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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.
Yeah, these guys are really connected to reality. ;-)
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
This is the real question.. The iBook is just as thin, weighs the same, includes a DVD/CD-RW drive, Mac OS 9.2/Mac OS X, a 12" (1024x768) screen, 4+ hour battery life, and costs less ($1800 for the top of the line iBook as opposed to $2k for the model discussed in the article)..
It's great that it stacks up well against a PIII based notebook, but that's not were the real challenge lies for this thing..
I'm glad to see that the promise of transmeta is finally beginning to start being fulfilled.
:-)
Yep, I'm glad to see they commenced the outset of initiating the maiden launch of that debut myself!
Oh, yes, that's a 'real impartial review'... it reads more like some oil-haired watchdripping toothshiner trying to sell you a car.
I want to like it, I really do. I might seriously consider one if it had 256 or 512 MB of RAM, a larger screen (1280x1024 would be nice), USB 2.0 ports and an external DVD/CD-RW drive. I don't mind schlepping a little more weight in return for being able to watch my own in-flight movie.
And while I'm dreaming, I want a pony...
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.
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!
I'm not even an Apple fan, in fact I detest many of their business practices, but that little iBook2 really does deliver value compared to the NEC with Transmeta chip mentioned in the article. The feature set is almost exactly the same, and the NEC is $600 more!
But that's what I do in Windows. In fact, I frequently pull up CygWin.
So I don't understand your point.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.
I recently bought a Sony Vaio PCG-SR33. As far as I can tell, it's exactly the same machine, but with a couple differences:
1) It starts at $999
2) It comes with an external CD-ROM, but no floppy
3) It has a 600mhz Low-voltage Celeron instead of a Crusoe - but gets the same battery life (about 5.5 hours)
Why anyone would spend $2500 for that NEC subnotebook, I can't fathom.
Oh yeah, my Sony also weighs 0.3 lbs less with the same dimensions.
Why haven't we seen any of these chips appear in a line of PDAs?
I believe Transmeta had a TM3x00 line of chips that were altra low power consumption and a slower clock speed than the TM5x00 line. I was hoping to see it in a line of PDAs.
Looking at the specs for a StrongArm 1110 and a Cursoe TM5400, I'd say they are similair enough in energy consumption that a TM3x00 at a 200 Mhz clock speed would have been a supperior PDA chip. Unfortunately I cannot confirm this as the TM3x00 has seemed to have vanished.
Maybe some day.
Actually, I originally thought Volaire said it, and that's who I had credited in my Sig. :)
:)
Somebody informed me to the contrary... apparently Voltaire appropriated it and made it famous. It was originally said by S.G. Tallentyre, whose real name I can't remember.
If you want more information... search for S.G. Tallentyre (sp?) on Google. I don't know anything more.
I don't get it... does this really qualify as an "ultraportable subnotebook"? It's quite a bit larger and heavier than my Thinkpad 240, which is getting to be almost 18 months old now.
I guess what I'm really saying is I'm extremely happy with the size and weight of the Thinkpad 240, and I'm really puzzled as to why it's still just about the most lightweight laptop in the market. Don't people want computers they can comfortably carry around, instead of the six-pound Floppy/CD/DVD/15" monsters I see these days?
Anyway, the only gripe I have with my 240 is the battery life, which isn't much more than 80-90 minutes. Maybe it'd be better off running on a Crusoe chip? Or maybe that's what they sacrificed to get it so small... the size of the battery.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Why aren't people putting low power processors into these otherwise power-starved machines? I'm obviously expecting limited battery life, but hey, every little bit of power consumption helps.
-bugg
I've installed linux on the "Lavie" which seems
h tml
to just be a different name for the same machine. I posted some comments and details at:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jcl/linux/lavie/nec_lavie.
Usually, you pay a premium of $200-$300 for equivalent functionality in a Mac compared with the PC alternative. In this case, though, it seems like the opposite is true. The only advantages I see to this machine are PC card slot and lower weight. (iBook is 4.9 pounds, this is 3.3, IIRC)
The two have more or less equivalent battery life (Apple claims 5 hours, these guys claim 5.5) If you get one of the higher-end iBooks, memory, hard drive, etc are the same. And CPU speed is pretty much identical-- I'd guess a G3/500 will edge out a Crusoe/600, but even if not it's not going to be much behind. Crusoes are optimised for power consumption, not performance.
On the downside, there's no internal media (which probably accounts for the weight difference) and apperantly you can't even get DVD-ROM or CD-RW without going to a third party. And the iBook includes FireWire ports and an interal 802.11 slot, which this does not.
Most striking is the price. To get an equivalently loaded iBook (with DVD and 128 MB RAM) is $1500. This is "approximately" $2000. Why would you pay $500 extra for a laptop with fewer features, lousy performance, and the inelegance of x86?
So, really, the only reason to prefer this to an iBook is if you need something that runs Windoze. If you have the option of running a real OS (either Mac OS or *nix) get an iBook and save some money.
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!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
From my angelfire cheap-oh page:
"Note: Early September 2001, I bought an Apple iBook, and am so far quite pleased with it. Seems to be the best thing going in notebooks at / near this price ($1500 for the midgrade model -- DVD player), though the last month has seen some interesting and cheap Intel notebooks. Mac OS X is quite nice, but the stock 128MB is not enough to run it well. When I finally figure out burning ISOs, hopefully this machine will also run Mandrake 8.1.
There are a lot of things wrong with the iBook, but a less overhwhelming number of things than are wrong with most notebooks, because it has a decent latch mechanism so far (hope it lasts), side-mounted CD-drive, 1024x768 screen, and decent battery life. However:
This list is incomplete of course, and will probably be added to. But I like the iBook well enough that I haven't touched my moderately-powerful intel laptop in the last 9 days, and have invested in more memory for the iBook (an additional 256MB for $35?! Insane. Should make OS X an acceptable option when it arrives.)
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Why can't I find a nice laptop in the budget $300-500 range?
c ategory_slc.asp?Id=1701
You can buy older notebooks at Tiger Direct:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/
They have at least one in the $300-$500 range, maybe even more than one.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I got way into this "transmeta hype" .. I thought it would be something awesome and rival all other CPU makers of today. When it all boils down, sure, they have a very cool software solution to make a "Almost as good" x86 processor. And I thought the point was supposed to be 'cheaper & less power' ... Well.... that laptop costs $2000.00 and still requires a very hefty battery to last 5.5 hours.
... sorry. I'd rather buy the "real mccoy" PIII or Athlon Mobile processor instead of the Transmeta "low power" & "cheap" chip.
I don't see the point
I prefer small laptops and I want laptops with long battery life. Subnotebooks have been around before the Crusoe, but they had poor battery performance.
However, the designers of Crusoe laptops usually decide to make the batteries *even smaller* than those used in the old subnotebooks. Probably because "3 hourse is enough for most folks, so let's add features instead now that we save on the battery's size".
I really looked forward to Crusoe laptops, but so far, none of them delivered what I looked for in them. I hope that the PaceBook will one day stop being vaporware.
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