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HP is building a $199 Windows laptop
Microsoft has been pushing hard for extra-cheap Windows computers that can take on Chromebooks, and it appears that HP is more than willing to hop on that bandwagon. Mobile Geeks has posted a leaked data sheet for the HP Stream 14, an upcoming $199 laptop that's clearly meant to fight Google-powered PCs. The base 14-inch system should cut corners by using a low-powered AMD A4 Micro processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1,366 x 768 screen and 32GB of flash storage; apart from the capacity, it'd be a step down from the company's $299 Chromebook 14. You'd have to pay more for brawnier parts like an A10 Micro chip, 64GB of space and a 1080p touchscreen. Not satisfied with the limited drive options? HP would try to make up for the shortfall by giving buyers 100GB of OneDrive cloud storage for two years, matching what you get with many Chrome OS devices. There's no word on when the Stream 14 would make its debut, although the deluge of information hints that we could see this budget portable fairly soon.
AMD wages benchmark war on Intel's tablet chips
For all the success AMD has been having in the console and PC graphics spheres, none of it has really translated into the world of Windows-based tablets and ultraportables. The chip maker insists that's going to change in 2014, however, and it has released a number benchmarks showing that its latest processors have a lead not only over AMD's previous generation, but also over the Intel chips that currently reign supreme in these form factors. We won't bore you with a gabble of numbers when you can check out charts for yourself in the gallery below, but the main curiosity here is probably the 4.5-watt tablet platform, known as "Mullins." This replaces last year's Temash processor, which had impressive gaming skills but failed to catch on in the market. AMD's in-house scores suggest Mullins offers much better performance per watt, with the new A4 Micro-6400T achieving a 15 percent lead over Intel's Bay Trail T (the Atom Z3370) in PCMark 8 -- a lead that could potentially be significant enough to bring the chip into more slim-line (and passively cooled) Windows 8 machines. What AMD doesn't reveal, however, is whether devices equipped with this A4 chip will have comparable battery life to Bay Trail, so it's all academic until actual, commercial devices come around.
AMD's Project Discovery tablet is for work and play... but mostly play
Part of the goal with the energy-sipping Mullins APU and the DockPort connector is to create small devices that have the power and versatility to perform a myriad of tasks. The Project Discovery tablet is an experimental reference device designed to work all day and play all night (it's the Vegas way, after all). The whole concept of DockPort, is that it's can expand to a host of connections. So slot it into a productivity dock, and you can power Excel across two screens while using a traditional keyboard and mouse. But, when you head home to unwind, you can slap it into a gaming cradle like the one you see above and play some FIFA 14 or Dirt 3. It's not all that dissimilar to the Razer Edge... in concept at least. As with most of the really interesting things at CES this is not a shipping product, nor do we expect it to be. Instead it's a concept that AMD is using to promote its vision of the future. Now it just needs an OEM or two (or twelve) to take up the torch and start getting these things out the door. Dana Wollman contributed to this report.
AMD's impossibly thin nano PC prototype sits on your TV, but don't call it a set-top box
Let's take a moment to forget the technical nonsense. Seriously. Besides, we only really know the broad strokes about Mullins, AMD's next-gen ultra-low voltage APU. Instead, let's just gaze upon the tiny wonder that is the Nano PC for a bit and soak it all in. This reference design from the Sunnyvale company packs enough power to run Windows 8.1 pretty seamlessly and even get in a quick game of FIFA 14 at 1080p. Inside, in addition to a Mullins chip, is a 256GB SSD, a camera, Bluetooth, WiFI and a DockPort connector. And, it's really not much larger or thicker than a Note 3 -- it's pretty much a marvel of engineering. It's the last of those specs that's pretty important, since it allows you to connect to a tiny breakout box with HDMI and USB ports. Obviously you'll need one of those to connect it to a TV, which the Nano PC is designed to sit atop. Here's hoping that a company or two picks up on the design and starts making absurdly thin machines of their own. Dana Wollman contributed to this report.
AMD looks to boost Windows tablet gaming with its first true mobile chip
Whatever happened to AMD's last tablet chip, Temash? We had a great time playing DiRT Showdown on a Temash-powered Windows 8 tablet back at CES, but the graphics-focused processor has so far only appeared in a handful of low-profile devices from the likes of Acer, ASUS and Gigabyte. If this lack of impact was due to the chip's relatively hungry four-watt power draw (hungry for a tablet, at least), then AMD might just have a solution in the form of Temash's successor, this time named after a river called "Mullins." Thanks to its new Puma cores and 28nm fabrication, Mullins brings the wattage down to just two watts. This puts it broadly on a par with most ARM and Intel Bay Trail consumer tablet chips, which is a first for AMD outside of its industrial G-Series range. Meanwhile, a claimed doubling of performance-per-watt means that frame rates shouldn't take much of a hit. As with all of AMD's latest processors, including its "Beema" range for low-power laptops which should launch around the same time as Mullins, the presence of a Graphics Core Next GPU should help to improve performance on Mantle-boosted games, including those brought across from next-gen consoles. So, although AMD is now extremely late to the tablet party, it may still get there -- and we don't have long to wait. Mullins is due to launch in the first half of next year, and we're promised a turn on a Mullins-powered tablet at the upcoming CES 2014 in January.
