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

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!