Compal producing August-bound ultraportable for Dell?

With the Studio XPS 13 and newfangled Adamo already in its pocket, what other ultraportable does Round Rock really need? That's a question that Compal seems eager and ready to answer, at least according to Chinese-language Commercial Times. The all-too-scant report mentions that the ultrathin laptop will be based on Intel's excruciatingly slow (but power-sipping) CULV (consumer ultra low voltage) processor and should start shipping this August. Our best (and only, really) guess as to what Dell's mystery machine could be? That already planned Mini 11, which we heard earlier this month would be ready between yesterday and Q3.

[Level 5 Posted Apr 15th 2009 9:29AM]

"what other ultraportable does Round Rock really need?"

As someone who foamed at the mouth for the XPS Studio 13 before reading reviews; I'd say they need one that's not exorbitantly expensive like the Adamo, and doesn't have heat/build issues like the XPS Studio 13.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:05AM]

I would take "anything with Ion."

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2009 9:32AM]

"excruciatingly slow (but power-sipping) CULV"... compared to WHAT? The atom... if the CULV is anything like the ULV processors it'll have twice the performance of the atom. With fast, and relatively low-priced SSD's coming down the road the atom puts us back in the camp of having the CPU be the performance bottleneck again. Just about anything is faster then the atom.

[Jadoti Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:01AM]

I had an atom in my aspire one and for what the unit was used for, it wasn't *that* bad... you make it sound like a one armed monkey working 3 abaci inside the box. It wasn't designed to power a highend workstation, and even though the OS would allow you to do everything you could do on your desktop, doesn't mean the box would.

[Oli D Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:18AM]

Compared to this

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.html?t=nb&c=all&r=X9R

It is slow.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:21AM]

The SU series is WAY more than twice the speed of an Atom. I honestly don't know why you'd need more in anything but a "desktop-replacement" notebook.

[tym Posted Apr 15th 2009 9:37AM]

why couldn't they have just updated the m1330? Fast, light, thin computer... what's so wrong about that? Adamo is wicked overpriced/underpowered and studio 13 is 5 pounds

[Level 5 Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:01AM]

Absolutely. Make it all one color, and I'd have a boner for one.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:00AM]

How is the processor "excruciatingly slow?" Reviewing spreadsheets, browsing access databases, reading the news, and using Outlook doesn't require a Core 2 Duo.

This rag is excruciatingly sensationalized.

[Level 5 Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:10AM]

True, but if people only wanted to do those things, even a netbook would get the job done.

[Oli D Posted Apr 15th 2009 10:28AM]

Maybe its excruciatingly slow for what you pay for

[LRawlins Posted Apr 15th 2009 11:18AM]

I'd read of an Adamo 9 some time ago. You'll have to take my word for it unfortunately as I can't find the source... something to do with Dell driver listings that uncovered the system reference I believe.

[JeremyBenthem Posted Apr 15th 2009 1:27PM]

It was right here on engadget, discovered along with the studio one 22

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2009 11:22AM]

I should have clarified my original post a bit more.

This article makes it sound like the CULV is dog slow... which is silly. It's going to be a good deal faster than the Atom which is roughly the performance of a 900mhz pentium M. I was just trying to point out the sensationalistic line in the original post.

In reality, ever since the pentium 3 hit 1GHz it's very seldom the CPU is the bottleneck in everyday usage (things like surfing the web, checking email, typing a word doc, etc.). This is off course excepting things like video editing, photo editing, audio work, etc.. In those cases you want a full speed dual or quad core machine.

The atom is such a hit because of it's very low power consumption, it's dirt cheap and it's just fast enough to handle most things the average user does while on the go. I didn't mean to slam the Atom... it's a great chip for it's purpose but it is a slow chip in comparison to the ULV/CULV chips.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2009 1:48PM]

Oh boy more aesthetically pleasing laptops with underwhelming specs! The joy of having a 2k+ laptop and someone paying a quarter of that price and running proverbial circles around it.

[jayayess1190 Posted Apr 15th 2009 3:40PM]

This won't cost $2K+. The point of Intel's CULV platform is ultraportable laptops at a price lower than $1K.

[Fanfoot Posted Apr 15th 2009 5:21PM]

The previous post on the Mini 11 suggested it would be using PineTrail, ie. the follow on to Atom, which would have a smaller footprint, lower power consumption (better battery life) and possibly better performance, though likely small in nature.

If they really want to hit that $499 price point for a Mini 11, and have it come off as "sophisticated" looking, I think a PineTrail is far more likely than a ULV.

I wouldn't be shocked if Dell was planning an ultraportable in the 11" range, with a ULV processor and so forth. Something to compete with those ridiculously expensive Sony 11" ultraportables. Ultrathin and light but likely NOT inexpensive. Focus on performance SSDs etc beyond what would make sense in a netbook.

So I wouldn't be at all shocked to see both an 11" Mini netbook at a starting price of $499 and an 11" ultraportable ULV for > $1000.