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Pentium-M Notebook Put To The Test

Posted by Hemos on from the testing-it-hard dept.

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.

11 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Wireless choice? by xWeston · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is weird to me that Intel plans to have an 802.11a/b solution in these notebooks as a standard. It seems that going with 802.11g would be a better choice considering it works with B and is fast as A but has better range (some speculation here about speed etc since it is not as well tested).

    These notebooks arent planned to come out for a while, and considering there are 802.11g-draft products already available for purchase it seems that they would also go this route.

    Anybody know why they may not be considering this? Possibly it is in the works, who knows.

  2. Wouldn't this reduce compatability? by amigaluvr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This sounds a little odd. Combining cpu and lan and some other things all on the one chip. It's suspiciously like lock-in

    This means you don't get a chance to upgrade without completely changing your system. ie you are locked-in to one solution, the one commercial vendors want.

    Now technically it's possible to add for example 802.11g to this, but why would any manufacturer bother when there is already 802.11b, and likely a "pentium-Mg" or somesuch, which will have it.

    You will be forced to upgrade to an entirely new machine to get just one feature you need.

    Perhaps they are following Apple's lead more than it seams there.

    Not only the lock-in effect, but with all these features in one chip means you can't for example repair your 802.11b if it goes down. You'll need to replace a whole new processor

    1. Re:Wouldn't this reduce compatability? by danamania · · Score: 3, Funny

      do I have the product for YOU.

      All the features of a desktop in a radical new form factor :)

    2. Re:Wouldn't this reduce compatability? by PCM2 · · Score: 3, Funny
      This sounds a little odd. Combining cpu and lan and some other things all on the one chip. It's suspiciously like lock-in
      Dude, you think that's something? Why, in Communist China...

      ...aww, screw it. People have been buying computers with built-in Ethernet cards for years, and some of them are integrated on the motherboard. Good lord -- is that metallic noise I hear the entire world grinding to a halt?

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
  3. x86 response to the PowerBook...? by djupedal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would have expected the x86 response to the PowerBook series to be something more along the lines of "......um, we will...ah...ummm...we have this new....ummmm.....what do we have, now? .....?".

    After all, PB's are all about form and function, and since Intel doesn't make a laptop, all the function in the world won't help if the form sucks.

    Or was the PB bit just an attempt to start another war? Afterall, why compare a processor to a complete product...guess I don't get it.

    1. Re:x86 response to the PowerBook...? by citanon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  4. Re:Dumb names... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pentium-I
    Pentium-II
    Pentium-III
    Pentium-IV ...

    I wasn't expecting Pentium-M before a thousand years.

  5. Where is AMD? by Phigrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems as though, with each Intel announcement, that AMD is not quite there as much as it used to be. Although notebooks have never been AMD's strong point because of greater heat production.

  6. Unfair practice? by tanveer1979 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    IMHO, wont this be unfair. There are small manufacturers in WLAN area who provide wireless cards for notebooks. In such a case intel can easily produce the whole package and very much capture the notebook wireless market bu keeping operating margins low initially. After competition is eliminated then they can put any pricing to their advantage. Its like intel manufacturing PCs with intel motherboards and only those PCs with intel motherboards will be allowed to be named as Genuine intel.

    Its always good to have peripherals separate from chip. Another danger is that intel can have a set of proprietry registers and pipelines which are not disclosed however the WLAN card from intel will be able to use it to give better performance!. Not really good i think. Its okay to have own WLAN cards but the way intel is going about is not really ethical

    --
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  7. Intel admitting that clock speed isn't all that... by EverLurking · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

    --
    There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
  8. Centino is a STANDARD not a chip by citanon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Centrino = Pentium M + Intel 855 chipset + Calexico 802.11a/b However, each of the above three is a separate component. In theory a manufacturer could choose not to package the three together. However, to achieve the Centrino specification, they would have to conform to the above standard. Hope that this makes it clear.