64-bit Laptops Reviewed

prostoalex writes "ExtremeTech reviews current mega-notebooks, which are powerful enough to become a desktop replacement. Among the laptops reviewed there's one with 64-bit AMD Mobile Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz clock rate) - the Voodoo Envy m:855."

Comments

Somewhere in Cupertino

[Jesrad]

... Steve Jobs is choking and fuming because he wasn't able to fit G5s in PowerBooks and sell the "first 64-bit laptops".

Re:Somewhere in Cupertino

[Bert64]

First 64bit laptop? What about the "Tadpole Alphabook" - i believe that was the first 64bit laptop, but i could be wrong... i believe it came out in the first half of the 90`s and use a 166 or 233mhz 64bit Alpha EV4 processor.
Also tadpole produced HP PA-RISC laptops (precisionbook) and ultrasparc laptops, altho they came much later, they still predate the G5 by a few years.
On a side note, if anyone has a working alphabook for sale.. get in touch with me!

desktop replacement

[Martin65]

Hasn't almost every notebook that has come out in the last 10 years been touted as a "desktop replacement" ??

More like attack of the power hogs

[TheRedHorse]

The Voodoo Envy laptop makes such promises as "3 + hours of battery life(when running real world apps like MS Office and the internet)". It also weighs in at 8 pounds.

No thanks, I'll pass on that.

My idea of a laptop is a good mix of power to get things done and portability. I doubt users will be carrying around their 8 pound Voodoo Envy for long.

Add that to the $3500 price tag and you have an expensive and unusable "laptop".

Won't happen

[benja]

Come on, there are two reasons to prefer a desktop over a laptop. First, ergonomics: some people just prefer to have a big keyboard and a big monitor and being able to move the two independently of each other. Second, hardware capabilities-- you can fit more into a desktop, and you can upgrade it easily. (Oh, and you don't need to optimize for size or battery lifetime, so things can be cheaper and more powerful.) Neither of these is going to go away. Even if there are some really powerful laptops out there now, there'll be some even more powerful desktops coming up soon.

That said, there's no reason why laptops can't replace desktops for many kinds of people today. I haven't had a desktop in 3 1/2 years -- nothing new there.

Stupid 1GB memory limit

[X]

I have to bitch about the low memory limits on these AMD64-based laptops. All the ones I've seen so far max out at 1GB (actually, many of the desktops also max out in the 1-2GB range, but at least a few are cluefull). This pretty much kills the point of having a 64-bit processor (I guess you still might get a boost with properly tuned integer code).

Word to the wise: 64-bit apps actually take up more memory, if for no other reason than all the pointers are now 64-bit instead of 32-bit. So your 1GB laptop is going to feel a lot more memory constrained than if it were running 32-bit code. The Intel systems have better power management, and they typically will let you go to 2GB, so for most folks they will actually perform significantly better.

Methinks this first generation of laptops is essentially for folks who want the bragging rights of saying they have a 64-bit CPU, without really understanding the implications.

I call bullshit on all these 'firsts'.

[Cecil]

I've been drooling over Hypersonic's Laptops for quite a long time now, and I find it very hard to believe that either of these companies have the first Athlon 64 laptop (which Hypersonic has had basically since the Athlon Mobile 64 was announced) or the first RAID array in a laptop, which Hypersonic has had for a long time in their Aviator GX8 series.

Way too many "journalists" see something like that and go "whoa, that must be the first time that's ever been done." without ever looking into it.