Slinky Little Crusoe Notebook Reviewed

does it really matter? writes "Apparently the love-in is finally on for the guys at TransmetaZone.com since they finally have a review of a Crusoe notebook to show for themselves. The silver NEC UltraLite gets a good going over, and proves to be an interesting match against a PIII-M." I'm glad to see that the promise of transmeta is finally beginning to start being fulfilled.

Comments

Impartiality

[warmcat]

Oh, yes, that's a 'real impartial review'... it reads more like some oil-haired watchdripping toothshiner trying to sell you a car.

2 batteries, tiny screen = long battery life. So??

[ActMatrix]

Transmeta and this reviewer always pitched the Crusoe as being so great because of its low power consumption - and yeah, five hours is a good battery life for a notebook, but big deal...this laptop has a 10 inch screen, the brightness was set to its lowest, and it has TWO batteries (an extra one behind the screen, which Is a pretty cool idea). Of course the power is going to last longer with a slow laptop with a smaller screen and an extra battery!! Transmeta might have had good goals and intentions when they designed Crusoe, but they failed on execution. Give me 10 hour battery life and I might be able to forgive the pathetic performance these processors have, but otherwise there's no reason not to by a PIII laptop instead.

Just starting?

[Jagasian]

"I'm glad to see that the promise of transmeta is finally beginning to start being fulfilled."

Are you kidding me? Have you ever checked out and actually used one of the latest Sony Picturebooks? The last two USA versions of the Picturebook used the Crusoe, and both are mean little computer machines. Supposedly Linus uses a picturebook. I mean, who wouldn't love a fully functional Linux Workstation that is no larger than a VHS cassette tape? So there is no "finall begining to start" crap. The Crusoe has been fulfilling for over a year now, its promise of a high efficieny x86 CPU. AND YES, THE PICTUREBOOK RUNS LINUX JUST FINE!

battery life and capacities

[Roadmaster]

Altough the Tm5600-based system outlasted the PIII-based one by about 28% in battery life tests, it's interesting to notice that the PIII has a 5400 mAH battery, while the TM5600's batteries add up to 4300 mAH. That is, the Transmeta processor lasted 28% more on about 20% less battery capacity. Some quick numbers indicate that the Transmeta processor would be able to run for over 6 hours on a 5400 mAH battery, which is a full 50% longer than the 4 hours the PIII system lasted, given that the batteries had the same capacity.

Everyone has different requirements

[Goonie]

I'm not going to burn CD's, want to watch an inflight movie (and if I did I might consider ripping it to my hard drive), plug in digital video cameras, or anything like that with my laptop. I want the smallest, lightest, most convenient package that runs Linux and has a full size keyboard so I can touch type when sending mail (so I want good networking abilities).

For me, something like the Vaio picturebook (also with a Crusoe processor) would be ideal. That doesn't make me right or you wrong, but it means there's room in the market for both. Vive la difference!