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

Upon hitting the market

[Anonymous Coward]

The heat from the laptop caused the market to catch fire, which at this time is still burning.

Re:Upon hitting the market

[ruiner5000]

Perhaps this would be funny if it was anyway true. G4 and P4 laptops generate far more heat than Athlon 64 laptops. And well, also Athlon 64 laptops have not just hit the market, they have been available for several months. This is only the first on available from a Tier 1 vendor, and also in Best Buy. Not to mention it was not CNet/ZDNet that broke this news. It was www.AMDZone.com.

good for everyone

[ArgumentBoy]

I don't have much need for a 64 bit laptop, but I welcome this because it will naturally drive down the prices of what I might actually buy. Way to go, eMachines.

Re:good for everyone

[hendridm]

> I don't have much need for a 64 bit laptop

I think I could find something to do with it. 64-bit, 802.11g, USB2 and Firewire, vertical scroller (essential!), and my favorite: a built-in 6-in-1 media reader. The price is right too. Mmmmm... I don't like AMD stuff, but this thing could quickly make me a convert.

Re:good for everyone

[cayenne8]

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

Re:good for everyone

[bhtooefr]

15.4", 1280x800? You don't seem to understand that that is the industry standard for widescreen laptops.

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600? The only thing higher than it in the Mobility line is one with twice the RAM, which gets the name Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro. (Voodoo didn't actually know WHAT a 9600 Pro was at the time that they called theirs a Pro - nobody did - but it is really the exact same thing as what's in this eMachines)

512MB RAM? My school runs XP on 128, and it's still snappier than Damn Small Linux on 96. 512 is plenty for the average user.

AC-97 Audio? Sure, it's only capable of 2.1 sound, but when a laptop only has 2.0, and those speakers suck (I've read that the m:855's speakers suck ass), do you really need a high end sound card?

Paying more than $1550? Why? Voodoo's box has a pretty paint job, a DVD burner, and a 15" 1400x1050 (IMHO, that's painfully small) (on top of what the eMachines offers), for OVER $1000 more.

Re:good for everyone

[AssClown2520]

My comment about 512 barely being enough for XP may have been a bit off, but I guess it depends upon your application. Try opening a large autocad drawing with 512MB of memory. As soon as your computer starts paging you may as well go get a cup of coffee cause your gonna be there a while. I have old P3 750s with 1GB of memory that still perform decently in Autocad. It is all about the memory.

Second, the sound card in all laptops are pathetic. I do some basic MIDI and home studio stuff, but even for playback these cards don't give me what I want. I do have very nice headphones and I get okay quality with these.

Finally, laptops are about whatever you want them to be. You want portability? Go get a Sony Viao. You want a desktop replacement? They are available for a price. I've had four laptops that are basic portable desktops. These are almost as powerful as any desktop at the time.

Besides, this whole discussion is about putting a top of the line powerful 64-bit processor in a laptop and then shipping it with XP-home. What good are you getting out of that processor? Then they sorround it with mid-level components. It just doesn't make sense.

Anyway, you make some good arguments. But I will take better sorrounding components than that 64-bit processor.

Re:good for everyone

[Eminence]

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

From their home page:

• eMachines recommends Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP

I guess it does. They wouldn't recommend it if it was a bunch of crap, wouldn't they?

Re:good for everyone

[addaon]

I think I could find something to do with it

From linked site: Weighs 7.5 lbs/1.5" thin

Me too. It would make a good foundation for a bird house.

If you house albatross.

Re:good for everyone

[isorox]

Almost, for the last 4 years Microsoft have been porting the most common features of 32 bit windows to a 64 bit platform. The lastest beta of XP64 can BSOD at twice the speed

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:good for everyone

[phoenix_rizzen]

Not yet. But, the Athlon64 running in 32-bit mode is still faster than the fastest AthlonXP and gives the fastest P4 a run for its money.

Plus, all it takes to gain full 64-bit support is a re-install with a 64-bit aware OS. Gotta love when updating a piece of software gives you access to even more of the hardware.

Re:good for everyone

[hendridm]

My experiences have been different. I've owned roughly 5 Intel and 5 AMD systems in the past 12 years and have had nothing but trouble with the AMD systems. It started with the K6 and K6-2. Unstable and subpar performance. I moved on to the Athlon, at the time touted as the Pentium-killer. Constant system crashes and overheating with a board and chipset that got rave reviews on most of the hardware sites. Fed up, I vowed never to get AMD again. My next system was a Pentium 4, and it ran like clockwork. One day I decided to build a toolbox PC. I found the perfect board for the toolbox I was using, but unfortunately, it was an AMD board. I said, "what the hell" and bought an Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73GHz). I tried TWO different boards that were warranted for up to 2100+ processors and they both wouldn't clock higher than 1.33GHz. Waste of time, money, shipping, and grief. If I wanted a system that slow I would have gone with an Athlon 1500 or a Celeron 2.0GHz for the same price. TWO DIFFERENT BOARDS (one Biostar, one Shuttle) and my 2100+ wouldn't clock at higher than that of a 1500. So pretty much every AMD system I've ever owened was a spectacular failure.

Before someone says, "you're either an idiot, or you buy shitty hardware! I'm using a system right now that has an uptime of 3446543215 days!" then I congratulate you on your luck. When I buy hardware, I generally read reviews (with the exception of the Toolbox PC, where I went for more modest parts). Perhaps I've read all the wrong reviews and took the wrong recommendations from colleagues, however, I use the same technique and criteria to choose my Intel systems and I have had nothing but excellent quality and performance with almost every Intel system I've owned (the one exception was a disasterous experiment with Intel's on-board choice of a SATA controller (Silicon Logic), but I won't go into that here. I had that board for about 3 days before returning it).

YMMV, and it almost certainly will since it is one of the three things everyone raves about here on Slashdot - Linux, AMD, and OS X.

Re:good for everyone

[inquisitor]

You may have been forgetting something to do with that Athlon 2100+ - its bus speed, which in the case of the 2100+ is 133MHz. At least one Athlon board I've seen defaults to 100MHz bus speed (does *not* autodetect bus speed), and those are the speeds you've been seeing. Also, many older Athlon boards have 100/133+ speeds set using a jumper, which was usually shipped as default to 100 (this has mostly gone to software now, thankfully); further bus speed configurations could be done using the BIOS.

You have to do this with Intel too whenever they bump the bus speed, unless they've changed the electrical connections on the socket or whatever as they usually do. Also, whenever you see random crashes, the first thing you think, always, is memory error; then you update board's BIOS, video, chipset drivers etc. I saw this recently on a board with a dodgy stick of RAM; causing very random crashes, despite the fact the dodgy RAM was >1GB.

You're not making adequate comparisons, anyway (despite what you said). I mean, Biostar compared to an Intel OEM board? Come on. I buy MSI for AMD builds, and I've never seen a bad one. ASUS, ABIT, Gigabyte etc. AMD boards are generally fine too, and the low end MSI KT600 is actually surprisingly good (if, as said before, you have to manually enter the bus speed, at least in software.)

In any case, Athlon 64 is a completetly different chip to AXP, so nothing from the past applies. It has a P4-style heat spreader. It's cheaper in the UK than the highest-end non-"extreme" P4 by about UKP100, it's about as fast, and according to the reviews I've read it actually produces less heat than its competitor, as have Athlon XPs since about the Thoroughbred (I've seen hot P4s c, 60C and cool Athlons c. 40C, both using the stock retail fan/compound. They're both quiet, too.) The cooling problem with AMD? No longer there, as long as you use an acceptable fan - and the retail one does come into that category.

Besides, my overclocking-freak acquaintance swears by them; if the OCers like it, it's *got* to be fine for the normal person. Wouldn't it?

Note: I do own Intel machines; my laptop is a P4-m, because at the time AMD laptops pretty much came with godawful integrated graphics. I think the situation is mostly the same today, unfortunately. My desktop is a fairly old Thunderbird Athlon 1GHz, and it works and always has worked fine. I have seen dodgy AMD machines from friends, but the main problem one was based on an ultradodgy PC Chips off-brand board that was unfortunately not the same as the Elite K7S5A, which can at least be made acceptable. It had the bus speed problem, too.

Anyone comment on linux support?

[Frequanaut]

For the k8t800m chipset or ati mobility 9600 on said laptop???

I've got about $1500 and an urge to upgrade.

price

[rogabean]

Quote:
"Hopefully this will have the dual effect of pushing the new chip into the market, and keeping it afforable of laptop junkies like me."

This is the only part I can see as a plus to this. However I would take a guess that it will do little to the latter, in that most companies know E-Machines general reputation with the people who would be first in line to buy a 64 bit laptop, so I don't forsee that they will try to compete with E-Machines in the price category for some time.

Re:price

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you remember the eMachines of 3 years ago, not the one of today. Amazing that a company does so much to change their business model, yet some look blindly at the past and presume they still do something else...

So will the G5 PowerBook (if and when it comes) from Apple errantly claim the same thing the G5 PowerMac did?

Re:price

[garcia]

You know, for all the bad things that I hear about e-machines I can't find a single problem with the one I have been using since 11/2002. It has been up, without fail, running Linux since that day (only down for routine kernel upgrades).

Sure it was cheap, came with a bunch of crap I didn't really need, but it was a gift and it works fine.

The people who are going to be first in line to purchase a 64bit laptop are going to purchase an e-machine because that's who's offering it currently. I don't see Dell coming out saying they are, do you? In fact, I have better success with my e-machine than I did with my Dell laptop. After dealing with Dell for that particular machine I will *never* *ever* buy from them again.

I would go with the e-machine without a hesitation.

Re:price

[rogabean]

True E-Machines have tried in the past few years to change. They have restructured their business model, but the stigma of 3+ years ago still sticks with them. I just was pointing out my opinion that the other leading OEM's will use this to their advantage to keep prices up as long as they can. The same way they use anything else to keep prices up.

How many people on here would really fork over the cash to give E-Machines another chance? I know would not, no matter what they do.

(yes this is an opinion, but if 1 person thinks this way, how many others do.)

Re:price

[cymen]

Right now eMachines is just like Hyundai was a year or two ago--new products, better quality, etc. but with a poor reputation due to their past. eMachines went through a drastic change in management. Their machines today are much better than what they used to sell.

At least that's the buzz...

Re:price

[ortholattice]

Here's my experience.

My company bought an eMachines 333cs from 1999. It was cheap, $400. It came with W98, and when we put NT on it locked up every few days for no good reason. Later I heard this was a frequent problem, and this is probably one of the reasons the machine was considered crap. Anyway around 2001(? or whenever 7.1 came out) I put RH7.1 on it (stripped down to bare bones for security), rebuilt the kernel to 2.4 so I could do iptables and iproute2, and configured it to be an ARP proxy transparent firewall/router for our office, which it still is and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

I remember when Code Red came out I ssh'ed in from home (actually to an internal Linux machine, then to the firewall - the firewall has all ports blocked to the outside) and blocked it. Remote admin is good.

The power supply fan died twice (once burned out, once frozen) and the CPU fan froze once. I now have a couple of spares of these fans for a few years to come. I have a streamer on the power supply fan to show me it's working. Except for turning it off to replace the fans, the uptime has been continuous, about 1.5 years until the first fan problem.

Re:price

[LnxAddct]

No...Dell sucks with businesses too. I had a whole bunch of Dell computers shipped to my firm to replace the older computers. Then I got the paperwork and they were charging us twice the amount that it should have been! Needless to say many eyebrows rose when they got wind of this. I called Dell and they realized that it was a problem on their end, they said they fixed it. Then a month later we received another invoice from them stating our overdue balance. The crazy thing is that we didn't have a balance and were told to disregard them and that it was noted in their system. We had payed for the computers in one lump sum to avoid things like this but we kept getting invoices for about 4 more months. Whether its still on our credit report I'm not sure, but it was stating that we owed Dell money (and alot of it) which is Not a Good Thing (tm). Moral of the story: I only order from Gateway now for business and Emachines for home.
Regards,
Steve

Re:price

[Bombcar]

Just like Chevy vs. Ford it all comes down to personal experience with a product.

Yup, and in both cases the right choice is neither.

MOPAR FOREVER, DOOD! and MACS RULE, d00d!

Mod me, I've karma to burn!

Hurray

[Sarojin]

for 30 minutes of 64 bit computing

Re:Hurray

[jo_ham]

and a toasty warm genital region.

Re:Hurray

[JonTurner]

>>and a toasty warm genital region.

"There's been some misunderstanding," said the man at the return counter. "I said I wanted a computer with a compact DISK burner."

ba-da ching! Thankyouverymuch.

Re:Hurray

[Darken_Everseek]

*catches his breath* thanks; that's the best pun I've seen in months.

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

Re:I think eMachines gets a bad rap

[SacredNaCl]

I've had good experiences with them as far as reliability. I still have a 500is that runs fine, it's been abused in nearly every way possible and upgraded as much as it can possibly be upgraded without throwing in a powerleap kit. Many of the upgrades were listed as not possible in the service manual, but http://e4all.info/ has more information (on older ones) and the upgraders forum has a lot of people that have tried everything they can to make them still useable beyond their years. Most of the older ones can at least be upgraded to 512MB with very careful ram selection. That has kept the old 500is useable, even if it is slow. It's perfectly fine as another box to have up to surf the web and what-not. I have some even slower hardware taking care of other task as well.;-)

There are many things that were cheap in a lot of their older (and still in their present) models. (A lot of them are the typical things that the big makers skimp on. Severely under rated power supplies, proprietary power supplies, POS modems that have no excuse for existing in any machine, if they come with a network card replace it with something else, ram modules that may or may not be worth keeping [though they seem to be getting away from the awful ram they were putting in a few years ago]... These are not severe issues in most of them, but the proprietary power supplies in them are a pain to work around if you are going to cram a mess of drives in them. Don't expect Emachines to give you a pin out for the power supply either.) I've not known anyone who had one of their laptops though.
The biggest disppointment with Emachines is *support*. The one thing that you may have trouble with is getting support for new OS's that comes out down the road. Emachines is somewhat unreliable about supporting their hardware beyond the OS it was shipped with. This can be very bad news in a laptop, and it can be awful news if you ever have to have your laptop worked on for warranty work.

I haven't heard the kind of horror stories I've heard about Compaq laptops in terms of getting them worked on, but based on my experiences with them ...it's still a gamble on future OS's.

It's very hard to top Compaq for the worst possible hardware, worst possible support, worst ownership experience, worst batch of proprietary hardware...in "consumer grade" products. Emachines is well above that fold for the price range they are in. Even with the corners they cut, it's never going to be as unpleasant as that to own one. For the price range they are in, they are decent enough.

Laptop for college

[3V1LDaemon]

This is a good sign. I have to get a laptop for college next year, and i want to get a decent laptop for a good price. This will hopefully drive down the prices of the other notebooks. Anyone headed for college or forced to get a laptop for work will see this as a blessing.

Re:Laptop for college

[tho 1234]

Unfortunately, the trend for laptops is that they simply stop selling old models, rather than drop the price. With today's Just In Time business model, most manufacturers simply mantain the prices and bump up the specs slightly, rather than making a big price cut.

Laptops rarely drop in price by more than $200-300 over their lives, unless you're lucky enough to find one on clearance or pick up a used one. For example, a P3 ~1 ghz laptop would probably be enough for most people, but good luck finding anything less than 2ghz these days.

That said, the last year has seen all laptop prices drop drastically from the levels they were at for the last 10 years or so, most likely due to the drop in the prices of the LCD's, so many good laptops are in the $1500 range now. ( 2 years ago, you could only get the crappiest entry level celeron/duron laptops for that price)

Re:Laptop for college

[Kneht]

1 word: overstock.com

or is that two words?

I've never used them, but I know they carry older machines for low prices. They also carry not so old machines for not so great prices.

Good.

[cK-Gunslinger]

I'm glad to see some OEMs going away from the relatively expensive, and in the case of the Celeron, weak Intel architecture. You can build a heck of a General-Purpose / Gaming / Development machine based on AMD CPUs for next to nothing. You can easily put together an AMD64 3000+ / Radeon 9600 / 19" monitor system for under a grand.

I hope to see more PC makers go this route. Diversity is good. Now, if they would start considering alternate OSes as well...

Re:Regarding "desktop-replacement"

[W32.Klez.A]

This comment is a direct repost of this one.

emachines are crap

[Reivec]

I would never buy an emachine. I love AMD and all, but back when I was in high school my school bought several hundred emachines and about 35% of them were DOA due to faulty power supplies. You would think with a percentage that high emachines would be aware of this problem, yet they were selling them anyway. Pretty bad business if you ask me.

Re:emachines are crap

[viniosity]

Then get one of these . Voodoo has had a 64 bit AMD laptop for quite a while now.

Battery

[Mieckowski]

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

If you think that's impressive...

[invid]

you should see my Lego version!

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?

Great, but should I wait before going 64 bit?

[Wingit]

I live in a Pentium 350 world and home and have been limping along, quite happily actually. I admin a Win2K network at work so keep one foot planted there, and have been learning and living on a steady diet of Linux the rest of the time. While eMachines don't thrill me, I am thinking more and more that I should postpone any upgrades until I can truly dive into the 64 bit world. I realize I will be stuck running plenty of 32 bit applications, but is my wait worthwhile? I am really getting the itch to get into serious gaming again but (obviously) my current system is not up to much more than the Ultima Online I played for 5 years. Perhaps this question fit better as an Ask Slashdot question, but I didn't feel it was worthy to stand on its own so I welcom your comments.

Re:Great, but should I wait before going 64 bit?

[Phoukka]

Well, you can always dual-boot a 32-bit Windows and a 64-bit Linux/BSD. Then you can enjoy 64-bit goodness whilst still dipping a toe into your favorite games. And the Mobility Radeon 9600 that's in this laptop should go a long way towards making this laptop suitable for gaming. The processor won't hurt, either... ;)

Athlon 64 in laptops

[SoulVoid]

VoodooPC has been selling 64-bit laptops for 2-3 months now with decent battery life for what your getting. Check out the M:855.

http://www.voodoopc.com/systems/notebook.aspx

Re:Athlon 64 in laptops

[bhtooefr]

But, this one seems to be specced out similarly to the Voodoo Envy M:855:

CPU:
Voodoo: Mobile Athlon 64 3000+ (2.0 GHz, 512KiB L2) (other configs available, but I am attempting to get it as close as possible)
eMachines: Mobile Athlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz, 512KiB L2)

GPU:
Voodoo: Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro w/64MB RAM (technically, since it doesn't have 128MB or more RAM, it's not Pro)
eMachines: Mobility Radeon 9600 w/64MB RAM

HDD:
Voodoo: 60GB Travelstar (optional - adds $93.27)
eMachines: 60GB

CD:
Voodoo: 2x DVD(+/-?)R + 16X CD-RW
eMachines: 8x DVD-ROM + 24x24x24x CD-RW

Networking:
Voodoo: 802.11g, 10/100, 56K
eMachines: 802.11g, 10/100, 56K

Display:
Voodoo: 15" 1400x1050
eMachines: 15.4" 1280x800

RAM:
Voodoo: 512MB "Low Latency"
eMachines: 512MB PC2700

Price:
Voodoo: $2749.06
eMachines: $1549.99

Hmm, looks like the eM is a MUCH better deal, especially considering that they had a widescreen laptop with an AXP for $1500 before this... I know that the M:855 is the first. However, the eMachines 64-bit laptop is a LOT cheaper - must be the special case or something on the Voodoo.

'been there, done that

[dago]

Yep, and my Tadpole is already 64bits for yeaaars (UltraSparc).

Oh, and btw, in Europe, you can buy Packard Bell Athlon 64 based laptops ...

Old news..

[Snotboble_]

A Danish company called Amitech has had an Athlon 64 powered notebook since August 13 2003.

It does however suffer from the 90W power drain that the regular Athlon 64 imposes, so don't move too far away from that power outlet.

eMachines laptop? gross!

[Monkey]

Not everybody shopping for a 64 bit notebook would buy something cheesy like an eMachines laptop.
VoodooPC has been selling their high end m:855 for some time now. Based on the Athlon 64, it also has ATI Mobility 9600 Graphics Pro chipset.

Re:eMachines laptop? gross!

[brulman]

the VoodooPC is an extra $900 though.

Re:eMachines laptop? gross!

[Monkey]

Yeah but it has that cool graphic on the cover.

Not impressive

[Mieckowski]

Bah, I'm going to hold out for a dual 64 bit laptop. With a RAID array.

Re:Not impressive

[stefanb]

Bah, I'm going to hold out for a dual 64 bit laptop. With a RAID array. And hookers!

Bum rap

[SuDZ]

Now I know the big deal is to hate Emachines but do many of you have experience with them? I knew a lot of people in my area were buying them because the price was low (friends and students) because that was all they could afford. At first I had the same feeling of "eek, I have heard bad things", but once they got them setup and running they really had no issues with them. I mean they were using them for what they were designed for. Things like email, IM, web browsing and minor games. These things lasted for a while, usually until it was time to upgrade or what not. A lot of people I know still have them.

Based on what I saw they took the abuse of a home computer and ran fine with no problems outside or regular software issues. Why do they seem to get such a bum rap on here?

SuDZ

Re:Bum rap

[dexterpexter]

I agree. As I posted earlier, I bought an eMachines Widescreen laptop and have been completely satisfied by it. I had no problem finding the drivers for it, I found members of the Linux community who had successfully developed ATI support, and even better: it has a 3.5 hour battery life which is much greater than most of the laptops I have seen. Unlike some of the other AMD-powered laptops, mine does not overheat and it has handled everything that I have thrown at it beautifully. I take that back: it choked when I was doing some 3D rendering on it, but I think that was a function of the OS and not and hardware or driver concerns.

The laptop is very rugged. The speakers are the highest quality I have ever heard. Also, despite rumors that they are noisy, it is by far the quietist laptop I have seen.

My friends bought laptops and none of their offers the same battery life, many of them overheat, and they all have noisy fans.

I understand that eMachines has had a shifty background, but I think that it is time for people to throw down their gun shy attitudes and actually try the new products this company is putting out.

These laptops were simply *MADE* for Linux.

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.)

Re:What 64 bit OS???

[dexterpexter]

I just bought an eMachines Widescreen Athalon Laptop with ATI, despite all of my geeky senses telling me not to. Many people have sucessfully gotten Linux running on this same model, including Slackware. You can download the drivers fairly easily (I had all of them--for Linux, XP, and 2000-- downloaded within twenty minutes)

eMachines carries with it a very undeserved reputation and I feel bad for those gun shy folks who can't see that they really are putting out good, solid products now. This laptop is quieter than any of the models my friends bought, has an amazing 3.5 hour battery life (three hours if running my wireless network), and has supported everything that I have thrown at it. I am pleased because my laptop outperforms the laptops my colleagues have purchased, and mine cost about $400 less.

And I agree, Linux is THE OS to test these processors out.

VoodooPC already has one

[obsid1an]

VoodooPC has been doing this for over three months already.

hypersonic has been selling one as well for a whil

[Siniset]

hypersonic pc has been selling one for a while as well. They seem to be pretty decent machines, might by one with my tax refund. -siniset

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:What 64 bit OS???

[cK-Gunslinger]

I don't get why everyone mentions this. Yes, this CPU can support 64-bit operation, and no, there is no 64-bit Windows OS yet, but who cares? This CPU is also among the fastest 32-bit processors out there. It's not like you are "wasting" the 64-bit-ness by not using it. Those extra registers can't be used to feed the homeless or anything. So what? You buy a machine that very fast, and you get the "bonus" of being able to run future (or current) 64-bit OSes on it, one day. Why do you see the glass as half-empty? Why don't you see the 2 full glasses that are overflowing into the half-filled one?

I've said it before, I'll say it again

[Theatetus]

eMachines are just a crappy as Dells or Gateways but you avoid the brand tax with them. Unlike Dell and Gateway, eMachines doesn't pretend it's selling you some top of the line system but is honest about the fact that you're getting the house Chianti, as it were.

Re:Regarding "desktop-replacement"

[edalytical]

Sounded like a advertisement to me. I wonder if he gets paid or not.

Re:Regarding "desktop-replacement"

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

While I hold the same preferences as you, this is a dumb argument against laptops.
You can plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor to any laptop available.

Most laptops also have docking station accessories that can maintain the key/mouse/monitor/power connections so you don't have a bunch of cables laying around.

Personally, I'd like a desktop replacement laptop that I could plug into my 22" of crisp CRT goodness and ergo keyboard. I'm more concerned about heat, vid memory and battery life for this particular laptop.

So where are these 64 bit machines on their site?

[nial-in-a-box]

When the first story about the 64 bit desktop machine from eMachines broke, I looked on their website and it was noticeably absent from the products section. It is still not there and neither is this new laptop. I'm guessing I'm just stupid and missed where it said that they're only selling these models through Best Buy or something like that. It just makes me wonder about the quality if they won't even show them on their website. I'm having trouble coming up with a similar occurrence anywhere else. For a company that does all sales through retail outlets such as Best Buy and Circuit City, it seems odd that they would not mention their flagship products on their own site. I don't think this is a conspiracy, I just can't understand the reasoning here. I have an email out to them seeking some sort of answer, but hopefully someone here will have some insight.

Re:Regarding "desktop-replacement"

[expro]

My 12" powerbook has an amazing keyboard.

But when I buy a laptop, I want portability, a small display, etc., and I fail to see the point of laptops with huge power requirements, displays, etc.

For a desktop I will buy a flat pannel if that is what I want for a non-portable solution -- rather than a 21" CRT, I would double-head with two 19" CRTs for even better resolution at lower cost.

A "desktop replacement" is a laptop that does not make good laptop in my book, but it is not uncommon to see them in the stores either bought by users who don't need good portability or don't know the difference.

Ati drivers

[irokitt]

The ATI integrated drivers, which include the Mobility 9600, play very well with Linux. Certainly a switch from the past ATI driver issues.

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:Houston, we have a problem: XP Home?

[Zebra_X]

The AMD64 chips aren't just "64-bit" they run significantly faster than the 32-bit AMD counter parts and Intel friends. Even as we speak, the 3400+ which is about $380 USD is as fast as the $700 p4 3.2 EE. One of the areas that the chip shines is gaming as well. There is a 64-bit version of XP Pro in the works. The one featured on their site is a different product built for the Itanium architecture.

Re:Regarding "desktop-replacement"

[phorm]

Not that I'm sold on "desktop-replacement," being that I am still a gamer... but I only really count my "desktop" as my actual box and the components inside. Extern stuff such as a keyboard, mouse, and CRT can still be added to a laptop. Best with a good wireless keyboard/mouse, and you save on storage space.

So yes, you can still use your 21" CRT, but the 15" LCD attached to the laptop is much more convenient when travelling... the CRT tends to be a bit heavy on one's lap.

Re:Want portable 64 bit computing? Try Shuttle...

[n9fzx]

True enough, but you don't need a 64 bit machine to surf the web and read your email, and given the power consumption of the Athlon 64, you probably want an outlet nearby.

The best cases for 64 bit computing are generally text string database operations, server side encryption, and error control codes, not to mention heavy floating point apps like finite element analysis -- none of which I do anywhere near Starcruds.

Forum

[cflorio]

Don't forget to check out this emachines forum where this has been a top of interest.

I have the current version of the laptop, the M5312 and have had no major problems. The screen is the best part, really nice.

Re:Athlon cache

[KrispyKringle]

I don't know how a 600MHz with a 1MB cache would perform like a 1.2GHz. It's like saying that a Civic with good braking performs as well as a Porsche.

First, the Centrinos really do run at whatever speed they're rated at (but they have SpeedStep, which allows them to run at a slower speed as well to save power). Centrino just means a Pentium M with a Intel-branded WiFi transciever. So a 1.4GHz Centrino is just a 1.4GHz Pentium M.

Second, the cache doesn't really boost performance in the same way as a faster processor. The cache is good for speeding up memory access on applications that are easily cached (i.e., the pattern of memory access benefits from spatial or temporal locality; elements near accessed elements are likely to be accessed as well, or elements frequently access are likely to be accessed more). Look at it this way; the DRAM used in caches is accessible in maybe 1/10th the time of the SDRAM used in system memory. But at the same time, it's far more expensive.

The gains from having way more cache than needed (which really depends on the application; desktop processing or gaming, which doesn't involve extended periods of data processing, woudln't benefit a whole lot, though perhaps rendering or video processing would) aren't worth the great cost of DRAM.

And the speed of the processor doesn't have a lot to do with how much cache is useful, I don't think (perhaps one could argue that a faster processor goes through the cached data faster than more can be cached to replace it, but I don't think the difference in needed cache between a 600MHz and a 2GHz would be all that great, either).

More cache is better, up to the point that it can't be used any greater, but it's not at all the same as a faster processor.

Re:Too bad

[standsolid]

Idiot,

I work as a best buy tech and see hundreds of eMachines go out of my store.

eMachines do the best job of not screwing up Windows. A hell of a lot better than HP or COMPAQ.

If you could only see a Pentium 4 HP/Compaq (stock XP install) vs an eMachine (again, stock XP install) with nearly identical specs, you would be BLOWN AWAY by how much quicker the eMachines is.

Know before you speak, n00b

Re:1280x800 ... WHY?!

[tugrul]

Call me naive but, if that's what you want, why not buy a dell?

I have one. Its 2.5 years old with a 1600x1200 LCD. Its shoddy build quality has put it out of service though. I need to summon the energy to get it through tech support's head that the note to "update my video drivers" from the last time I sent it in has nothing to do with the laptop not turning on.

No more Dell.

Re:1280x800 ... WHY?!

[Zzootnik]

Okay Naive...Because even if you go Dell, you still pay an arm and a leg for that premium UXGA display. Although they do look quite nice.

I picked up one of those vpr matrix notebooks (That also has a 1280 x 864 display) on the cheap and haven't had any problems at all to date. Personally, I think it looks great compared to all the other 1024x768 screens you see on laptops these days...And it's amazing how fast the pre-install of XP Home can vanish into thin air...All you need is a linux install cd..

I have an EMachines laptop....

[tinrobot]

I think it's the M305 or something. It was the first one they offered. Bought it at Best Buy for about $1000. Had better graphics and more memory than the others in the price range, which is why I bought it in the first place.

So far, it's been a trooper. It's rock solid and reliable, battery life is good. It's also fairly thin and easy to handle. I like the widescreen a lot, as it makes the whole laptop less deep (every inch counts when you fly coach.)

I love it. If this one ever gives out, I'd buy the 64 bit one in a second.

Re:Regarding "desktop-replacement"

[hamtux6]

I second that. My 12" PB is fantastic. I was about to reply to the parent telling him how great my keyboard is. Doesn't match the Logitech that I'm typing this from, but it comes damned close. The small size has relegated this machine to my portable (and for the week, my main machine on my desk) as opposed to my Dell Inspiron 8200, which is huge and heavy and doesn't get nearly the battery life.

WTF is Sun waiting for?

[haggar]

I see more and more systems with Opterons and Athlon 64s coming to the market. And all that while, Sun, who would have all the best interest to make some Opteron systems available ASAP, are dragging their feet.

Sun really needs to get these low and midrange Opteron servers out as soon as they possibly can, while HP is in the Itanium mess! HP was hoping for the Itanium to hit the mass-market and be real cheap to manufacture. Instead, they have by their hands a CPU that's even more expensive than the PA-RISC. If Sun had a shred of strategic insight, they'd be selling cheap 4 and 8 way Opteron servers with Solaris x86-64 right about now.

I am a huge Sun fan, actually, but some of their management moves seem to be ridicolous (Cobalt aquisition anyone?).

Dell -- it is all about the warranty

[appleLaserWriter]

eMachines are just a crappy as Dells or Gateways but you avoid the brand tax with them.

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. And they will replace parts until the machine works.

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.

Re:Dell -- it is all about the warranty

[dbIII]

With Dell you get a three year 24 hour warranty.

Yes, but you use up that 24 hours on hold will Dell support in a lot less than three years. I've spent six hours on hold over various calls spread over weeks and talked to people on three continents just trying to buy a spare loptop battery - I wouldn't have perservered so much, but I'd made the mistake of giving them my own credit card number, they charged up front - and I wasn't goping to let go until either the battery came through or I got my money back (which happened two months later). A local supplier, in a two minute call, apologised that it wouldn't be available until the following morning. I picked it up about ten hours later.

So Dell promises, but it can't deliver

Sometimes quite literally.

My disgust compels me!

[Anonymous Coward]

To everyone of you who bashes eMachines, let me tell you what you've been missing. Every component in an eMachine laptop is brand-name. The only thing that isn't, is the outer case and eMachine logos that emblazen it.

The M5312 has a 15.4" Widescreen TFT LCD WXGA panel, which is made by LG. It comes with Windows XP Home Edition, which finally gives you a real product activation code, instead of that one you'v ebeen using from the Blue Group's keygen ;). Windows XP 64-bit edition for Intel Itaniums has been available for more than a year, so it's not that far fetched to believe that an AMD 64-bit chip compatible edition would be available at this time as well. You get at Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ Processor (with core clock speed of 1.8 GHz) [266 MHz Front Side Bus and 512K L2 Cache].

It comes with 512 MB DDR SODIMM (PC 2100) memory, 60 GB harddrive, and a DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive (24x10x24 CD-RW; 8x Max. DVD-ROM). The combo drive is made by Toshiba. The harddrive is probably a Maxtor (face it, they crank out a lot of drives these days). The RAM, I'm not sure about.

You get an ATI Mobility RADEON chip, that can use up to 64 MB of your 512 MB DDR system memory. I've given mine all the 64 MB it can handle, and I've never been happier. It's got a low-end sound chip, but it's a laptop. If you're serious about sound on a laptop, use a SoundBlaster Extigy for cryin' out loud! The 56K ITU V.92 Fax/Modem has a Connexant/Rockwell chip in it. The Integrated 802.11g Wireless LAN (up to 54Mbps); 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet is hardware made by Broadcom, and works like a charm.

The Touchpad with Vertical Scroll Zone is made by Synaptics, which almost every laptop maker uses on their own models. The 8-cell Lithium-ion battery is made in China -- it hasn't blown up yet. It's only 1.36"h x 14.0"w x 10.0"d (which is damn thin for a non-Apple laptop) and weighs only 6.6 lbs.

You also get 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 IEEE 1394, 1 VGA External Connector, 1 S-Video Out, 1 Parallel, Microphone In, Headphone/Audio Out, 1 PCMCIA Slot (Card Bus type I or type II), not to mention a load of crappy software which you can just use for coasters.

All of this for $1249.99. The S-Video out alone is enough to make you consider this laptop. USB 2.0 across all 3 ports? Slap a hub on one of those ports and you're golden.

All of those parts are bought by eMachines, who puts them in their laptop shell. Try one, you just might like it!

Certainly not the "first" laptop with an Athlon64

[Sivar]

This is not one of the first Athlon64 laptops. I have had an Athlon64 laptop for almost two months, and they have been available since late October/early November 2003.

If the market doesn't catch fire, your desk or legs will...

This is not true at all. The laptop runs at 800MHz 95% of the time (whenever the full 2GHz is not needed). At that speed, the CPU has a peak heat dissipation of 35W, and a typical output of 28W. This is well below Pentium IV laptops, and is below the peak output of most Pentium-M chips at their full speed.
Even at 2GHz, it outputs at most around 85W (max theoretical heat output). Compare this to laptops with the Pentium IV Extreme Edition (available from many vendors), which has a typical heat output of over 100W--and that is at idle! Don't even ask about power usage when actually doing something.

I get a good 3 1/2 hours of battery life on a single charge. That is pretty damn good for a laptop which is more powerful than 95% of the full desktop processors out there, including my own. When it runs at full speed all night, the mouse pad and right side of the keyboard get fairly warm, but not to a point that it makes the machine uncomfortable to use. Warmth is comparable to the Dell Latitude D800, which uses a Pentium-M.

Unfortunately, it does not support dual batteries, and has no modular optical drive bay (the DVD drive is set when the machine is assembled), but these aren't major issues for most people. It also has a rather bulky power supply for the use of A/C power, complete with its own tiny cooling fan. This does not help the weight, which is already nearly 8lbs with battery. Ah well--it's more powerful than my desktop, reasonably light, and is MUCH smaller than certain 12-lb Pentium IV laptops. One often wonders if manufacturers have a different definition of "lap" than the rest of us.

Bought one

[TallGeek]

I bought one of these on Thursday at Best Buy. Haven't had much time to play with it, but it seems like a very solid machine with a nice screen. Moving windows and resizing them is less responsive than on my 17" PowerBook, which is not a good sign, given the much higher Athlon64 clock speed. For the moment, I'll blame Windows.

The machine has all the features I need, though I'd like Bluetooth. The 802.11 works great (I don't have a .11g base station, but the .11b mode is fine).

I'm looking into 64-bit Linux distros to install to see how well that works...

No idea about battery life yet, but it gets pretty warm on my lap!

RMA rates....?

[crimson30]

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...