64 Bit Athlon Notebooks Hit the Market

Omega1045 writes "Our friends at News.com.com.com are reporting that one of the first notebooks powered by the 64 bit Athlon will be made by (drumroll, please) eMachines. Slashdot has mentioned eMachines venture into 64 bit Athlon technology before. You also might note from this past press release that eMachines claims to be the 3rd biggest PC maker in the US. Hopefully this will have the dual effect of pushing the new chip into the market, and keeping it afforable of laptop junkies like me."

Comments

I think eMachines gets a bad rap

[ilsie]

The only experience I've ever had with eMachines are two systems- one was my sisters' old P-166 machine- it lasted for 3 years without a hitch, till I blew it up by trying to put Win98 onto it (long time ago :)

The other one is one of those widescreen eMachines Athlon laptops- my friend bought it a while back- it's a really solidly made machine that has had no problems so far. YMMV

Battery

[Mieckowski]

It has a "high-capacity 8-cell LiIon battery." Still, no mention of batter life in the specs. Hmm, I wonder why?

Heat and power?

[ducomputergeek]

I've been working with 64-bit chips since 1998 (DEC ALPHA systems and now G5's) and there has always been problems with heat and power. What's the battery life going to be on one of these machine?

Re:Regarding "desktop-replacement"

[cK-Gunslinger]

Yet for all those "advantages" there are just as many disadvantages. Ever try typing a *lot* of information on a laptop? They are just not typically ergonomic enough for extended typing use. At least not compared to a "natural-type" keyboard. Then there is screen size. Call me insane, but I happen to like my 21" of crisp CRT goodness. No 15" LCD is going to quite match it. The list can go on.

The point being, yes, for some a laptop can replace a desktop, but not so for others. Almost all the reasons you gave could be an argument for *both* a desktop and a laptop (with wireless card.)

What's the warranty?

[phr1]

Laptops, especially bleeding-edge ones that run hot, have a high failure rate. I've owned about 6 laptops in the post-Pentium era (earlier ones ran cooler and were more reliable) and four of them have needed warranty repair after more than a year of service. With a 1-year warranty I'd have been SOL. With a 3-year warranty, you're more covered, and the machine is almost obsolete after that long anyway, so it's time for an upgrade if it breaks. These days, only higher priced laptops tend to come with 3 year warranties any more, probably because the failure rate is known to be so high.

I guess if this eMachines thing has a 1-year warranty you can get an "extended" warranty from Best Buy for a few hundred bucks more. I'd definitely advise doing that. But it means you have to figure it into the price of the machine.

Re:good for everyone

[cayenne8]

It comes with Win XP...can XP do anything 64 bit??

Houston, we have a problem: XP Home?

[jerkychew]

Looks like this laptop comes with XP Home installed. Now, I'm no expert, but does XP Home even support a 64-bit proc? I know it'll at least run in 32-bit mode, but what's the point? If your OS can't deal with the newer instructions, why not just get a 32-bit Athlon at a higher clock speed?

I looked on MS's XP Home system requirements page, and it makes no mention of 64-bit support - XP 64-bit version looks like a totally different product.

Re:good for everyone

[Coryoth]

Actually I'm holding out for IBM to make a nice PPC970 laptop with Linux pre-installed. That could be very nice indeed.

Surely such a thing has to be coming - it would be the ultimate biochem/math/physics/engineer laptop, a community that already uses linux quite widely, and would actually appreciate and know what to 64bits.

Jedidiah.

Re:Dell -- it is all about the warranty

[Jeremy Erwin]

With Dell you get a three year 24 hour warranty. While Dell has never serviced my laptop warranty claims within 24 hours, they often get them within 48.

So Dell promises, but it can't deliver. Interesting.