Laptops go Green
Monday, Apr 23, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson
The environmentally conscious now have another tool to aid in their personal quest to stem the draining our earth’s resources.
Samsung has announced what they are calling the “first ever†hybrid notebook.
The new Hybrid HDD Samsung R55 will cost 1.8M Won ($1923) and will come with:
–Intel Core2Duo T5600 (1.83GHz) CPU
–15.4″ WXGA LCD
–80GB Hybrid HDD (5400rpm + 256Mb OneNAND Flash)
–nVidia GeForce 7400 Graphics card
–Super Multi DL Optical Drive
–Windows Vista Premium OS
Hybrid HDD is a technology that ads a flash RAM chip to the standard HDD. This way most frequently used data can be stored and read from flash memory, reducing the usage (spin) of HDD itself.
According to Samsung, when used for small chunks (up to 10Mb) of data in R55, Hybrid Hard Drive had 26% improvement on data reading and 71% improvement of datawriting speed, 32% lower power consumption and increased HDD longevity by 10%.
More commentary…
Hyrbid laptops have officially arrived, and Samsung’s R55 is the company’s first to feature both an 80GB 5,400rpm drive alongside an additional 256MB flash drive. Samsung claims the hybrid hard drive consumes 32% less power, offers a 26% increase in data reading and boosts data-writing speed by 71%. That kinda talk makes the 15.4-inch notebook worth the $1,923 splurge.
Other hybrid laptops had been around for nearly a year, but they were referred to as “luggable†instead of portable. From Dell in June 2006…
Dell’s new XPS M2010, which starts at $1,999, includes two hard drives with up to 120GB capacity each, a Core Duo processor and 4GB of dual-channel (667MHz) memory.
- Squideshi - Monday, Apr 23, 07 @ 10:55 am:
The big question is what happens to these laptops after their usable life?
- ArchPundit - Monday, Apr 23, 07 @ 1:54 pm:
I believe Samsung is developing a high capacity flash memory drive to completely eliminate the spinning required as well.
- Crimefighter - Monday, Apr 23, 07 @ 1:57 pm:
Where’s the hand-crank powered laptops I’ve heard so much about?
- punkyqb - Monday, Apr 23, 07 @ 2:15 pm:
I’m going to stick with my gasoline laptop until they perfect the technology.
- techboy - Monday, Apr 23, 07 @ 2:18 pm:
Wait a little longer before you buy: all-flash-based HD models are in the pipeline. Couple them with OLED or electronic paper type displays, and you could power them off some solar cells built into the lid… and never have to plug it in again.
I don’t know how green you can call any such laptop though: the processes used in the fabrication are mightily dirty, one reason they are built outside of our borders and away from our EPA laws.
- Robbie - Monday, Apr 23, 07 @ 2:41 pm:
Yeah, I wouldn’t exactly call this a breakthrough. A drive that use a little less energy? What about other parts of the computer? Not to mention the previously stated topics of disposal and manufacturing.
- A Citizen - Monday, Apr 23, 07 @ 5:06 pm:
Rich, I think Paul’s moonlighting with the Kim Kommando show. We need better than that - like recycling suggestions. LOL