Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
Pentium-I ...
Pentium-II
Pentium-III
Pentium-IV
I wasn't expecting Pentium-M before a thousand years.
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.