VAIO To Be First Crusoe Laptop

kevlar writes: "Looks like Sony has decided on putting Crusoe chips in their new Vaio laptops. " I finally got mine back from American Airlines (along with my boxers, t-shirts, and other worldly possessions that they've had for like 2 weeks). Course considering the hard drive crashes, I was kinda hoping they'd lose it so I could just get a different one ;)

Comments

Dump all INTC

[teflon007]

Intel is hurting badly. AMD looks like it's going to clobber the titan in the desktop and server market. Intel has been missing schedules and shipping bad products far too late to market. It's just had to recall the P4. It's 64-bit architecture will actually run 32-bit applications slower. AMD's sledgehammer is going to kill them on the server and desktop market. AMD's Athlon already is the fastest processor on the market and eating the high margin server end. AMD has already conquered the low margin cheap end with their K6-2 series.

Now Transmeta is going to kill them on the mobile and appliance market - leading edge vendors are actually biting. Intel's chip line is in big trouble.

Andy Grove, it's not paranoia you've got. The sharks are circling!

Re:Dump all INTC

[Jeffrey Baker]

Put the Kool Aid down and look at reality. AMD has NO market share in the server segment. They make NO server products. Their chipsets were very poor quality as recently as 12 months ago, and the bad reputation is still with them. Also SMP configurations are not available with the AMD CPUs.

I have never seen a rack-mountable server machine which packs AMD processors. I just checked three vendors (Telenet Systems, VA Linux, and Penguin Computing) and none of the are shipping AMD products.

The x86 server market is very much owned by Intel and their 440GX chipset, and Pentium III/Xeon processors.

Re:Dump all INTC

[MikeBabcock]

AMD doesn't need to make good chipsets. They aren't trying to be Intel. VIA makes excellent AMD chipsets for servers thus far ... and 8 ways should be on the way soon. AMD makes good CPUs that are fast, and reference chipsets for others to work with.

Re:Dump all INTC

[tlhIngan]

I've read a good argument for using Intel for a server. It goes something like:

If you are running a production server, go with an Intel chip. They may be more expensive and lower performing, but Intel is well-known and recognized as a stable solution. Thus, if the Intel chip dies, it'll be treated as a rare occurance. However, if you recommend an AMD solution (against management's wishes), and the AMD solution dies, you're out of a job.

I like AMD. I love their athlons (waiting for a dual SMP system... which would run much better than a dual Intel SMP system). Just that AMD isn't regarded as a "reliable" workhorse that Intel seems to have.

After all, there has to be a reason why Intel can do all these fiascos (FDIV bug, F00F, 1.13GHz Pentium III, i8x0 chipsets, RAMbus) and still charge a premium on their stuff. Especially since Intel's chips tend to be more expensive than their equivalent-performing-or-better AMD counterparts.

Re:Here's an article (WARNING: In Japanese)

[HeUnique]

From those pictures and some info I got around, it seems that:

1. You can forget about installing IBM Microdrive - this PCMCIA slot is half of what you need

2. I'm betting that this is a Winmodem - and fromm experience - probably Lucent Winmodem - so forget kernel 2.4 unless you have a way to load their binary module to it..

Re:Price?

[FFFish]

Oh! Oh! Oh! My god, (wo)man, that's *BRILLIANT*! I wish I'd thought of that!

Okay, so now my needs change to the system I originally described, with a super-reflective backing on the display, to minimize the need for backlighting, and...

144DPI (or 216DPI) Greyscale TFT LCD. (That's a resolution that works nicely with the 72-points-in-an-inch metric.)

Doesn't necessarily need to give me two days of battery life, but must give me at least 16 hours. And recharge fully within six hours. Preferably four.


--

Re:Price?

[FFFish]

D-oh -- what I want exists already!

Stupid, stupid me: I've toyed with the idea of buying one for ages, and forgot all about it in the heat of the moment!

It's the [Psion] product line, which is almost exactly what I described: runs forever on a couple of AA batteries, has right software, etcetera.

Heck, there's even a colour-screen model. And the word processor is MSWord compatible. And they're small.

K, now I'm horny to go buy one. Damn!

--

Sony ? So What ?

[mirko]

Pros

• Sony is a huge corporation that is validating Crusoe's work by putting their Crusoe in their laptops
• Sony Vaio's are quite hyped, so this might represent lots of sales for Transmeta, especially if they influence their concurrents
• Sony's C1Xxxx (the tiny one with a camera and a pointing device just big enough for a Barbie doll main cons is its lack of autonomy (around 2 hours). Putting a Crusoe in it might at least double this uptime and hence boost its sales. So, it is not only good for Crusoe but also against WindowsCE.
• Vaios often run BeOS perfectly.

Cons

• Vaios are usually quite expensive and something new doesn't imply it will be cheaper. Especially if some people call these newer ones a "financial risk"... Or abuse people with potentially lower costs of ownership.
• C1X... doesn't run Linux properly (well, maybe this is getting better now but I doubt all of the windows features -camera, etc- work yet...): What a pity for my admin colleagues...
• I believe Vaios have two concurents in the small but powerfull and with a huge autonomy sector : The Psion Netbook (soon to be powered by either Linux, QNX or RiscOS) and the Apple iBook (6 hours autonomy). These one are especially cheap (respectively 2500CHF and 3300CHF -what is CHF ?- ). And they are already available.
• The modem they give with Vaio are technically incompatible with either Linux or BeOS (personal experience). They don't answer to system queries and then need a specific driver that only exists under Windows.

--

CmdrTaco at the airport

[krappie]

CmdrTaco: Was it ticking?

Security TFM: Actually, throwers don't worry about ticking because modern bombs dont tick.

CmdrTaco: Excuse me? "Throwers?"

Security TFM: Baggage handlers. But when a suitcase vibrates, then the throwers have to call the police.

CmdrTaco: My suitcase was vibrating?

Security TFM: Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while.... its a dildo. Of course, its airline policy never to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. We use the indefinite article: "A dildo." Never "Your dildo."

CmdrTack: But i don't own a...

Re:Price?

[GregWebb]

I've thought about this, too. I've got a Psion 5 - which covers a lot of the functionality - but every now and then, something bigger and hairier would be nice.

I'm sorry if this is going to annoy people, but look at Windows CE here. You can get nice little boxes with 100-200ish MHz CPUs - seem to be normally StrongARM or MIPS - 32-64MB or RAM, 800*600 screens. Light weight, long battery life. And a big enough screen and keyboard that you're not feeling significantly cramped. Well, I'm not anyway ;) If you want a bit more space, sling in a microdrive.

If you don't want to buy anything associated with MS at all, look at a Psion 7. A bit larger and a lower screen resolution, but still a nice box. And if you want to stick with the standard software rather than converting it all to Linux or BSD, EPOC32 is rather nice.

Not too expensive, either. I've seen them going for 5-600 UKP and remember the standard tech exchange rate of £1 = $1 US...

The old IBM Workpad z50 was one of these, and got some decent enough reactions when they were being remaindered and someone worked out how to stick Linux or BSD on them. Well, they're better boxes now. Higher screen resolutions, more RAM. Heck, WinCE 3 is rather better than 2, by all accounts. Not that that's especially difficult ;)

I can't see anything better for that sort of functionality.

Re:Price?

[Hanno]

What I *really* don't understand is why no manufacturer is releasing a Pentium-200-based laptop.

I totally agree. By the way, I own an outdated Fujitsu Lifebook B112 (Pentium MMX 233). It *does* run up to 4 hours when used for not too CPU intensive tasks. (Usually, it is around 2 to 3 hours.) So yes, it can be done and if developers would take advantage of running an underclocked CPU, long-running laptops with acceptable computing power would be reality *now*.

------------------

Ultrasmall laptops (Re:Price?)

[Hanno]

I don't know about the situation in the US but Toshiba once sold a series of portables called Libretto in Europe.

I owned a 50ct (until my hotel room got robbed on January 1st, thank you). It was a great machine (fully Linux compatible), but its battery was far too small.

Despite having only a Pentium 75, the machine didn't run very much longer than 1.5 hours while on battery, with APM activated in the Linux Kernel. In Windows 95, the machine would often run less than an hour.

There is an extra large battery available for the 50ct, but it is hideously overpriced and so I did not buy it.

Still, I liked that machine and recommend it to anyone who needs ultra-portability. It isn't much bigger than a pocket calculator and looks like a keyboard-PDA, with less than 900 gramms in weight. I am a touch-typer and of course, the keyboard was tough to use, but hey.

The thing I always enjoyed were fellow passenger on German rail asking me about my computer.

"So this is what Windows CE looks like? Do you like it?"

"No, that's Linux. It's called KDE."

"Oooh."

Since we're into anecdotes now, I prefer ultra-small and -light laptops and as I said in another post, my current machine is a Fujitsu Lifebook that is also smaller than usual. As often as people ask me about it while on the traing, I should carry small business cards with my laptop's spec list with me. The fun thing is that one can afford to put huge hard disks and memory into these critters these days, yet few people can imagine that my subnotebook runs on 160 MB Ram and 12 Gigs of harddisk, with three operating systems installed.

Ok, enough bragging. :-)

------------------

What are you talking about?

[bkosse]

Colbalt ships MIPS-based systems, not AMD. Of course, Penguin Computing has an AMD based system ("Niveus Athlon Mid-tower").

--
Ben Kosse

Re:Price?

[HamNRye]

I've got a great old SOLO 2100 with a p200MMX, running Caldera Technology Preview (Need to buy OSS to get sound) that I'd be willing to let go for sub $1K....

2GB HD and 96 MB of RAM! 12.1 TFT screen.

Actually, My work computer is a P166 (OC'ed to 233) with 64MB of ram.... I'd let you have that really cheap!

~Hammy
"I never met a VC I didn't like, for a while."

The Specifications... (in Japanese)

[Dave Zarzycki]

Here is the URL: http://www.sony.co.jp /sd/ProductsPark/Consumer/PCOM/PCG-C1VJ/

Vaio quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure, if you are going to buy a Vaio, that you buy one that was originally destined for the Japanese market. Back when I worked for Sony, it was widely known that the product Sony ships to America is inferior to what they sell to the Japanese. The Japanese consumer tends to be more demanding, whereas the American will often accept poor quality as long as it has the Sony name on it.

Sony cuts costs in products destined for American markets in any number of ways. One method is simply lowering quality control standards, letting through LCDs and such that wouldn't make it otherwise. Along with other techniques, Sony can cut its unit costs 20-30%, while keeping their jacked up prices.

Re:Fuck Sony - They fucked 2600, the a-holes

[erotus]

While I agree with you that Sony America and the sony record label is screwing people, it would be kind of hard to blame the entire corporation. I mean, there are many competative factions within a corporation that don't always agree with eachother. The Sony Record Label sells CD's, Sony Japan sells mini-discs, sony somebody sells the "music clip" that plays mp3's.

Doesn't it seem odd? A corporation who vehemently opposes mp3's or digital recording is selling a "music clip" and mini-disc players. Well it's not odd at all - example, Uniden corp. makes radar guns for state and local police depts and it also makes the radar detectors you buy to detect those very radar guns. Then, they make radar guns with vg-2 chips to detect radar detectors and then they turn around and make stealth radar detectors that have antivg-2 chips.

Sony is no different here. Sony pushed the minidisc player which does record digitally into the hands of many. The minidisc format is more popular than CD's in Japan and it is pretty popular in Europe. However, when minidisc were to be marketed in the states the riaa, which the sony label is a part of, complained big time stunting the growth of that market. It is truly a shame because minidisc kicks ass.

If there is money to be made, a corporation will do whatever is necessary. Remember that different parts of the corporation may not necessarily be in accordance with eachother. Sony obviously see's that there is money to be made with the "music clip" mp3 player. If you are mad at sony, stop buying music on their label.

Yes and no.

[bkosse]

I did read some of the documentation on their site, which says "64-bit processor" of which AMD is *NOT*. However, I did not read the RaQ 3 or 4 information which are "Intel-compatible processor" based.

The NASRaQ and the Qube are also still listed on their site as being 64-bit processors, which means the MIPS chips.

I think it's a little unfair to say "they used to be MIPS but moved to AMD some time ago" when they still sell MIPS based systems.

--
Ben Kosse

Price?

[talonyx]

So, I'm wondering what the price of these things will be. I'm in the market for a $2500 laptop, and battery life is one of my major concerns. It seems that most laptops end up with 8 hours maximum, and another battery costs like $200 ... and I don't have enough cash for that.

In the acticle, it says $2,299 - and a quick conversion to canadian, and it looks like... $3500 or so.

Sucks.
Oh well, I guess I'll have to buy a used one. But I thought Crusoe was supposed to be cost-effective...

you, the reader, decide.

Re:Price?

[FFFish]

You did notice that the article mentioned "He said product tests indicated that the new Crusoe chip afforded PictureBook users two times the stamina of previous models. The typical session span with the Crusoe chip could last up to 5.5 hours."

Which is, in my opinion, pretty damned dismal.

What I *really* don't understand is why no manufacturer is releasing a Pentium-200-based laptop. With the kind of technology that could be applied to that level of CPU (.15um, advanced power saving modes, miniscule voltage/amperage requirements), the CPU would become an insignificant drain on the batter.

Yes, yes: backlights are the powersucker. Surely there are technologiesHe said product tests indicated that the new Crusoe chip afforded PictureBook users two times the stamina of previous models. The typical session span with the Crusoe chip could last up to 5.5 hours.

And a 200MHz Pentium is more than enough for the typical wordprocessing functions of a laptop. Few and far between are the folk who are attempting to run Quake 1024x768x32 on their laptop...

If the manufacturers would just get sensible about it all, we could have a P200, 96Mb, 6Gb system with a near-full-size keyboard and good video-out, that would be *ideal* for wordprocessing, accounting and web browsing -- probably the better part of 90% of most laptop functions.

Fix the backlight problem, and those puppies would run for *days* on a single charge, not a bloody useless 5 hours!

Price it at sub-$1K, and the world would beat a path to their door. My god, I'd take two of them!


--

Re:Price?

[SurfsUp]

You did notice that the article mentioned "He said product tests indicated that the new Crusoe chip afforded PictureBook users two times the stamina of previous models. The typical session span with the Crusoe chip could last up to 5.5 hours."

Which is, in my opinion, pretty damned dismal.

You haven't used a laptop lately, have you? My 300 MHz VAIO gets about 1 hr. (Claims 6 - guffaw) If this machine in really *delivers* 5 hours of compute time, it's worth the price of admission.
--

Re:Price?

[dial0g]

Before you get too excited, you need to make sure the picture book is something acceptable for you. They have a small screen, small keyboard, no internal cd-rom, floppy, etc.

American Arlines?

[karma_hax0r]

...finally got mine back from American Airlines...

Who flies anymore? I thought we all used the space elevator!

Finally...

[rchatterjee]

After years of hearing about them we can finally get a chance to see what the Crusoe can really do.

There was an article about this on CNET.com two days ago.

Sony's Transmeta-powered laptops to hit market next month

Hitachi has a Crusoe powered laptop coming out in November.

Picturebook

[masoolsa]

Picturebook seems like just the right size for showing off the Crusoe. Check this out http://vaio.sonystyle .com/vaio_direct/75/47/78.main.vaio.html.

Here's an article (WARNING: In Japanese)

[Raetsel]

This page has an article about the Crusoe processor picturebook. The text doesn't do me much good, I'm afraid... but at least you can get a look at the thing. Also, it looks like it supports the memory stick media -- for all you music clip users out there.

If you just want to look at the PII/400 next to the Crusoe version, here are some pictures: (from the same site)

• Front view
  Left side ports (PCMCIA, Memory Stick and 1394/iLink)
  Right side ports (Video out (?), Audio, USB, power, something else, wheel-thingy, and modem)
  

Looks like they traded off the IrDA port (if my eyes serve me right). One of these with an 802.11 card would be great fun!

Re:Before you get excited:

[sporty]

> Don't judge an upcoming laptop based upon other > machines in the same family from several
> years ago.

Consumer reports has reports on the defectiveness of various companies and the equiptment they make. Sony is 3rd highest for defectiveness. Great quipt. for at a price.

Tigers don't change their stripes quite easily... crappy then, crappy now.

---

Re:WHO CARES?

[tftp]

I'd rather take a high-end Athlon or PIII w/Speedstep then some "emulating processor" any day.

The correct engineering approach would be to take whatever CPU solves the given problem better.

If you have 30W 16" TFT screen then probably you shouldn't care about few watts saved on processor. However if you got mini-notebook with transflective LCD (that can work in full color without backlight) then you should pull out your calculator. More and more devices fit the latter category these days.

VAIOs are great refurb deals now

[mfh]

About a month ago I was in the market for a good ultraportable laptop on a budget, which for me was under $1500 (!). After a few days of searching the VAIO models (I already knew I wanted one), I stumbled across the discontinued PCG-505x models. I bought a PCG-505TR (300MHz Pentium, 64MB ram, 10.4" XGA active matrix LCD) All this, plus extended battery for $1400. I'd say that's quite a deal. Coupled with an IEEE-802.11b wireless ethernet card, it's an awesome mobile workstation that looks cool and functions very well.


- Mike Hughes

Anyone with a sence of morality... that's who.

[SvnLyrBrto]

>Thats like boycotting germany because of WW2

Except for the fact that WW2 took place sixty YEARS ago. And the leaders of Germany at the time have all died by their own hands, been hanged by the Nurmberg tribunals, or died in prison.

The Sony incident took place less than sixty DAYS ago. And the executive in question is, to my knowledge, still in power, not having been so much as fired, much less hanged or imprisoned.

So, yeah, a boycott IS still in order.

john

Resistance is NOT futile!!!

Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if

Re:You cheked a laptop?!?!

[swb]

This must be a question of airports travelled. I've travelled countless times in the past couple of years on business and ONLY check my laptop. It's in its own case, but is also inside of a larger, locked bag. The lock is lame, its just to move a theif onto the next bag that itsn't locked. Never had a problem, either with it getting crushed, dropped or stolen. Hell, my skis are worth more than my laptop and I check those without fear.

I hate carrying anything more than a book, minidisc player and a bottle of water onto the plane and I wish everyone else felt the same. When my wife flew Quantas around Aus & NZ last spring she said they MADE her check her laptop. It wasn't a choice.

I get so sick of trying to get off the plane and waiting for the guy in the row in front of me to get his briefcase from under the seat, the latpop from the overhead storage bin in front of him and his garment bag from the storage bin two rows behind him.

When they finally get around to giving me a laptop with a DVD player, I'll start carrying it on the plane (along with half-dozen extra batteries) for watching movies. until then its dead weight thats getting checked.

Re:What about the other laptops?

[HeUnique]

Well, in a normal PC world - you can surf to pricewatch, compare prices, buy Pentium III or Athlon K7 and be happy - so if AMD decides tommorow to cut their K7 from 500$ to 300$ - you will pay less (although you won't save $200 - there is the middle-man, you know)..

On the notebook market - it's a total different story. No one will guarantee you that if the new mobile Pentium III or the new Mobile Athlon prices will be reduced - you'll pay less - the chances are that you'll pay the same (or maybe little lower, and I'm talking about a few dozen dollars less)..

Re:Good laptops for Linux

[HeUnique]

You can try this web site, although there was another one which is more up to date and I cannot find it currently.

anyone?

Re:SMP?

[HeUnique]

AMD will release soon the AMD 760MP chipset for dual Athlon.

Alpha Processors Inc. are working with AMD to create a chipset for quad and 8 CPU's.

There are some ciruclating rumors that Transmeta thinks about SMP for their Crusoe, but for desktop..

Note: the way that AMD will work with dual processing is called P-T-P and not SMP. Exactly the same as alpha does.

Re:What OS will be used?

[HeUnique]

They'll see it with Windows ME (Millenium Edition - and from my experience - MS added Millenium bugs!)

Before you get excited:

[luge]

Two things:
1) This is only a picturebook. Yeah, it's a good start, but still- not exactly the most practical way to blow good money.
2) I, for one, will never be buying another Vaio. I bought a pretty early one (Pentium200) and the sixe and performance are pretty solid. But the construction is shit. The paint started peeling and bubbling nearly immediately, two major screws just plain old fell out, the inner ring of the female end of the power plug fell out (still works, but is loose), and the battery died. And (in less than two years!) they've stopped producing the battery, so I can't get a new one of the same type. What else... oh, yeah, the thick (1") vertical black stripes that frequently appear on the screen. Umm... does that cover it all? Oh, wait, there is also the friend's vaio where the screen hinge broke. And did I mention the 6 month warranty? ARgh... the vaio is soooo close to being about the ultimate laptop. But completely shoddy construction just makes that impossible.
~luge

Re:Before you get excited:

[Foos]

Don't judge an upcoming laptop based upon other machines in the same family from several years ago. At my company everyone has a vaio and they are solid machines, and ultra portable. The construction is quite solid in my opinion. And you can get a longer warranty than 6 months, depending on where you get it.

But dump the HD

[Zoyd]

To complement the Crusoe's power savings, I recommend dumping the built-in hard drive and sticking a 1GB Microdrive in on of the PCMCIA slots. (They just went on sale! $442 with the PCMCIA adapter and USB adapter, shipped!)

Description of Microdrive Roadwarrior and Deluxe kits.

You cheked a laptop?!?!

[Rombuu]

" I finally got mine back from American Airlines (along with my boxers, t-shirs, and other worldly possessions that they've had for like 2 weeks).

Man, consider youself lucky to have gotten it back. Never, never, never check a laptop. Of the people I know who have done so, they have something like a 50% recovery rate on those. I don't think there is an easier thing for someone to steal while being handled that is worth so much. Unless you have the thing well, well hidden in your bags. Plus, the insurance you get on checked luggage a) doesn't amount to enough to cover your laptop and b) it specifically doesn't cover laptops. Have you ever seen how they handle luguage? You lucky they don't drop some lead weights on it or something.

Get a nice computer bag, and put the thing in the overhead bin, or under your seat or something.

Oh, and did I mention AA sucks?

Re:Fuck Sony - They fucked 2600, the a-holes

[The_Messenger]

... I for one wouldn't purchase one of these if they were 2 for $10

Well, as I've stated before, I would gladly testify against the entire Free Software/Open Source movement for just one Sony VAIO. If they throw in a spare battery, I'll produce photographs of ESR sodomizing that Pepsi girl. I'm cheap! (And more importantly, VAIOs aren't!) Sony, e-mail me!

If this doesn't work, my backup plan is to distract Telsa with candy and take hers.

---------///----------
All generalizations are false.

Come on, this is Slashdot!

[The_Messenger]

Rob posts the "big bad Sony!" stories and now admits he has a VAIO. He disses Microsoft but keeps a Windows box around for Diablo 2. Slashdot has a memory shorter than Hemos' cock. Just click the links, see the shiny pictures, and ooooh and aaaahhh with the rest of us. Then imagine a Beowulf cluster of them, and ask if they run Linux. All on a day's work.

---------///----------
All generalizations are false.

haiku

[The_Messenger]

Vaguely insightful,
yet low UID ensures
high moderation.

---------///----------
All generalizations are false.

But it's SONY!

[laborit]

Before you rush out to grab the latest, neatest technology[1], take a minute to remember who threatened to "firewall [Napster] at your computer".

Let's show them we have something like a memory and something like a conscience.

Michael Cohn

[1] and I admit Crusoe sounds pretty neat