a6

Toshiba Satellite P745D-S4240 review: AMD A6 processor worth the savings?

Underneath the seemingly predictable veneer of the 14-inch Toshiba Satellite P745D-S4240 are two new stories, albeit ones that might not interest the average person much. The Satellite P series is a new laptop line for Toshiba, although you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and the M, A, and L series of Satellite laptops (the P replaces the M and A). Under the hood is a quad-core AMD A6 processor, part of a new line of budget-targeted AMD Vision A-series APUs that include better-than-Intel-integrated graphics to accompany mainstream processing power.… Read more

A6 chip to reach iPad 3 later in 2012, says analyst

Apple's latest chip technology won't appear in the next-generation iPad until June 2012 at the earliest, according to a firm that tracks the mobile processor industry.

Getting new processor technology out the door (remember, Apple is also in the chip design business) is a Herculean task for even seasoned chip manufacturers like Intel. It will certainly be no different for Apple, whose next chip, dubbed the "A6," may not make an appearance in the iPad 3 until later in 2012, said The Linley Group, a chip consulting firm.

If Apple keeps to its schedule and launches … Read more

Audi's RS 5, A6 are treat on European roads

ZURICH, Switzerland--There's something about a German sports car that makes even the hairiest road seem like something you want to keep driving.

A few days ago, that feeling was reinforced as I (carefully) wound my way up and over some of the most amazing passes in the Swiss Alps. With barely enough room for one car, let alone two abreast, with drops of thousands of feet just off the side of the cliffs, and guardrails pretty much an afterthought, I knew that I was being tested. But I was driving Audi's terrific RS 5, and I wasn't … Read more

Analyst: Future Mac, iPhone on unified platform

An analyst at Jefferies & Company has offered his take on the prospect of an Apple future that merges operating environments and taps more into Apple's in-house chip technology.

"We believe Apple is looking to merge iOS (iPhones/iPads) with OS X (Macs) into a single platform for apps and cloud services starting in 2012-13," Jefferies & Company analyst Peter Misek wrote in an August 2 research note entitled "One to Rule Them All: iOS and OS X Roadmaps to Merge."

Highlights of Misek's research note:

OS merger: OS merger to start in 2012 … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1511: Don't take tech to the bedroom (Podcast)

Brian Tong has a rule about no technology in the bedroom. Molly's not so sure. It's Computer Love Friday, everyone! Also, Google continues to make piles of cash and says it's making tons of money (again), and Microsoft may or may not be working on a social/search hybrid site. RIM may or may not be working on an Apple TV competitor, which we fervently pray is not true. Please, RIM. Please don't do it.

Apple's A6 chip in pilot production

Apple has consigned trial production of its future A6 processor to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and not Samsung, its traditional manufacturing partner, according to a Reuters report.

The A6 processor is still a distant destination on Apple's chip road map. It isn't expected to appear in products until 2012, and analysts believe it will be quad-core, a first for an Apple A series chip. The A5, used in the iPad 2, is a dual-core processor.

Talk of Apple jumping to Taipei-based TSMC has been driven, in part, by the legal skirmishes between Apple and Samsung. The latter has been Apple's sole manufacturing source for A4 and A5 processors. … Read more

As Apple seeks new chip suppliers, theories abound

With Apple seeking to lessen its dependency on Samsung as a processor supplier, a number of chip-supplier scenarios are emerging for Apple's next generation of devices.

Amid serious legal squabbling with Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is likely to be the first to capture Apple's new business. But Intel, which already makes all of Apple's desktop and laptop processors, is also in the running for other devices.

TSMC scenario: TSMC may first appear, in the fourth quarter, as a second-source supplier of the A5 processor, according to Gus Richard, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, who wrote … Read more

Toshiba announces new Satellite P700 laptop, smaller 17-inch Qosmio, both with 3D option

We've often commented on Toshiba Satellites becoming a confusing galaxy of letter-based lines that share similar looks. Today's announcement of the back-to-school Satellite P700 series should help in this regard, since it's effectively replacing the Satellite A660 and M640 lines, both of which we've reviewed in a variety of versions at CNET.

The P700 isn't anything truly new chassis-wise: it's available in 14-, 15-, and 17-inch variations, and share a Fusion X2 finish we've seen on many models. These laptops do, however, offer the newly announced AMD A6-3400M processor with discrete Radeon graphics, … Read more

Rumor: Apple to make A6 quad-core, iPad-only

According to conjecture from Linley Gwennap (reported by Barron's), senior editor at Microprocessor Report, Apple's next-generation mobile processor, the A6 chip, should be quad-core but only available in iPads.

Gwennap wrote a piece examining the structure of Apple's current A5 processor found in the iPad 2 and come up with two interesting conclusions about how Apple is using their own processor technology to advance their hardware faster and more efficiently than their competitors.

One conclusion is that Apple:

"has gone for bigger chips than the 'merchant' silicon offered by vendors such as Nvidia because it can get greater performance at the same price: Apple doesn't pay the markup it would have to give to Nvidia or another company. Larger chip, same money, in other words."

When you make your own product, you reap all the rewards--only fair if you accept all the risk of doing so.… Read more

Nvidia CEO, Qualcomm VP differ on 'quad' future

Nvidia and Qualcomm have very different schedules for putting chips with four processor cores in tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Nvidia's CEO and a Qualcomm vice president spoke to CNET recently on the topic.

Qualcomm announced that it is developing quad-core chips this week for Windows 8. Nvidia made a similar announcement earlier this year. And this week at Computex, Microsoft even floated the concept of a laptop running Windows 8 on top of an Nvidia quad-core processor, according to Anandtech (see photo below).

Analysts are even beginning to mention Apple's future A6 processor as a possible candidate for … Read more