6 reasons laptop manufacturers love SSDs

I recently wrote a post about how SSDs are expected to become ubiquitous and cost competitive by 2011. At the end of the post, I mentioned that it is not just a matter of technological development pushing things forward, and that it is also in the interest of laptop manufacturers to sell SSD equipped models as soon as they can. And here is why:

1. Fast read/write speeds: SSDs have started with competitive data rates and as more manufacturers put resources behind them within 2008 we will see them outpacing traditional drives. It is estimated that Intel will offer 200MB/100MB read/write speeds. Numbers will improve with time and competition.
2. Rapidly improving capacities: If you have followed what has happened with camera flash memory, you already know that the price that gets you a certain capacity now, will most likely buy you a lot more -in some cases double the initial capacity- after a few months to a year. With Toshiba to offer 512MB SSDs in 2009, be sure that hard disc capacities will be soon matched, and when the economics allow, exceeded. (continued)

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Lumenlab’s more affordable Q42 from $3,850

About 2 weeks ago we discussed here whether the Lumenlab Q is worth $10,000. I did not hide the fact that I fancy its daring and innovative concept, but unfortunately a 10K product is definitely not accessible by the majority of us.

Earlier this week, Lumenlab presented the cheaper Q42, as a follow up to two important steps:

1. It created the Q, an expensive and impressive product to differentiate itself from the competition and draw press attention, a goal I think it has achieved for its small size. This way it created anticipation for a cheaper model.
2. Less than a month later it presented the cheaper Q42 model, probably the central product in its effort to get a market foothold.

The two product announcements were too close together to be a result of online comments on the high price of the Q. Whatever the case, at $3,850, the Q42 is a much more affordable model that sports the same cool appearance and functionality of the Q.

The PC gaming platform still plagued by piracy

Since the inception of computer gaming, piracy has been a great headache. Access to the web and the downloading of pirate copies has exacerbated the problem beyond all proportions. As most titles are released in autumn for the Christmas party buildup, January is a good time to look back and judge the sales results. There are voices of concern about the future of PC gaming, despite recent efforts to promote the PC as a great gaming platform. The word “great” of course is for gamers that use pirated titles in large numbers and not for the developers and distributors that see a huge piece of revenue from their work not coming in at all…

Where do Apple computers stand in Greece?

We owe Apple a lot. They manage (together with Linux) to remind both users and Microsoft that yes there are alternatives in the market and they offer as much or more to both casual and professional users. Since the smart move of switching to the Intel platform, Apple computer sales have increased impressively. The iPod has been so successful that now Apple is holding the music industry by the neck, in similar fashion to Microsoft in operating systems… The share price has soared, the last few years are indeed success, success, success…

So where does Apple stand in small markets like for example the greek one? Well, up to the start of the decade its operating systems have offered incomplete support for greek characters. The market might not be India but yes people here happen to use a non-latin alphabet. The result? The Apple computer platform has been abandoned in the late 90s and the start of the current decade like a sinking ship, following bad reviews by the local press and users struggling with language support problems. Notably, the local as well as most greek universities switched completely to Microsoft more than five years ago, and these are all well educated people that happily go out and buy computers for their studies and even more importantly for their professional lives after finishing their degree… The only group that remained loyal was graphic designers.