. It looks like an accordion. Or a taco holder. And I have to get my greedy hands on it to give it a fold, one panel at a time: Open. Folded over once. Completely folded up into a triple-stacked sandwich so that the exposed panel becomes the TCL phone’s “outer” screen. With this design, a single uninterrupted screen does it all.

As with other foldable phones, the act of folding feels physical and visceral in a way that makes me appreciate the engineering feat of any company attempting to make devices whose screens bend in half.

Foldable phones are the next frontier in phone design, delivering at least double the screen space in a package that’s practical enough to tote around. Unfolded, the large screens promise an expansive display for reading, watching videos, gaming and multitasking. Folded up, you can use them on the go. Despite very real fears over screen damage that could send lofty foldable ambitions crashing to the ground, device-makers are scrambling to push out their own new designs — to bag reputation points as much as to capture buyers’ attention.

It’s into this mix that TCL is dropping its wild new prototype. Best known for making really good, affordable TVs, TCL is now aligning its phone business under the same brand. The company has already trotted out concept designs and announced its DragonHinge months before this particular dual-hinge effort.

TCL’s daring trifold prototype is just the start

TCL’s prototype design doesn’t have a name, a price or a target window for production. It doesn’t even have a working screen. All that will come. For now, I’m mesmerized as I work the hinges with my hands, and imagine what it’d be like to use a triply folding device.

Folding one panel under, for example, could turn a portion of the screen into a digital keyboard while you use another part as the display. When you fully close the phone, you’d be able to use it as a really chunky handset.

Yes, you’ll see creases when it’s open — and no, we still don’t have bendable glass to better protect the display. That raises questions about the wear and tear on a device with a plastic cover material that’s exposed to sharp objects, damage from pressure and the elements, like rain and dust. These are the same issues that plagued the $1,980 Galaxy Fold and spurred Samsung to retrofit its foldable phone to make it sturdier than its first attempt.

For now, there’s no consensus on what the “best” foldable phone design is, and that’s what makes this all so exciting. We’re in the Wild West phase where any prototype or concept goes, from the vertically folding Motorola Razr that CNET discovered will come out by the end of 2019, to the square foldable phone that Samsung’s rumored to be building.

Microsoft, too, has its bookish Surface Pro Duo slated for 2020 and Chinese brand Xiaomi wowed us with an early concept that has you folding back two side display panels behind a center panel.

When and if it becomes a real product, TCL’s prototype will face distinct challenges with ensuring sturdy construction, a semiaffordable price and a sales plan to put the biggest foldable phone we’ve seen yet in front of real buyers. But enough reality for now. I let the teeming questions slide from my mind and give the Butterfly Hinge one more fold.

TCL trifold phone specs we know so far

Roughly 10-inch screen when fully opened

Four rear cameras

Front-facing camera

USB-C charger port

Iridescent finish

No headphone jack