Tech News – Acer drops Intel for Qualcomm

More Qualcomm chips have been chosen for Acer laptops and have made one thing clear: upgrade the processor manufacturing process or leave it behind. Gone are the days when 9-hour battery life is quite good from ordinary chips equivalent to under power. Acer’s new Chromebook Spin 513 houses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c chip, which enables a 14-hour battery life, along with improved performance.

This comes just a month after Acer announced the Spin 7, which runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx chips, providing up to 29 hours of battery life. The deal is also signed by Qualcomm expertise in the 5G connection, which is included with the new Spin 7.

The Snapdragon 7c platform inside the Chromebook Spin 513 holds an 8-octa-core 8 nm Qualcomm Kryo 468 CPU, which provides improved multitasking and response. In addition, the integrated Qualcomm Adreno 618 graphics performance allows users to play games and stream videos seamlessly.

Manufacture Process

Conversely, if Acer were to choose an Intel equivalent, they would likely go for Intel’s 10nm process on the latest Elkhart Lake Atom processors. While the difference between 8nm and 10nm may seem insignificant, in terms of processor, it can translate into a huge change in battery life and performance.

For those unfamiliar with the term “manufacture process”, this means how many transistors can fit in a processor and is one of the very few terms in technology where less means more. The smaller the manufacturing process, the more transistors can fit into a processor – translating into stronger performance and lower power consumption. Acer may well have made the switch to Qualcomm because Intel does not have a similar equivalent to high battery efficiency.

The new Chromebook also comes with 4G LTE option, again talking about all the benefits that Qualcomm can adapt using a smaller production process than its competitors. This ensures that users will still be able to access the web, their personal cloud, connected applications and add-ons to stay focused on work and school without a Wi-Fi connection.

A slim design allows users to place the computer in a backpack or laptop with other items while remaining stable with an aluminium top cover. The laptop weighs less than 1.2 kg and measures 15.55 mm, with dimensions barely larger than a sheet of paper. The Chromebook also has an optional backlit keyboard.

The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass and has narrow frames that allow a 78% screen-body ratio. A pair of 360-degree hinges empowers users with four modes of use: mollusc mode for traditional keyboard input, tablets, screens, and tent modes, or when space-limited. Moreover, its two integrated microphones allow for better reception, providing better voice clarity when making video conferencing or talking to friends on a conference call.

To sweeten the deal, it comes with strong Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ac Wi-Fi with 2 × 2 MIMO technology) and two USB Type-C ports that support USB 3.2 Gen 1 (up to 5 Gbps), DisplayPort over USB – C, and USB charging. It also includes a USB 3.2 Type-A port for legacy devices.

The Chromebook Spin 513 comes with up to 8 GB LPDDR4X SDRAM and up to 128 GB of storage space.

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Will be available in North America in February 2021 starting at $ 400; and at the EMEA in January 2021, starting at 429 EURO (approximately 8300 ZAR at the time of writing).

Tech News – Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm First in the World to Achieve 5G Peak Speed of 5.06 Gbps

On the heels of Verizon’s news, last week about advancing both the deployment of 5G and innovations in the technology, Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. have teamed up to continue driving development forward by being the first in the world to demonstrate 5G peak speeds of 5.06 Gbps. Using 5G mmWave spectrum with carrier aggregation, a technology that combines multiple channels of the spectrum to provide greater efficiency for data sessions transmitting over the wireless network, the companies combined eight separate channels of the spectrum to achieve the multi-gigabit speeds.

“We have been driving the evolution of 5G technology from the early days and we continue to aggressively drive innovation — pushing the limits of the technology farther and faster for our customers,” said Brian Mecum, vice president, device technology, Verizon. “This latest achievement is yet another milestone in providing a genuinely differentiated service for our customers on mmWave.”

When fully mature, 5G technology has the potential of reaching speeds up to 10 Gbps, latency under 5 milliseconds, and service deployment times of 90 minutes. It will enable mobile connections to happen at up to 500 km/h with the ability to manage over a million devices per km² and data volumes of 10 Tb/s/km².  Verizon and its collaborators are driving hard to maximize the potential of this developing technology.

“Our strategy from the beginning has always been to reshape the world by driving innovation and leading the way in deploying the keenly differentiated 5G Ultra Wideband experience customers can only get from the mmWave based 5G network. It is the 21st-century infrastructure that will shape the future,” said Mecum. “Today’s demonstration shows the advancements we are making to provide our customers with the mobile technology and capabilities they don’t even yet know they need.”

About the Trial

The demonstration, completed in a lab environment, used 5G infrastructure equipment from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio and a 5G smartphone form factor test device powered by a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X60 5G Modem-RF System featuring 3^rd-generation Qualcomm® QTM535 mmWave antenna modules.  

The 5.06 Gbps speed was delivered using 800 MHz bandwidth in 28 GHz mmWave spectrum combined with 40 MHz for the 4G LTE anchor. This band combination is commercially supported in the Ericsson Radio System portfolio and several 5G devices available today powered by the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System.

“We are excited to partner with Verizon and Qualcomm as we push the envelope and break another data speed record, achieving the 5Gbps data speeds. This is the highest speed ever achieved to a single device,” said Hannes Ekström, head of product line 5G, business area networks, Ericsson. “This shows the fruits of our collaboration and our investments into technology leadership to enable harnessing the millimetre wave spectrum. The technology to aggregate vast amounts of spectrum in these bands is enabling a new world of opportunities.”

“With years of research and development in defining the next generation wireless connectivity, Qualcomm Technologies’ collaboration with industry leaders Ericsson and Verizon in advancing 5G mmWave mark a significant milestone in making 5G a commercial reality,” said Joe Glynn, vice president, business development, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “5G mmWave will enable many new use cases for consumers and businesses as well as enable many of today’s mobile devices to take advantage of  its enhanced network capacity, multi-gigabit speeds and low latency.”

Read more articles on 5G Technologies here.

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