ESSAY RANDALL STROSS

We hear computer manufacturers promoting laptops that can boot faster than ever, but they prudently avoid direct comparisons with smartphones. The manufacturers have speeded up boot times by equipping some Windows machines with a separate subsystem that contains its own central processing unit. If you choose to use this when you turn on the machine, Windows is bypassed and a minioperating system is loaded instead, along with a limited set of applications that include a Web browser .
But these machines take too long to reach a state of usefulness. At present, the only way to bring a laptop to life quickly is to summon it not from a cold state, nor from deep hibernation (suspend-to-disk), but from standby mode (suspend-to-RAM), in which the last session is stored in memory. Network connections are lost, however, and holding the data in memory drains the battery.
One manufacturer whose ultralightweight netbooks have helped to create the category is Asus, based in Taiwan. Asus equips its machines with Express Gate, a subsystem that it says can boot up in as few as eight seconds .
A different approach is taken by Arjan van de Ven and Auke Kok, engineers at the Intel Open Source Technology Center, who set out to create versions of Linux that boot up in five seconds instead of the normal 45. They also wanted to boot up with the main system, without relying on a subsystem like Express Gate. They succeeded, demonstrating their feat at the Linux Plumbers Conference in September with an Asus Eee PC 901, equipped with a solid-state drive, which helps, but a slow Atom C.P.U., which does not.
Mr. van de Ven has since used the same techniques to reduce the boot time to only three seconds on laptops with the much faster Core 2 Duo C.P.U.’s. The time needed to connect to the network and load a browser, however, was not included.
Dell’s Latitude On feature will still take 40 to 45 seconds to get its special non- Windows subsystem running. But once it is on, it can stay on indefinitely with a dark screen because its low-voltage processor conserves battery power between charges. With a touch, the screen lights up in 1 to 2 seconds, just as a smartphone does. Latitude On will be packaged as one feature on a fully loaded notebook ; currently those models begin at $1,999.
The next generation of instant-on machines should serve uncomplainingly for days on a single charge while being priced inexpensively. If that takes a while, fine. I’m patient.