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Centrino Laptops Reviewed
Jeff Mancuso writes "CNET seems to be the first out with full reviews of the new Centrino Pentium M laptops. The performance looks solid, the features are great, designs are thin and battery life runs up to 4-7 hours on these machines." Yeah, I had hoped that we would make it on the review list, but alas, no such luck. Nice looking machines, though.
It appears the Centrino is a processor that actually could be practical, conserving battery power at the expense of computing power. As such, the market is of people that want more battery time, and are going to sacrifice computing power to do so.
Why do these laptops then contain such battery burning parts as large screens, CDRW/DVD drives, and weigh as much as 7lb?
When I saw the Sony Picturebook with Transmeta Crusoe processor, I was drooling. Not because it was a Crusoe processor, but because it was a computer that could do what mobile people need it to do, and do it for a long time, and be unobtrusive enough to put in my jacket pocket.
If you're going to get a portable computer but you're always going to be plugged in when using it, get a cheap ECS Desknote that doesn't come with a battery. If you worry a bit about battery time, get a normal mobile Pentium IV or Mobile Athlon. If you're insane about battery life, get a Crusoe. I don't see the middle ground between the last two.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
why is it in reviews that the reviewers can't seem to bother to mention the weights of the laptops? i don't want to be toting around a seven pound beast.
Laptop Makers Don't Want This Intel Inside The new Centrino comes with a disappointing wireless chip
Too bad PC makers don't agree. Dell Computer Corp. (DELL ), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ ), and other top manufacturers are eager to harness the extra power and efficiency of the new Pentium, but they are underwhelmed by Intel's wireless technology, which they say transmits data more slowly than those of rivals such as Broadcom (BRCM ).
What's more, notebook manufacturers perceive an ulterior motive behind Intel's Centrino launch. While Otellini says Intel is combining features in one package "so everything works [well] together," some PC makers fear Intel could boost prices if it were to become the sole supplier for most of a notebook's innards. And even if Intel didn't raise prices, PC makers say they'd prefer to continue buying components from numerous suppliers so they can better set themselves apart from competitors.
I've not part of the over clocking scene, nor the laptop scene, so I wouldn't know one way or the other, but would it be possible to take an already good laptop (battery life wise) such as one of these models with the centrino, and underclock it? I'd love a laptop, but I really only want one to access email and putz around with excel files on the move.
Is it even possible to jimjam with the bios settings, and lower the performance of the CPU? Would that even have an effect on battery life?
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Apple vs. Mac aside, you've got valid point on the marketing issue. I'm waiting for the day when Computers become marketed like cars, where the raw specs aren't important. The way I see this, we're still in the muscle-car era of computing. Once we get past the point where everyone realizes that having 350 Hp engine isn't required do drive to work, we'll have ultra-cheap and pervasive computers.
When people realize this, laptop speeds will go down to usable levels (1GHz will play DivX movies fine, and that's probably the most intensive thing you could possibly do well on a laptop). Until then, expect those laptops to continue tacking on more battery burning "features."
Well, what about people who do realize this. They realize that is what PDAs are for and such, and for a laptop they do want a powerhouse. I want a laptop that can run my entire development environment, quick compiles, while listening to mp3s and when I'm finished, reboot into windows and play some warcraft 3.
Remember, not everybody feels the same way as you. This is why their is market diversity.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
No no, the number (I can't verify the correctness; blame AMD for making bad press releases) matters.
;-)
When the processor uses say 1 watt at 1 volt at 750 MHz and my notebook can support this: Hooray. If it uses 25 watts while running at 1500 MHz and 1,4 volt when the power cord ist plugged in: the notebook battery couldn't care less
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
I've seen many Cnet reviews and wondered this myself. I'm convinced that Cnet caters to its advertisers when doing product reviews. Who knows what they could have done to get the numbers to work in their favor. Ever notice all the extra applications that vendors tend to install with new systems, that boot up with Windows and stay in memory? I wouldn't be surprised if Cnet left those running.
I've noticed similar practices on ZDnet. These guys will subtract 3 points because they don't like the media player (or CD writing software, or MP3 manager, etc.) that the notebook ships with. They seem to forget that they're judging hardware, not software.
As for battery technology, slashdot has had several articles on fuel cells. (Whether these can strictly be called "batteries" we'll leave to the pedants.) Those are supposed to hit the market within a year.
Sounds like this round of PC notebooks is just starting barely, to catch up to Apple's stuff. [shrug] Hopefully this will provide an incentive for Apple to keep coming out with great new notebooks.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
yes, DivX/Xvid/mpeg4 plays great on slower cpus. i have an old celeron 333 laptop that it works wonders on. (encoding takes a beefy cpu, but decoding is a breeze compared to mpeg2).
Christ, this is not a product review, it's a bloody advertisement. Where's the criticism? Where's the testing? The only person we hear from is the salesperson!
Read jack phelps dot net