Slashdot Mirror
Where Would You Buy A Crusoe Laptop?
Misha asks: "I have been following Transmeta's news briefs for a little while and besides the stock's constant decline, there seems to be some life to the Crusoe. This story indicates that a new Crusoe-based laptop is appearing in China. Does anyone actually own one or an equivalent from some other manufacturer? Could you please post a review? Pros and cons from anyone reading would be appreciated." Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things have changed in the past year. Besides goods from specialty importers like dynamism.com (check out the Bluetooth camera!), the only Transmeta devices widely available in the U.S. seem to be the last few generations of Sony's Picturebook. I'd hoped for a tidal wave of them -- is there any hope of more widespread Crusoe laptop presence? Or are there good sources already?
Fujitsu has several crusoe models available.
From your man Friday, of course!
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
I saw an one of the Japanese "ultralight" notebook PCs (NEC I believe) at the Microcenter in Cambridge (Boston). Had a 10" screen, ~ 3 lbs and looked cute. The CPU listed was the Transmeta Crusoe. Nifty look & feel, and seemed snappy enough for lightweight work (i.e. standard websurfing, wordprocessing, email etc).
Fujitsu's P-2040 should be available something like this week or next. I have had the opportunity to play with a prerelease prototype, and it's a really sweet machine. At a $1499 list price (don't expect big retail discounts), it is priced to move, too.
Another box that you can get in the U.S. today is the NEC DayLite/UltraLite series, they are fairly expensive ($2499 list) but are extremely light, have *very* good battery life, and the DayLite version has a screen that is viewable in full sunlight, hence the name. Unfortunately the screen is somewhat dull when indoors. It also has some issues running Linux, although the ACPI changes in 2.4.16 improved the situation greatly.
I recently looked at a ProGear laptop. It has a touch pad screen that will run at 1024x768 with a 400MHz transmeta chip. It also ran a specialized linux kernel with X. Very impressive for only about $1800 dollars.
go check it out at www.sonicblue.com
Macho Engineer Donkey Wrestler
I have one of the Crusoe Picturebooks, and I'm perfectly happy with it. It's light, and runs a lot cooler than the mobile pentiums. Power consumption is good, though not as stupendous as transmeta claimed it would be. I get about 8 hours on the quad battery (which does double the weight of the machine). Other than that, there really isn't anything to report. The picturebook does feature a horribly broken APM compatibility layer, and ACPI on linux ain't working yet, so no power management to speak of. The crusoe's longrun stuff does work under linux though, as does pretty much everything else on the machine (except the winmodem).
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
I might if I could get it from a reputable vendor. My big problem is that laptops are not cheap, and with Intel strongarming the industry to stick with their low-power chips, it seems that many of the OEMs selling Crusoe machines are the ones with nothing to lose.
Of course, if Micros~t released a Crusoe-based web pad I would buy one, and spend the next couple weeks beating my head against the wall to get it running *NIX...
A list of laptops and <A HREF="http://www.transmeta.com/everywhere/product<nobr>s<wbr></wbr></nobr> /notebooks.html">ultra-light notebooks</A>
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
Since Crusoe can have different instructions sets how low level do these instructions need to be? Is it possible that it could be made to use a high level language's byte code?
I'm not just thinking Java either - running Python or Perl apps on a dedicated CPU would be very cool. Is it possible at all?
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
The first person to have Crusoe portables stateside, as far as I know, is Emperor Linux. I've never had anything but excellent experience in dealing with them.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
I bought one from dynamism.com and installed linux. Comments and details
Transmetazone should answer a lot of your questions.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I've been looking for a NEC LaVie MX for what seems like forever. I've seen one of these in action, and they're really cool. Underpowered by a power-user's standpoint, but it makes up for it in weight (1.39kg), battery life (11 hours claimed!!), and size (1.16 in thick).
The only place it seems I can order one from is dynamism, but they are SOOOO expensive there $2500!
So my point is, I'd love an answer to this "Ask Slashdot"!
I have pre-ordered one of Fujitsu's P-2040 models it is scheduled to ship on December 27th though I think if you order now it is moved back to the middle of January. Here is the link to the product page.
I own a Crusoe SonyPicture book, and yes it does get good battery (something like 8-10 hours real useable time with my wireless netcard in and the quad battery). But they honestly seem to lack in speed, and as far as linux goes it runs in 586 mode. They are ok, but not the groundbreakers I had hoped for.
A quick check at Yahoo! Shopping shows a few places that have these available, including CDW.
The US versions of the two Crusoe portables I was looking at in my previous Slashdot post about this, the Casio Cassiopiea Fiva MPC-205E and 206E, and the NEC Versa DayLite, are both available online, direct from Casio and the NEC from CDW or PC Connection.
The Transmeta ultralight noteboooks page also has "How to Buy" links for all the listed US-market notebooks.
Why did you spoil it? This could have been a good troll if you hadn't added the nonsense about VB/Linux.
-- SIGFPE
Here are some quick instructions on how to set up the system to get a full version of Linux on it and dual-booting in this manner.
Note that Casio currently has some... issues... with their compliance of the GPL. I am still waiting for the promised CD of source code. Definitely was not included in the box.
Anyway, it's a bit pricey, but it's tiny and reasonably powered as well. I love it... even with the extra-large battery (rated for 9 hours), it's just 2.5 pounds.
Very nice machine. 10GB disk, 128MB memory, 2.4lbs. I've upgraded to 256MB memory, and am running RedHat 7.1, though not without some adventures. For more info on this and other similar laptops, visit dynamism, or go read the Yahoo groups mailing list Libretto-L1. email me or post questions there for more info.
Pros:
Lightweight
Sufficient CPU power for my tasks (email, word processing, web, Linux / devel system, though compilation is slow...)
gorgeous screen
usable keyboard, though some of my friends find it a touch small. I think it's great.
Cons:
low Linux compatibility (getting sound and pcmcia requires a custom kernel hack, sound is iffy at best after that, screen brightness can't be changed, pcmcia is a bit weird...)
short battery life (2.5 hrs, tops. with windows it'll go up to 3.5 if you reduce screen brightness, which leaves it still perfectly usable. Just can't be done in linux...)
Japanese keyboard and manuals. a minor annoyance, I remapped it as US keyboard because I touch type, and I know there are those who will love the extra keys to bind to things...
There is no accessible bios or bios pw.
Oh, and the full feature list:
firewire, 1 pcmcia slot, winmodem, 2xUSB1.1, ALi sound, up to 256MB memory, up to 40GB disk, screen is 10" 1280x600 widescreen (two side by side xterms anyone?), VGA out. Triple capacity battery available.
Price is currently about $1700 from dynamism, or $1100 if you import it yourself. Others will sell it for closer to $1300 I think. Dynamism is overpriced but great to work with, and they'll sell it without windows.
Happy hunting
OK!
here's a challenge. We all know the camera page is on the dynamism site. Now, I challenge you to find a click-path from the entry page that gets you to the page.
I couldn't do it. I wonder what other nifty gadgets are hidden on the site?
I've got a toshiba libretto L2.. its pretty nice. Pics at dynamism.com, but i bought mine from a guy in korea that sells 'em on ebay.
some of the highpoints:
* it's pretty small. smaller and lighter than my vaio pcg-n505vx
* the battery lasts a long time. Even with no control for the display in linux and a somewhat power-hungry wireless card, the battery consistantly lasts for greater than 2 hours.
* 1280x600 display - thats a pretty wide display for such a small laptop.
* built in ethernet
* FOUR mouse buttons. i hate laptops without a third mouse button, this one's got a spare.
* everything except the power management and the external monitor connector (and maybe the modem - i haven't tried it) works fully in linux.
* it's reasonably fast (600mhz, but i'd say its slower feeling than a 600mhz intel or amd)
* the keyboard is very comfortable. YMMV.
* 256megs, not too shabby.
* the screen is very bright.
some low points
* 1280x600 display - thats not very much height for a laptop.
* odd trackpoint pointer - I like trackpoints, but this one seems to try to calibrate itself constantly, which results in an odd feel..
* limited ACPI support. it doesn't support APM at all, and ACPI isn't quite up to speed (in linux)
* the third and fourth mouse buttons seem to auto-repeat, like a keyboard. This may very well be a configuration problem on my side, i haven't messed with it (just noticed it last night in fact)
* maxes out at 256megs.
* the mic jack is mono only. no stereo line-in or anything.
* no IR - how bizzare.
* no bluetooth. From attempting to read english translations of japanese web pages before it arrived at my door, i thought there was a chance it might.
Other notes:
* its got a japanese keyboard. I don't mind this, but it took a few days to get used to. I suppose one day i'll map some of those spare keys to do interesting things...
* it's got 2 usb ports, one ethernet, a headphone jack, a mic jack, rj11 for your phone line, one pcmcia, and video-out.
I do use it as my main machine at home. before i got it, i used a vaio pcg-n505vx.
--Sean
I've been waiting for a US-available Transmeta-powered laptop for quite a while. Dynamism was one source, but way to expensive. eBay has several Japanese-market laptops for sale all the time (Toshiba L1/L2/L3's) from a guy in Korea (very good reputation though!). I've even seen some of the other Japanese-only Transmeta-powered laptops on eBay from time to time (like the Fujitsu Bibio Loox-T).
The problem is, at 600MHz, the TM5600 just can't quite do full motion DVDs without problems, which is what they promised it could do. There just isn't quite enough horsepower in it. And, the battery life is Good, but not Great. So, all the manufacturers have been waiting for the TM5800 (800MHz) cpus to come out.
In general, the Japanese market is very aggressive with tiny electronic devices like the Sony Picturebooks. But in the US, it's more the bigger screens and CD-RW/DVD drives that sell more units. For this reason, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Sony have several Transmeta-based laptops for sale only in Japan, but not here in the US (yet).
I've been drooling over the Fujitsu P-Series laptop ever since it was put up on their website a few months ago. 3.5lbs, 3+ hours runtime (up to 15 with optional batteries) with an integrated DVD/CD-RW drive. All for $1500 up. The "available by" date has kept creeping later and later though. It originally said in October, then November, then before 2002, and now it says "Will ship in January."
Transmeta is having a few manufacturing problems at the fab, and it's pushing everything back. This also hurts the manufacturers in trusting the company any further.
Also, Transmeta has had a high CEO rollover rate the last few months, causing worry about the internal health/vision of the company.
The other problem is Intel got all worried about it and developed their Ultra Low Voltage chips which are also coming out in laptops over the next few months. Dell is rumored to have an ultra-cool 3lb unit with this chip in it. 700MHz, with the same power usage as Transmeta, same run time, but with the Intel brand name behind it. I bet this will sell very well, especially to the corporate/college student market.
Overall, Transmeta was a good idea, but poorly executed for the laptop market. Intel will squash them in the next 6 months. But, Transmeta, with their code-morphing technology, has a lot of other markets to work with (low-power/small size servers, etc) and their TM6000 chip is supposed to be an all-in-one web-pad solution type chip. Small-footprint laptops is just one possible market for their technology, with a big gorilla hanging around the banana tree.
So, instead of hoping for a Transmeta-based laptop for Christmas, wait a few months and get the best one you can find from the soon-to-be-released chips (with either Transmeta or Intel inside).
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
I watched the unveiling of Transmeta online and was holding off making a laptop purchase for a couple months after waiting to get a Crusoe...but I gave up (and the PictureBooks was not interesting in anyway). Out of sight out of mind.
So, now I'm starting to consider getting a new laptop and passing my current Toshiba 2805 to my dear wife. I have a lot of requirements -- 15" LCD, speed, harddrive, RAM, ... but I honestly could not care less about the processor manufacturer and would NOT buy a laptop just because of the processor.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
The November 12th ComputerWorld (weekly rag) reviews them (very favoribly) on page 60. They have a 15X9 format screen that's way to slick!
Cheers,
- RLJ
Maybe you should be asking "Where can I buy a laptop with long battery life?" or "Where can I buy a laptop with really low energy consumption?". Maybe the answer won't be a Crusoe laptop.
Start Running Better Polls
According to this article about Crusoe laptops, it seems that Transmeta didn't deliver the chips in time to get them into the laptops:
Sony Corp and Fujitsu Ltd on Wednesday postponed the launch of new personal computers originally planned for later this week, blaming the delayed development of Transmeta Corp's (TMTA) power-efficient chips.
(Reuters)
Why aren't we told when editors moderate our posts?
My boss has owned a tiny cruesoe based laptop from NEC for around 6 months now. It runs at 600MHz supposedly (Model number is unknown but it's on the NEC website.)
The build quality is fantastic: the machine is ultra thin and light but with highly important things such as solid hinges and the like. I mean, it's just so damn sexy to look at.
Great screen. Excellent battery life. Good solid components, especially things that count like the keyboard.
I'm primarily going to bitch however. The crusoe never seems to run past 300Mhz when unplugged (iirc correctly, this is deliberate, but a serious pain: booting fairly standard win2000 install takes ages after logging in)
I have found the lack of real ethernet port highly annoying as well: basically several of the ports (eg modem and ethernet) use non-standard interfaces, which means you can't just jack in an RJ-45 connector, you have to cart around silly little "converters". This means they get either lost or broken quickly: He's on his third ethernet convertor (having lost one and broken one: if they get bent too much (eg contactly unplugging and plugging in again) then the wires come loose it seems)
The newer versions have a faster processor, and with some reading of manuals, I could probbaly figure out how to force the processor into full speed mode on batteries.
The laptop itself was bought after reading a review in the UK magazinre PC World (I think), which gave it their best rating (beating the ultralight version of the sony viao). It's used constantly every day and the fact it's so light and yet solid (aside from the damn ethernet port connectors..) means I'd look at getting one myself when I next upgrade. Nice piece of kit.
Pick your laptop based on merit. That means the speed,size,resolution,contrast,memroy,battery trade off. notice that the screen is a big factor in many of those! Choose your laptop based on features, and if it has a good chip, great.
Now if you don't like one company, then not buying from it could be understood, but there are 3 companies producing x86 chips, so that can't be your factor.
As far as specs go the P-1000 weighs 3.5 pounds and is only 1.5 inches thick. This includes a combo DVD/CDR drive for only $1500 with 128 megs. It can be upgraded to 256 megs of ram.
I have a 128MB MPC-206e. Aside from the ridiculous cost of the upgrade to 192MB (which I hope to get *some* day) it is ideal for me. 2.1 lbs with the standard battery. It goes into one of the pockets of an Eagle Creek "guide bag" and is just perfect.
... I can burn CDs on battery power! From Winbloze and Linux!
I have a couple Casio accessories--the large battery and the external CD. You must have the external CD to install Linux. Which I did. I replaced the 20gb internal drive with a 30gb one, and it dual boots RH 7.1 and Winbloze. With reiserfs no less--now THAT was a pain to bootstrap. (The 20gb drive still lives in an external enclosure in case I need some extra space/backup.) I also have a Digital Relay
The machine will play mp3s for me while I type from one coast of the US to another, or from Dulles to Heathrow. On one battery.
Very cool. Exactly what I wanted to replace my pb2400. May Crusoe live long and prosper.
-Joseph Nathan Hall
Right now we have a price war going on between Intel and AMD (which, as you can see from recent sales volumes, AMD is winning on volume). This has cut the prices and pretty much kept Transmeta out of the NAm/EU markets.
As a result, Transmeta laptops are selling pretty much in Asia. But, along with the worldwide fallout in PC and laptop sales, there's some really bad economic goings on in Asia, and especially Japan.
So, the short version is - if you want a Japanese manufactured Transmeta laptop, you can get it. But if you want one of the big box manufacturers here or in Europe, you won't see it for a couple more years at best.
Some of this has to do with how people do things and how they live. In some societies, there's not a lot of spare space, and you have to fit in cramped on the trains. So a non-baking laptop is a good idea, especially with good battery life. When you live with a family of four in a space the size of my living room, you need small things that are portable.
But here in North America and the EU, we have no such problems, so they just don't sell well, since we don't mind buying big boxes and have many rooms.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Why in the world would I put my hard-earned cash on a barely competing technology that has a hard time finding a home, and didn't live up to ANY of the hypes they've blattantly generated, why would I want to support it in the first place?
:) ) it's just that personnaly, I'd support technology that are doing more work in the labs than in the PR room. But that's my opinion and that's why I am saying "ask", can someone enlighten me? (with something else than a flamethrower please :) )
I don't want to be a troll (well I don't care, karma tops at 50 anyways
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Note: I am not a professional analyst. I am a slashdotter par excellance whose abilities in this arena lead into the real world. These are justifiable positions that I am putting in bit form here; however, prove me wrong and win a prize. (Prize to be disclosed later.)
In the US and increasingly in the EU as far as I saw at the HAL2001 conference, the trend in portables is the 'portable workstation', also known as the 'why, indeed it HAS a kitchen sink' version. Look at the local high-end low-cost provider of hardware; no system is without at LEAST a 20 speed CD, and that's only on the most baseline of systems. Almost every system has a DVD drive, and some have combo drives. Even though the floppy is on the way out according to some analysts, it's also standard equipment.
The screens on these laptops is a minimum of a 13 inch diagonal. The keyboards are full-size 87 keys.
The ultraportables' market is in Japan and for those who want the small rigs. Not many in the US do, as the cost is significantly higher; the screens considerably smaller; and the needed peripherals often absent or very clunky.
Battery life is increased in most ultras, especially the Crusoes, but the performance numbers stink badly. Sorry Linus, love the OS, but dislike the hardware.
Hell.. most US systems can get up to 5 hours of life out of them (with extra batteries). Large systems with the same potential battery life as the ultras.. and the bigrigs are cheaper.
Sorta kills the edge.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Fujitsu Lifebook P1000/P1010 are available today, and are mighty cool. For sale here.
Only tried the P1000 and it rocks. Really small and light. And the 8.8" widescreen is impressive. Weights under 1 kilo too, and is a bit smaller than the Sony Vaio with the build in camera. (And ALOT cheaper) It misses FireWire though.
P1000: US$ 1,230 (533 MHz)
P1010: US$ 1,450 (internal NIC and 600 MHz)
No, issues with the chips. They run slow counter to marketing hype, they run at voltages that are higher than current intel and other manufactures chips do (therefore get no longer life, counter to marketing hype) and just in the last day or two they admitted that they cannot reliably produce enough new chips to make any money or fill any large orders (For atleast ANOTHER several months, course that has been par for the course since day one). So the question is not "Where?" but "Why on earth?". And it is ALL the chips fault. If Linus wasn't working there /. would be making as much fun of this company as MS.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
It weighs less than 3 pounds and has battery life of something like 11 hours on one battery "under optimal conditions".
Linus made it, nobody came.
I hate to break it to you, but the Crusoe has pretty much been a flop. I've seen a few cool things, like the server blades that RLX makes, but I haven't really heard of them selling too well.