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Intel ULV Core Solo Processor Info?

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Apr 12, 2001
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DailyTech reports that Gateway jumped the gun by announcing information about new laptops based on the Intel Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Core Solo -- ahead of Intel's official announcement.

The NX100 from Gateway features Intel Ultra Low Voltage Core Solo processors. These Yonah-based processors come in at 1.06GHz and 1.2GHz speeds with a 533MHz bus and 2MB of L2 cache. The specs for the Gateway notebook show a 12.1" screen, 0.8inch thickness, 3lbs and will start at $1399. CNet Video review.

The ULV Core Solo is said to be announced around April 16th.

There has been previous speculation about the processor Apple plans on using in the upcoming Intel-iBook. Apple is presently using the high end Core Duo processor for the MacBook Pro. This leaves a broad range of possibilities left for the iBook, including slow clocked Core Duos, Core Single processors and Low Voltage Core Duos. The Ultra Low Voltage Core Solo processor featured in the Gateway machine appears to be targeted for "ultraportable" laptops -- a category in which Apple does not presently have a offering.
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2006/03/30/intel-ulv-core-solo-processor-info/
interesting ultra low voltage chips... time to try to get them into the human brain
 
If the rumored Apple tablet does come, maybe they'll use something like this. My guess is the iBook will see the same processors as the mini or close to it.

The price for the chips actually doesn't sound to bad, especially if Apple bought larger quantities of them.
 
I really hope Apple makes a UMPC or whatever they want to call it. ... of course with "instant on" just like PDAs! I'd buy one right now! (...windows mobile 5 crashes so much on my dell axim)
 
Please please please, thin sub-notebook with 12" or 10" widescreen LCD and NO optical drive... perfect companion for administrating my 12 Xserves at work... I even went so far as to install OSX86 on my tiny, 12-hour battery Fujitsu subnotebook. It runs like a speed demon! Unfortunately it can't sleep, nor boot properly the first time without an external monitor attached. Argh!

Based solely on idle chatter with other Mac system admins, there definitely is a market for a product like this - basically a thinner iBook without optical drive and a well-engineered large battery.

For reference, the Fujitsu I have is a new P7120. 10.5" (or so) widescreen LCD, under 1" thick. Plus the greatest thing - the battery slot can accept a high-capacity battery that is the SAME SIZE as the normal battery. They just pack more cells into it. Add to that a battery that replaces the optical drive, and you have genuine, real-life 10-12 hours of runtime.

The problem with it? It runs Windows! Windows itself is a big battery hog, and due to all the hardware out there that it runs on, it is nowhere near as power-optimized as OS X is. Put it this way - if IBM (now Lenovo)(and who are fantastic at squeezing battery life due to clever software additions) teamed up with Fujitsu to create this same P7120 subnotebook, it would have retained it's tiny size but the battery life could have been extended at least another 3 solid hours.

If you ever need proof that there is indeed a market for an Apple genuine subnotebook, check out the osx85project.com forums. One of the most popular laptops to hack to run OS X is the Dell 700m - a tiny laptop indeed compared to most.

And so ends my rant. =)
 
That gateway laptop is pretty frikkin ugly. At first I thought I was directed to the wrong place it looked old...but then I saw how thin it was & I was like ookay just kidding. The hinge is HUGE! The mousepad is un-centered (like all other PC's) and has flashy buttons & stupid stuff like that. And the spacebar...it's like...half the size of the MacBook Pro's...more like 3/4's the size ... WTF.

k done. I jsut don't like that...but it would be cool if Apple made an 'ultra portable' that was $699 with the same processor but came with an external CD drive...

One of these days technology is gonna get ahead of us...
you do know that technology has to stay big enouogh to interface with the human, right? haha.
 
photomaniac said:
! (...windows mobile 5 crashes so much on my dell axim)
Click to expand...

And you found that out only AFTER you bought the damn thing ??
Don't tell me.. you are running Windows ME @ home to ?

No falme inteded but come on :S
 
JtheLemur said:
Please please please, thin sub-notebook with 12" or 10" widescreen LCD and NO optical drive... ]
Click to expand...

Yeah, seconded!

I've started to think in Omni outliner - but there's no way I can lug around a 4 or 5 pound 12 inch PowerBook everywhere I go.

I want something small, I don't need optical (all my tunes are ripped, and I can rip a DVD if I want to watch it on the move) and I don't care too much about speed. A 2 pound ULV single core with a 10 inch screen would be ideal!
 
if they build it, users will come

if osx could be natively run on a subLV notebook like "Macbook pre" or something without an optical drive i am sure a market exists. I rarely use the optical drive with my ibook and when i do it is for very short times at once. my civIII disk is dmg'ed on my desktop, so i have no reason to do so. batter life like a swedish mile would be great.
 
Anyone know what the battery life of that gateway clocked in at? I don't really like the idea of laptops without optical drives that you have to plug in drives if you want them, i believe apple thinks the same way. They'd rather be classier, and more expensive, than cheap not evening having a DVD ROM/CDRW drive.

As someone noted earlier, calling it a MacBook Pre, that would be interesting if it were a subcompact notebook, like 10''. Anything bigger and it will be silly, but i like the ring of that :)
 
The Ultra Low Voltage Core Solo processor featured in the Gateway machine appears to be targeted for "ultraportable" laptops -- a category in which Apple does not presently have a offering.[/QUOTE]

While I wouldn't consider the Gateway machine to be all that ultraportable, since Sony and Fujitsu and others have smaller displays (11 inch and on down - see Small-Laptops or MobileWhack for some true ultraportables), and especially since the UltraMobilePC thing got going, I do think that's the target area for these processors.

However, if they don't deliver the battery life (the one review I've seen wasn't impressed) and if Mac OS X isn't "snappy" then it would be a bust. I do have faith that Apple wouldn't allow that to happen, and that they would allow more than 512MB of memory.

I don't know enough about these current ultra low voltage machines and the previous ones to know about CPU speed (the first benchmarks were not all that "WOW" but it is the first benchmarks), but from the sounds of things, I'd rather have an iBook replacement with a regular Core Solo CPU (Duo Core would be best, and the price difference isn't much...).
 
Macbook nano anyone? :p
Fits in every jacket, gets scratches, you lose one every 2 months or brake it because you sit down in a train and forgot it was in your back pocket. :D
 
As a former business traveler, I think there is a market for that kind of machine. However, not for Macs. I love my Mac, but I need a subcompact notebook to run work applications like Visio and Project. Last time I checked, you can't run those on OSX...unless of course, you have setup your dual boot.
 
TMTA (Transmeta) will be supplying the IP and the chips for Toshiba versions of this which will run much cooler, with much longer battery life. Along with the MSFT portable do everything player coming soon.

These "low voltage" chips are INTC trying to market a slightly upgraded p3. According to CNET, it gets only a little more than 3 hours of battery life.
 
If one of these found its way into a subnotebook done Apple style I would nab one in a heartbeat. For some reason I imagine that Apple has to be working on something like this. A lot of us would trade some horsepower for greater portability.
 
I wasn't too big on all the Macintosh tablet rumors floating around out there, but the more I think about it the more I can see myself using something like it. I have heard wonderful things about the low voltage capabilities of Transmeta processors, but nothing about the Intel counterpart. If it's a modified Pentium III with 3 hours of battery life (as someone suggested) then I would not be very impressed.

The first thing that occurred to me when I read this was that the described processor would be implemented into the next incarnation of the iBook, but now I think a tablet-style companion computer would make more sense. If Apple does it right, I, and many others, would take it with us wherever we go. Such dependence has to be good for Apple, one would think.
 
How about a 13" Macbook comes out, and a 10" Macbook mini (no optical drive, extremely small, long battery life).

Thus our lineup of notebooks is
. Macbook mini
. Macbook
. Macbook Pro

It makes sense to me. Enough of the Tablet already. Sure, i'd love one, but i dont think we're quite "there" yet. Just point and laugh at MS and their origami for now..
I'm waiting for the multi-touch technology before that gets exciting.
 
hmm... an ultra low volt processor like this seems like a big step backwards in terms of Ghz, but i think it might be worth it if the macbook had a battery life of say, 8-10 hours maybe even. Even better would be if apple offered it in ULV and the lower end core duos similar to the setup with the mac minis...
 
Macrumors said:


DailyTech reports that Gateway jumped the gun by announcing information about new laptops based on the Intel Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Core Solo -- ahead of Intel's official announcement.

The NX100 from Gateway features Intel Ultra Low Voltage Core Solo processors. These Yonah-based processors come in at 1.06GHz and 1.2GHz speeds with a 533MHz bus and 2MB of L2 cache. The specs for the Gateway notebook show a 12.1" screen, 0.8inch thickness, 3lbs and will start at $1399. CNet Video review.

The ULV Core Solo is said to be announced around April 16th.

There has been previous speculation about the processor Apple plans on using in the upcoming Intel-iBook. Apple is presently using the high end Core Duo processor for the MacBook Pro. This leaves a broad range of possibilities left for the iBook, including slow clocked Core Duos, Core Single processors and Low Voltage Core Duos. The Ultra Low Voltage Core Solo processor featured in the Gateway machine appears to be targeted for "ultraportable" laptops -- a category in which Apple does not presently have a offering.
Click to expand...
Is it just me or do the specs for the Gateway subnotebook really suck? 1.0 ghz core solo??? So it's gonna be WAY slower than a Mini? I don't think so. There's no way these babies are going into an iBook. And $1399 without an optical drive? What do you exactly get out of this computer for that much money? It's not even that compact...
 
Just to be totally opinionated...

I doubt Apple will find any market for ultraportables. They're uncomfortable, to say the least, when computers are getting lighter, faster, simpler.... I use a 12" PB. If it were 10", I would notice major differences. At 12", the keyboard is fine. At 10", I would have to learn to type delicately with the tips of my fingers, which are medium size. At 12", programs that use palettes like Keynote, Pages, and others fit just fine for my use, but somewhat uncomfortably, meaning having all palettes open and usable is kind of impossible. On a 10", the palettes would likely overlap a lot more, or if the resolution is the same, they would be significantly harder to maneuver. At 12", it's a full powered laptop that is 5lbs and easily portable, though perhaps not on the level of the iPod. But is there really a level between the iPod + PDA level and the laptop level? Sure, I wish my 12" could be lighter sometimes, because lighter is almost always more portable...but to be significantly smaller or slower too? I don't go there; I'm fine with my superportable, even if it ain't ultraportable.
 
Where Are The Durn Macbooks Already!!??!!

Whooptie-poo; ultra portable .8" thick laptop. Ultra pricey for less features. No thanks.

Been waiting on the updated 13" widescreen Macbook. Murphy's law states the Intel Mac I want to buy comes out last. (Well, except for the Power Macs, that is.) Hope the new Macbooks come in 1.67 and 1.83 MHz varieties. Backlit keyboard on the high end. Sort of like a merge between the iBook and the 12" Powerbook.

Whatever they come with, just release the dang things already. If they don't come out 'til June then I may just wait a few months until Merom is shipping in the things.
 
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