Pentium-M Notebook Put To The Test

BedivereW writes "Tom's Hardware has an interesting review of the first Intel Pentium-M (codenamed Banias) notebook. There are a few pieces of information missing, like heat production, but on the whole it is a good review. Intel appears to be moving in the correct direction." I'm looking forward to seeing more info on this one - seems to be the x86 response to the PowerBook series.

Comments

Intel admitting that clock speed isn't all that...

[EverLurking]

Wow, Intel actually made a CPU that runs at a slower clock speed that keeps up just fine with one that is running 600 MHz faster. Tom does mention that this will cause it's marketing folks a bit of backpedaling, but he kinda just glosses over it at that.

Seems to me that the Pentium-M's approach is a bit like the AMD's and the G4's - Do more each clock cycle. As a Mac convert, it warms my heart to hear that Intel is admitting that this approach DOES in fact work.

Let's kill off that MHz myth once and for all shall we?

DaveC

Re:x86 response to the PowerBook...?

[citanon]

You might recall this notebook from a while back. Now, if your make an honest assessment of the features, you may find that at ~$1400 after rebate, this notebook, from a price/performance point of view, might compare favorably with these. Now I'm not talking about originality or color schemes. I'm talking about what you get in terms of functionality for the money that you paid.

Now, the BestBuy notebook has a significant weak point in terms of battery performance. The Pentium-4M processor that it uses consumes more power than Motorola G4s found on PowerBooks but runs somewhat faster. Depending what you want to do, you can still, therefore, make a good case for a PowerBook.

However, you take the Pentium-4M, and replace it with a chip that's this much faster, with as good battery performance as the G4 (notice the fpu performance at 600 MHz, for example), and the remaining advantage of the PowerBooks evaporates.

People may still buy PowerBooks because of style and OS X, but in terms of overall functionality, a Centino notebook will blow away a PowerBook. I'm looking forward to getting my widescreen one six months down the line (and no, I'm not affiliated in anyway with any of the companies involved, I've just been looking into purchasing a notebook lately since lots of my colleagues have gotten PowerBooks).

PowerBooks are GREAT devices, but the Wintel world is fast over taking them due to their reliance on Motorola's G4 processor. Let's hope that Apple gets one of those other processors into their product line real soon.