November 2009 - Direct2Dell

Last week, Google released ChromiumOS to the open source community at http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os.  ChromiumOS is a small, optimized OS whose purpose is to make it extremely simple and easy to browse the web.  Without a network connection, ChromiumOS is not very interesting. With a network connection, ChromiumOS shines.  The Chromium browser is extremely fast and makes for a great web-centric browsing experience.  Boot time appears quick too - about 12 seconds from hitting the power button.

Me and some other Dell folks noticed that Engadget recently got the Chrome OS running on a Vostro A860 netbook. I've been doing some timkering over the lat few days working to get our Dell Mini 10v up and running with ChromiumOS. As of late yesterday, I can report success.   

I have released an USB key image file to: http://linux.dell.com/files/cto. The file name is: "ChromiumOS_Mini10v_Nov25.img."  It contains a functioning image of my USB key loaded with ChromiumOS.  In addition, I have made a best effort attempt to get the Broadcom Wi-Fi adapter working in this image.  It's definitely not perfect (read: highly experimental, untested, unstable, yada yada...) but it does appear to function.

Here are the caveats:

• It will take more than 5-10 *minutes* for the ChromiumOS network connection manager to "see" the access points and allow you to select and connect - be patient.
• Wired connections appear to work fine and appear quick to connect.
• There are currently issues with both the connection manager as well as the underlying components (wpa_supplicant) that can easily break or get hung. When in doubt, reboot and give it another try.
• Use this image at your own risk - it comes to you totally unsupported and very minimally tested.

Speaking of which, to "reboot" the image, you have to press the "power" key on the Mini 10v - there is no "reboot/shutdown" menu option to do this.

To copy onto an USB key (8GB minimum), find another Linux machine and utilize the "dd" command to put the image onto the USB key.

Example: dd if=ChromiumOS_Mini10v_Nov25.img of=/dev/sdb  

In this example, /dev/sdb is my entire USB key... use "fdisk -l" to see how your USB key is named for your particular environment. Be careful to select your USB device (again, use fdisk -l to double verify and confirm the correct device filename) and not another device... 

Some additional notes for the released image:

• The user name to login is "dell". The desktop login window will complete the user name by adding "@gmail.com" to the end
• The user password is "dell"
• The root password is set to "dell"
• I've included a script in /etc called "mount_rw.sh" to allow root (or sudo) to remount the root partition for updates/changes/whatever you like.

Obviously, this image comes with absolutely no support of any kind and is to be considered highly experimental and completely unstable. 

There are some good developer forums at http://www.chromium.org for more information - for the chromium-os-development forum, I've posted a summary of what I had to do to get the wifi to the current working state. Much more needs to be done, but, for now, it's a start.

Enjoy!

Recently, I got to spend some time with the Inspiron Zino HD. If you missed my original post about it, you can check it out here. My goal with this post is to look at overall performance across several multimedia tasks.

Let's just say at this stage of the game, test hardware was pretty hard to come by. Luckily, my old friends in Dell's Performance Lab were nice enough to let me borrow one for a bit. Unfortunately, it didn't have a Blu-ray drive, so I couldn't test it.

Hardware Setup: Click on the image to the left to see a larger version that spells out the exact configuration I ran. Key components were the AMD Athlon 3250e processor, 4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM, the integrated ATI HD 3200 graphics card an integrated Dell1520 dual-band wireless card. I also recently installed a Netgear WNDR3700 dual-band Gigabit router to run my home network. The Zino was about 20 feet away from the router and the signal had to pass through a couple of walls. I used a single HDMI cable to handle audio and video directly from the Zino HD to a 720p Panasonic plasma TV.

The Athlon 3250e processor is the lower end dual-core processor option we offer. I have to say overall performance seemed solid. In my view, it definitely is worth the $60 premium over the entry-level processor option if you plan on using the Inspiron Zino HD as a Home Theater PC (HTPC). Since I didn't have a 6850e processor (that's the fastest dual core option) to test, I talked to AMD's Jay Taylor who told me Media Center performance felt that much snappier using the 6850e. Look for Jay to publish a more extensive performance review sometime next week over at the AMD at Home blog.

Driver versions:

Since this was a development machine that didn't belong to me, I stuck with the following driver versions that were already installed:

• ATI Catalyst Driver: version 2.009.0714.2131
• Silverlight (for Netflix streaming): version 2.0.310005.0
• Adobe Flash (for YouTube and Hulu streaming): version 10.0.32.18
• PowerDVD: version 8.3.5610

Here's the Windows Performance Index from the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium to put things in perspective:

Performance: I tested all kinds of basic Media Center stuff, music, photo sideshow and video playback all those worked without a hitch. Internet TV worked fine too. Beyond the basics, I tested Netflix streaming from within Media Center, YouTube HQ and HD video playback, streaming recorded HDTV from my XPS 720 desktop and playing back an MPEG2 file copy of a movie that was over 4.1GB.

Connecting to the 5GHz wireless band, I was able to sustain bandwidth of 216Mbps. I used this wireless connection for all network testing. All tests were run with the 64-bit version Windows 7 Home Premium as well. Here's a summary of the Inspiron Zino HD's performance:

• MPEG2 movie streaming: On the initial load the CPU peaked at 84%, then leveled off in the low 20s. Network bandwidth peaked close to 20%, then quickly leveled off to under 10%.

• Netflix streaming: I tried several movie options here, and everything from Dr. Strangelove to Braveheart played smoothly. CPU peaked at around 90% at the very beginning and leveled off at about the mid 40s range. Network bandwidth initially peaked at about 10%, and quickly leveled off to about 2%.
• YouTube and Hulu streaming: YouTube streaming worked pretty well. All HQ clips played smoothly in full screen mode. It skipped a handful of  frames in 720p HD mode, but was definitely watchable. 1080p clips skipped more frames, but quality was still good. Hulu playback didn't fare as well. In full screen mode, several frames were dropped during 480p playback or higher. The reason for this is that unlike Silverlight, the current version of Adobe's Flash does not support GPU acceleration. That is being addressed in Flash version 10.1 which is now in beta. With updated ATI drivers and the Flash 10.1 beta, the performance story changes dramatically. See the second performance chart from this page of Anandtech's testing to see what I mean.
• DVD playback: Both PowerDVD and Windows Media Player functioned smoothly, though I did notice that the CPU utilization using Windows Media Player was consistently much lower.

If you're looking for more performance details on the AMD 6850e processor, the discrete graphics option or Blu-ray performance check out Jay's post. I'll update this post with a link to it when it's live next week.

Room for Improvement: I would have liked to have an internal IR transmitter inside the system. If you want to use a remote control for Media Center, you'll need to use an external IR transmitter connected via one of the USB ports. Also, as far as all the HD stuff I tested only the Hulu playback left something to be desired. I could play back 360p content full screen with no frame drops, but anything 480p or higher skipped lots of frames in full screen mode. Still, like I mentioned earlier, Hulu playback will work much better once GPU acceleration comes to to Flash version 10.1.

Final Thoughts and Recommendations: I came away pretty impressed with the Inspiron Zino HD. If you're interested in using it as a Home Theater PC I would recommend going with one of the two dual core processor options. If you're going to stream wirelessly, definitely opt for the embedded Dell 1520N dual-band wireless card. Since I wasn't able to test the discrete graphics option, I can't say how much that will buy you. But, the integrated ATI HD 3200 did well on most of what I tested, and when the final version of Flash 10.1 is released, it will support GPU acceleration with both the integrated HD 3200 and the ATI Radeon 4330. That will just require the Adobe Flash 10.1 update and the latest ATI Catalyst drivers. Either way, YouTube and especially Hulu playback should improve dramatically. 

If you've been waiting to buy an Inspiron Zino HD, I hope this blog post helps to answer some questions. One last thing, you might do well to put off a purchase a couple of days later (as in Black Friday). I'm just sayin...

As some of you are probably aware, December 1^st is World AIDS Day. As proud partners of (PRODUCT) ^RED , Dell is committed to raising awareness and engagement on this important global health issue, with the belief that in the worldwide fight against AIDS , One Color Unites Us.

There are over 33 million people living with HIV across the world. Of these, 22 million live in Africa alone. 3,800 people die each day from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa (1.4 million people annually). The startling global impact of this treatable, preventable disease is the reason why (RED) partners like Dell are committed to making a difference. And it’s working. In just three years, (RED) partners and events have generated $140 million to help fight AIDS in Africa, supporting programs that have already reached over 4 million people. This World AIDS Day, Dell would like to share with our customers the many ways in which you can get involved.

Global (RED) Pop-Up Shops will make appearances beginning on December 1^st in New York, San Francisco, London & Tokyo, and a portion of all sales will be contributed to the Global Fund to support AIDS programs in Africa. From New York to London, you’ll be able to get your hands on the Dell (PRODUCT) ^RED Mini in the Shops, with Dell making a contribution on every Mini sold. Additionally, Dell will double contributions on EVERY (DELL) ^RED purchase in the US & UK from November 26^th through December 2^nd, including the (DELL) ^RED XPS One 24 all-in-one desktop, all (PRODUCT) ^RED artwork in the Dell Design Studio, the V515w (DELL) ^RED printer, and the (DELL) ^RED Mini 10 and 10v.

As a proud partner of (PRODUCT) ^RED, Dell will be spreading awareness by helping to turn Twitter (RED) on December 1^st , World AIDS Day. To be a part of this global movement, follow @joinred or @DellLounge to find out more on the day.

Dell will also be showing our support for (RED) with takeovers on some of our biggest sites, including Dell.co.uk. In addition, check out the new (PRODUCT) ^RED designs launched in October on the Dell Design Studio in the U.S. The five new artists interpreting the (RED) vision are Emil Kozak, Ben Grieme, Klaus Haapaniemi, Takashi Kusui and Andrew Lim.

There are so many ways to get involved in the fight against AIDS in Africa this World AIDS Day. Speak out, Tweet, donate directly, or make a purchase that makes a difference. When you choose (DELL) ^RED , 100% of Dell’s contribution goes directly to work on the ground, reaching the people who need it most. Your purchases can have a powerful impact. Give (RED). Save Lives.

At Dell, we work to design laptops that bring powerful performance and features, offer personalization options that matter and we’re glad to see someone else recognizes that. What Laptop, a mobile computing magazine for laptops, netbooks and smartphones in the UK, last week announced the winners of their What Laptop Mobile Computing Awards and Dell claimed the top spot in four different categories. We’re proud of these, because the Mobile Computing Awards are solely voted for by What Laptop readers.

Best Gaming Laptop 2009: Alienware M17x

It’s been a great year for the Alienware brand, and winning Best Gaming Laptop 2009 for the Alienware M17x is just the cherry on top. According to What Laptop: “With cutting-edge power, a feature-packed specification and a stunning, anodised aluminium chassis, the M17x is not only your favourite gaming laptop of 2009, but maybe the best we’ve yet seen.”

Best Laptop for Power & Features 2009: Dell Studio XPS 16

The Studio XPS 16 was recognized for “Delivering some of the most powerful performance on the market, alongside comprehensive storage, HD features and a sleek and stylish design.”

Best Ultraportable Laptop 2009: Dell Adamo

Launched in 2009, it is a huge win for the  Adamo by Dell brand to be recognized in this category. According to What Laptop: “Its superior craftsmanship, impressive attention to detail and great usability are only the tip of the iceberg of this stylish ultraportable.”

2009 Editor’s Choice Award: Dell Studio 15

Our mobile multimedia machine, the Studio 15 was awarded the most notable award of all by the editors of What Laptop themselves: “Rarely does a laptop impress us enough to become the benchmark against which all other machines in its market are measured, but Dell’s Studio 15 is the exception.”

We were also recognized with second place wins for the Inspiron Mini 10 in the Best Netbook category, Alienware M17x in the Power & Features category, and Dell as Best Laptop Manufacturer of 2009!

A huge thank-you to everyone who took the time to vote!

China Mobile today becomes the first carrier in the world to offer Dell's Mini 3i smartphone. In the near term, the Mini 3i will be available through China Mobile's authorized stores by the end of the month. We'll offer the Mini 3i in two color options for customers in China: Red Passion and Oiled Bronze.

Like I mentioned in my earlier post, it's based on Google's Android OS. The Mini 3i runs on China Mobile's flexible OPhone open source platform that can handle things like e-mail, messaging via IM, MMS and SMS, photo, video and music playback and more.

The Mini 3i is also built to take advantage of China Mobile's Mobile Market. Through it customers can access games and entertainment, customization options like wallpapers, ringtones and widgets or productivity tools for those more interested in business use.

Note: Click on either of these pictures to see a larger version. To see more photos, click through to this set on Flickr.

Regarding hardware, Dell is about flexibility. We’ll continue to look at new technology that is important to customers. As we expand hardware and create new carrier partnerships, feature sets may vary depending on the needs of mobile operators. Don’t expect all Dell smartphones to have the same spec and feature list. Design and technical specs will vary based on the needs of carriers, regional considerations, and what customers want.

That said, here are the specs of the new Dell Mini 3i OPhone:

• Display: 3.5" 640x360 widescreen display
• Bands/Modes: Quadband GSM/EDGE
• Bluetooth
• Built-in GPS
• Camera: 3 megapixel camera with zoom, auto-focus, flash, video capture and photo-editing capabilities.
• Micro SD (up to 32GB)
• Connector: MiniUSB
• Dimensions: 58.35 x 122 x 11.7
• Weight: <105g grams