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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."
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
...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?
Anyone else think the company's name is just a little too fitting?