Slashdot Mirror
Dual-core Athlon 64 X2 Laptop Reviewed
Steve from Hexus writes "Dual core finds its way inside a laptop (albeit a not-so-portable DTR) in the form of Rockdirect's Xtreme64. The DTR features an Athlon 64 X2 4800+, two 7200rpm hard drives and a GeForce Go 6800 Ultra GPU. HEXUS.net has a review of the laptop, one of the most powerful we've seen hit the market to date." From the article: "Rather than change a formula that works, Rockdirect has opted to stick with the Clevo D900-based chassis that its other performance-based laptops use. The obvious downsides are bulkiness and weight, with the laptop sitting almost 5cm high and weighing in at 5.7kg. It's a desktop replacement in the truest sense of the words, and with an 8kg travel weight (including charger and supplied carrying case) and relatively poor battery life, it's about as portable as a concrete slab."
At my workplace we can salary sacrifice laptops but not desktops. This means you pay for the system out of your pre-tax income, which can make a good laptop cheaper than an equivalent desktop system.
Its a silly rort, but it leads to people buying systems like this one because its portable.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Just wait until they start throwing server parts in there. Have you ever wanted to host a giant Oracle database ON THE GO?
Has anyone even seen any parallel port peripherals in the last 10 years?
And then it skimps on firewire by only giving unpowered slow firewire 400
Yes, if it sounds familiar, that's because this is the machine reviewed here about 2 weeks ago.
My blog
In 10 years the Apple zealots will again have rewritten the history and given Apple the spot for first dual core/SMP laptop, just as they always does.
...but with a battery life like that of a goldfish, why bother? Seriously save yourself hundreds of dollars and just build a comparable desktop system.
This isn't exactly the kind of system I would want to lug with me into a coffee shop either--it might break the damn table!
The only practical application of such a portable system (give the cost) that I can think of would be somewhere in the applied sciences "out in the field." However, these specs barely conform to those that many such scientists would require.
I'll admit this, though: I would love to take this bad boy to a LAN party! Perhaps that's the target market they've been looking for.
I don't understand the market for these sort of laptops. At almost 6kg, this is approaching the portability level of my desktop PC, especially since with its battery life of one hour you're still effectively tethered to power supplies anyway. And for this 'privilege' you pay far, far more than you would for an equivalent desktop system. So, where's the market? I can see basically two possibilities: video editors who need a rendering setup that's just about portable, and gamers who want the highest-specced laptop, no matter the price. But since this laptop's gone for the 6800 go - rather than the faster 7800 cards that are being rolled out - and allows no overclocking, the gamer market's going to be pretty limited, at least until it starts shipping with the 7800. And with only 200GB of storage - far less than I use in a day when shooting - the video editing market is limited to those who're willing to carry an additional kilo or two in external drives, or have facilities available; and these people probably just use a desktop anyway.
I also question the accuracy of Hexus' reporting on the weight front. Either they've got one of the two weight figures wrong (7Kg with charger, 8Kg with charger and bag) or that's a very heavy bag.
While I'm ranting about the laptop, is there really any need for the heat to be blown out of the bottom? If it's generating 200W of heat, couldn't it get blown out of the sides, rather than the bottom, which is going to be either on a desk or your lap; the former allows little airflow, the latter being a touch hot.
Anyway, my final point: Does anyone buy these laptops, or are they purely made, like top-of-the-range graphics cards and cars, to be able to boast about having the fastest? Has anyone here ever bought a similiar laptop? Why, if you did?
Laptop is now known as Lapsquish.
So you can cook both of your balls at once.
I'd never thought I'd actually look at this but since I've got an iBook and worked on several Sony Vaio and IBM ThinkPad Laptops I'd say this is a real downer. It looks like an early nineties 'luggable'. I'm looking forward to the time we've got 3 GHz like performance at Apple/IBM quality levels and 8 hours battery-time for 1000$.
Until then I'm sticking to my 12" iBook and a little envy of my friends Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P with 15 hours (!) of battery time. And the size of an OReilly Camelbook.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Think of this as a compact desktop with a built-in UPS. Since it can run for about an hour on batteries that's actually pretty good - most experts recommend a 15 minute UPS, and this device gives you 4 times that. It would actually be quite handy for the gamer going to lots of LAN parties, or the power user who doesn't want to mess with cabling or give lots of desk real estate, or for a (admittedly odd) server. Certainly this isn't a mainstream device, but useful nonetheless.
I guess you might need this if you spend your day in different rooms inside your luxurious mansion and you want your computer with you all the time to stay connected to WoW and check your various stock prices all the time.
But carrying this thing outside?
You would need to hire another butler just for that!
My printer at home still is connected to a computer via a parallel printer cable. It's my server and it's been running for a few months now. But, that's not what you're asking about, is it?
Tune to last week: My son got his picture taken with Santa and the professional photographer had a nice digital camera hooked up to a small computer/printer combo box. Pretty cleaver, really. On the back of this box connected to the parallel port, which couldn't have been more than six-months old, was... a key dongle.
For those who maybe aren't old enough to remember these babies, they are fairly slick little copy-protection keys. They are the hardware solution to software piracy. When the special software starts up, it looks on the port for a key and if it's not there, it bails. And hardware keys are much harder to copy, partly because the good ones destroy themselves if they are tampered with (usually the soldier points or ICs are sensitive to prying).
While these never really got used for major software products, they are practically everywhere in scientific and research environments where companies spend millions on a software package that only a few hundred of specialized applications exist. If you're charging $5,000+ for software, a hardware key starts sounding pretty good. Heck, when I left the university a year and a half ago, we still had three such applications that had been around for years (even through computer upgrades). I'm certain that these programs are still being used, and it will continue for some time.
*Sigh* Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
I have trouble imagining this so-called laptop being anything other than a gimmick to assuage a sensitive ego that just wants to claim "biggest, baddest", without any particular attention paid to issues of practicality or usability.
It's too big/heavy to be particularly portable, it gets uncomfortably warm in normal use, it burns lots of power, so battery life is worthless.
Trying to jam a high-end Desktop into a laptop has resulted in a system not well suited to replace a desktop or a laptop particularly well.
For a desktop replacement, get one of the newer Mobile AMDs or maybe a Pentium M. I have the latter, and even though 2 years old, it still does a respectable job playing games, and working as a good, solid, developer's workstation. Plus, it's quite light, decent battery life, (I type this on battery) stylish appearance, and I sit with it in my lap all day without getting very uncomfortable.
Figure out what you really want to do, and get the right tool for that. Sheesh!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Could you point out the printer friendly link on the page on your site you linked to? Some of us would rather just load a long document to read than read one that's been artificially split up just to increase ad revenue.
Thanks
After all, I am strangely colored.
Wow an people say PowerBooks cost a lot.
Forgive me for wondering, but if you feel the need to post how thinkgeek, newsforge, etc are all owned by your parent company in every story that comes from those (and the rest) of the sites. Then why don't you mention that this company may not be paying you, but did give you something to inspire you to talk about them so well on a website?
I guess I'm just lost here ... you want full disclosure, most of the time?
This thing is not a monster laptop, it's a portable all in one desktop that has a builtin ups (battery). It's not that cool (the price tag which you fail to mention this time around, is pretty high). All I ask is that if you want full disclosure, then practice what you preach...
Queue the flaimbait, off topic, redundant, etc mods.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If it weighs 5.7kgs, I won't be too excited about carrying it on my lap. A good DTR should be a trade-off between size and performance. And what about the power consumption? Dual-core + GeForce 6800 would generate a lot of heat. Anyway, the overall package is good but I'll buy one when the weight comes down.
I bought one because I am in iraq, and a desktop makes no sense for me. I dont need it to be truly "portable" i just need something equivalent to a desktop that i can move if i need to easily.
But this seems to be a bit behind since http://www.sagernotebook.com/ already has the exact same DTR in the same Clevo 900 chasis that has the 7800GTX mobile ver.
...it's a space station!
at best it's a Notebook. For some of the differences, see an earlier post of mine: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14205 8&cid=11906247
However, I even find 'notebook' arguable. If the difference between a notebook and a desktop machine is a built-in display, keyboard and pointing device - then sure, it's a notebook.
If the difference is that a notebook is meant to be able to be relocated with sufficent ease that it can be frequently done- i.e. between home, work, off-site locations - then I would say this isn't even a notebook; just a desktop machine with built-in display, keyboard and pointing device. I can't imagine anybody wanting to lug this beast around even if it would be just twice a day, 5 days a week.
Let me think. Acer I do believe sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis. They don't appear to be hurting buisness wise.
Alienware sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis + a custom lid. They definitely arn't hurting buisness wise.
I in fact bought one such laptop, mostly because I had the spare money and could, but also because I travel between two cities alot (my hometown and where I go to college).
I don't like unplugging all my desktop stuff (and I prefer leaving my desktops always on) and having to lug it back it forth. I'm also a geek and a gamer. I want to be able to play battlefield 2 perfectly wherever I am before bed.
I also have a couple of friends who have bought such laptops because that's what they wanted: they wanted a more slim/portable machine that was also as powerful as most desktops.
I don't use such a laptop for long battery life. Nor does anyone else I know. But the battery is still useful! Ever try moving your desktop from your living room to your bedroom then back 5 times fast? Or using your desktop from the sofa while watching TV? Yeah.
Also, my laptop in that chasis isn't that heavy and i'm quite a small person, so that's really no big deal. Sure I wouldn't want to carry it around all day, but it's NOT that kind of laptop.
Lastly, the bottom ventilation I find to be pretty important. Putting these laptops on a flat hard surface (read: no cloth!) greatly reduces heat and strain on the fans. There is a very small air path underneath it that is amazingly important. I also find I CAN put it on a cloth surface without serious heat problems if i put a cold/heat (you know, one of those gel packs, it need not be cold though) right underneath the graphics card area.
Having room for two hard drives with a SATA/raid controller, two optical drives, and four SODIMM (read: RAM) slots in my beast is just a nice plus too.
Oh yeah (sorry for the rambling, it's early). There ARE some serious downsides to this specific chasis that seems so popular. First it's plain ugly and the component layout is near retarded (most ports on mine plug in...upside down!). It just screams cheap high production taiwanese product. Most importantly, and something I find many laptops lack, is a good power connecter. There have been multiple reported problems both on the motherboard and adapter plug itself from most vendors who use this chasis (so it appears they mostly use the same power adapter too). Also the fans working with most of the heat are right by the power connection. Well this baby will put out some pretty hot air. Hot enough that it probably does some serious damage to your sperm count. Combine that with plastic cable and wire and possible laptop movement moving the wire around more to get a situation asking for the cable to die a slow and painful death.
With better thought and design put into the product, I could see such laptops being used alot more frequently. As it is I doubt many owners of one will buy another anytime soon and not just because of the large price tag. If you pay alot of money for a product, you expect everything to be near perfect (read: like a mac) and I have yet to see a laptop using this chasis be just that.
Why does it ship with a crappy OS like Microsoft Windows, and the 32bit version at that?
Why the fuck waste space for a parallel port on a "portable" computer? The three people who would use it could just buy a parallel to USB converter. And the same could be said of the serial port, seriously ...
My HP zx5000 has two smaller fans in it and they need dusting after about 10 months' hard use. And 200W?! This thing could wind up needing the air-duster kiss of life every three weeks.
This unit has a purpose albeit a narrow one such as someone who has to lug around their own video multimedia editing-mastering studio with them. I mean people wondered what the massive Apple notebook with a screen larger than most people can easily fold out was good for, but it's good for something.
I dunno what y'all are talkin' about sayin' 5kg-8kg ain't portable. That's like half the weight of my ol' Kaypro II. Mus' be some weakling Yankee thing.
/x / x / x / \ * \ x / \ * \x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x\ * \ / *
x \ * \ / *
x \ * \ / *
x | * | x
x / * / \ * \ x
x / *
x/ *
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The South shall rise again!
What are you smoking?
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
Anyone else think the company's name is just a little too fitting?
At my workplace we can salary sacrifice laptops but not desktops. This means you pay for the system out of your pre-tax income, which can make a good laptop cheaper than an equivalent desktop system.
You're spending your own hard-earned money so that the owners of your company will become wealthier?
Please tell me that you have a substantial shareholder position in this enterprise.
If not, then repeat the following 500 times a day: "I am not a slave, I am not a slave, I am not a slave."
At that price, and supposedly with "all the best components" and all it has built into that hugemongous case is a touchpad. There's more than enough space to have a combination of touchpad and trackpoint. Heck, you could even have a trackball on it too. If even Dell can put a combination of both on some of their bigger models then this beast can certainly offer a choice.
Does being ugly make it any faster?
Mac toys and accessories blog
These Clevo systems are rebadged by a bunch of different companies: Sager, Alienware, Hypersonic, Prostar ... These are great systems if you need the power and mobility.
I have a Sager 9860 (same casing as this). I take it to client sites every day. It's heavy, but not too much for just walking from the parking lot. And it has a lot of power. I typically run an application server and a database while I'm working, in addition to my IDE, various office apps and music player. If you need the performance, it's worth it.
Of course, if you don't, don't buy it. It's always interesting how so many people assume that they understand the needs of everyone else.
Yes actually, We almost daily, do a large application demo with a series of laptops showing a real network environment. Often this is done with VMWare and one laptop as well, showing various user-level views. We indeed do it on todays modern laptops but started once on a P133 and P233 laptop.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I have an Acer Aspire 1712 laptop that weighs in at 15 pounds without the power brick (and it is about the size and weight of a real brick), and I can tell you that, while you won't want to carry it with you everywhere you go, it's manageable. You get your exercise, at least. You want to make sure you have a strong bag to carry it in, of course (no place to shave pennies). I opted to buy a second power supply, so I can keep one in my home office, and carry the other in the back of the car when I have to travel.
As a software contractor, I need the power of a full-blown desktop combined with portability.
The battery life on these things is about an hour, but you're only going to use one of these monsters sitting at a desk, near a wall outlet. The battery serves as a battery backup in case the power fluctuates (valuable when traveling to an older building.
Why have a parallel port? Well, I have a good bit of hardware around the house (printers and scanners mostly, even an old Zip drive) that I still use on occasion that only works with a parallel port. It's not dead yet, Jim.
Finally, most of these monsters use desktop parts, which makes upgrading things like memory, CPU and harddrive very nice. For example, my laptop has a 250 Gig drive in it, and I'd like to try one of those 400 Gig drives. There's no such thing as too much disk space.
You have to live with noise with a machine like this. Turn it on, and it sounds like a jet taking off (mine certainly does). The plus side of this is the sort of white-noise effect it supplies if you're working in a noisy environment. You actually get used to the sound after a while, and miss it working on a quieter machine.
Just because a machine like this is big, heavy, and has a short battery life doesn't mean it's worthless or a waste of money. I mean, which would you rather haul back and forth to the office: a desktop machine, keyboard and 17-inch monitor, or one of these things? Oh, they're also great for LAN parties.
Of course, after about a year and a half carrying this thing around, my right arm is twice the size of my left. Wanna arm wrestle?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Tadpole Bullfrog Dual Processor http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobil e/bullfrog-dual/:
- Dual 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC® IIIi processors
- Up to 16GB DRAM
- Large 17.1" SXGA TFT LCD Display
- Full Length, 66 MHz, 64 -bit PCI Expansion Slot
- Dual 2.5" High Performance Disk Drives
- Integrated DVD/CD-RW Drive
I'd change the operating system for a GPL one though.
Pupeno
If I recall correctly, XP Home isn't SMP capable either. What gives? Does SP2 unlock that capability?
Complaining about 8kg? Bah Humbug. After taking the first compaq portable with me on a trip, my right arm was longer than the left arm -- from carrying it -- it it felt heaver than 28 lbs (12.5kg) it was rated. That was with a 9 inche screen and no battery.
You young whippersnappers have it so easy.
Fight Spammers!
I don't know about you, but my preferred "laptop" is around 50 kg and I certainly don't complain when she's on my lap.
From what I recall, XP Home with SP2 treats multiple cores as one CPU for the purpose of licensing.
Throw the bums out!
...but is it clocked at 6.8GHz?
No, *you* are a fool - or at least ignorant of the scheme the OP is talking about.
At the risk of sounding like [God forbid] a Marxist, if you can't see what the business owners and their paid lackeys in the legislatures have done here, then you are a fool.
They [the business owners and the politicians] have written the tax laws so that they can fool you into believing that the laptop you purchased is for your own benefit.
It is NOT for your benefit. It is for the benefit of the business owners, so that instead of demanding from you a 5 X 8 = 40 hour work week, they can now [at least theoretically] hold you accountable for a 7 X 24 = 168 hour work week.
Would you feel the same way if the tax credit were for a pager that could be used to wake you up in the middle of the night, or, better yet, a second phone line to your home, replete with a bright red telephone, labelled "HOTLINE", strategically located on the nightstand immediately opposite the pillow on your bed?
You know, the older I get, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that, if given the opportunity, the vast, overwhelming majority of humans will gladly, of their own free will, chose slavery over freedom.
PS: And I am getting damned tired of having these sorts of comments modded down as flamebait. You people need to wake up and smell the coffee.
PPS: Now that I've glanced back over your comment [and no, I wouldn't dream of wasting the time required to read it in its entirety], it's pretty clear that you hail from the general vicinity of Great Britain, which means that you're almost certainly part of the problem, and attempting any sort of civil discourse with you is an utter and complete waste of my time.
...add another couple of kgs to make it ruggedized, anodized, and packing even more heat to get me sterilized.
Or the Brazil-type mod where each fan gets its own flexible slinky-like cooling duct worming their way out from under the chassis.
One can dream....
:-( I hope this version of Clevo's DTR can stay cool enough to work in a warm enviroment. If you don't have aircon. then you may see the GPU start to loose the plot then the CPU will HALT. Those fans suck in a heap of dust and crud too, so over time cooling gets much worse. Other than that they are great, unless you are a wimp and can't lift the thing. ;-)
I use XP Home on my AMD 3800 X2 based computer. XP Home works just fine with a dual core processor, however, XP Home does not support computers with two seperate processors and Pro does. This is something that has caused alot of confusion on web forums that I visit.
First of all, most laptops are Clevos. The high end Clevos are the best of the best high performance laptops, but expect all the usual defects you live with in modern gadgets.
Don't be suprised if the ethernet fails after 6 months and you have to use ethernet over 1394, the keyboard drops a lot of keypresses, and the touch pad is over sensitive due to the high heat.
Other than that, it's held up better than the Dells and Sonys due to its size. Of course, there is no Linux support on this chipset for AGP, power management, DV over 1394 and there never will be. That's part of the cost of bleeding edge.
Concrete slab comes in at 2400kg/cubic meter. So a 8kg concrete slab is roughly 3cm by 33cm by 33cm, that is hardly a concrete slab.
I have to admit I have no grasp on how big or small this laptop is because this headline was apparently written in Europe. -Not nerdy enough to know both metric and english.
This is news? Sager has had this up for at least a week now and they have all the features this 'will have by mid-January' already listed.
u ct2.cfm?ProductType=9750&SubType=V
http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/notebooks/prod
C'mon, you pizza-munching, jolt-guzzling lardass geeks, you know it's true. Trading 8 Kgs of useless fat for 8 Kgs of uberleet dual-core portable for your daily lugging-around weight can be nothing but good!
:)
Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!
Some server and other expensive apps still use Paralel port dongles for protection. But one can always get a USB-to-Paralel converter.
>>>Have you ever wanted to host a giant Oracle database ON THE GO?
Perhaps, it would be better to ask if you ever NEEDED to host a giant database (Oracle or other vendor) ON THE GO? "ON THE GO" might actually mean "from an emergency shelter powered by a generator (or other emergency power source)".
I'm an amateur radio operator who's somewhat involved with emergency communications at the local level, but who wasn't deployed for the hurricanes that we had here in the southern USA this past summer. I can easily envision future scenarios where diaster officials (well, at least those who are properly trained and competent and willing to do the job diligently) could (ideally) make good use of a high-end system like this to temporarily replace critical information infrastructure when high-speed access to the Internet isn't possible. Imagine a hospital's records database (at least partially, or perhaps fully for just those patients currently admitted and/or recently discharged) backed up on a laptop. Imagine a 911 call center (or other emergency service[s]) data backed up onto one of these, ready to run (with a small network of other, smaller laptops) from wherever it's needed. The possiblities, IMNSHO, are enormous.
YES, I know this beast eats a lot of power, but when all else fails (literally)...