A Modern mini - notebook design from Apple could use fast - boot flash memory instead of traditional hard discs , fit in to an analyst report .
deputise solid state computer storage for whirl phonograph recording could admit a notebook PC to boot up as tight as a smartphone or mobile medicine player , and also go battery living .
Those advantages have already attracted other IT trafficker to explore a greater reliance on flash computer memory . On March 7 , Samsung shipped its first hybrid disk drives , using flash retentivity as a modest , temporary cache so a notebook computer PC can reduce the routine of times it accesses the established magnetic memory on its main disk .
Intel has also enjoin it will employ flash in its pending “ Robson ” motherboard organization , using flash memory to save electrical power in the improved Centrino notebook computer personal computer chopine called “ Santa Rosa ” that the society be after to set in motion in the 2nd fourth part .
orchard apple tree design to utilize a similar design in a class of “ subnotebooks ” ask to launch in the second half of 2007 , according to a report released March 7 by Shaw Wu , an analyst with American Technology Research . The account cited nameless industry sources .
However , the launching date could slip if NAND vendors do n’t cover to rationalize prices for flash memory , Wu suppose . The monetary value of NAND flash has dropped to seven or eight times the tantamount capacity in hard - disk drive , compared to 10 times as much last twelvemonth , he said . In current toll , 32 G bytes of storage cost $ 160 in NAND flash , compare to just $ 22 on concentrated drives .
“ Through 2007 , NAND flash in notebook computer PCs will likely be limited to the eminent - remainder / ultra - portable market place , ” Wu enounce in the account . For the same reason , Apple will probably wait until late 2007 or former 2008 to change its last stay on grueling - parkway base iPod — the Video iPod — to NAND photoflash .
Apple declined to comment on the move , saying the troupe does not address hearsay and conjecture , according to a command by Teresa Brewer , a embodied spokeswoman .
Other analysts doubt that Apple could make a fiscal success out of such a organisation .
“ I suppose this is highly unlikely based on price and consumers ’ understanding of why they should pay three times the price and get not even a fraction of the capacity , ” tell Joe Unsworth , an psychoanalyst with Gartner .
Compared to a notebook with ceremonious disc , a flash - based notebook computer would have salutary bombardment life story , faster public presentation , tougher endurance and a small form factor , he said . But those benefits come with such a gamy price tag that they invoke to only a thin slice of the securities industry , such as military and industrial emptor . Sony and Fujitsu have also discovered that craft - off in their efforts to betray flash - base , ruggedized , extremist - portable notebooks , Unsworth said .
