Slashdot Mirror
Centrino Duo, Buy or Wait?
pillageplunder writes "BusinessWeek Columnist Steven Wildstrom answers a readers question on whether or not to buy a laptop with the new Intel Centrino Duo processor. The reader wanted to know if the new chip would be up to handling the Graphic requirements of Microsofts new Vista OS, and whether or not it would cost more. His take? Regarding price, probably not, about performance, right now there is no real way to know for sure. He does a decent job of outlining bug issues with new chips, and what the various vendors say/feel about this chip."
Vista? What's that? Get an Intel Duo laptop with OS X!
:-P
I wonder if apple would ever use a centrino, though... I doubt it.
I think the snail and the bunny still apply to centrinos.
--
The Television Wiki
The Television Wiki
The real question is, will it last long enough to see vista? Given that the average laptop dies a natural death in one to three years, it's anyone's guess...
According to Microsoft, you will need around the following:
System Requirements:
Minimum system requirements will not be known until summer 2006 at the earliest. However, these guidelines provide useful estimates:
512 megabytes (MB) or more of RAM
A dedicated graphics card with DirectX® 9.0 support
A modern, Intel Pentium- or AMD Athlon-based PC.
So, I am guessing that a Centrino will fly.
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
Dell left an internal directory open to google's bots and accidentally leaked their upcoming Duo Core prices. Interesting how similarly priced they are to their single core brethren.
Short answer: Buy
Long answer: Wait
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
"The reader wanted to know if the new chip would be up to handling the Graphic requirements of Microsoft's new Vista OS"
The Duo seems to do a fine job with OS X, why wouldn't it be able to handle Vista? It's not like Vistas GUI is more graphic intense then OS X.
Bad move to buy a 32-bit chip in a world that's rapidly moving to 64-bit processors.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It can't run 64-bit Windows Vista and the Intel GPUs the Centrino Duo notebooks usually use are very poor. Buy an AMD Turion laptop with an ATI (or nVidia, whenever they get some Turion design wins) GPU if you want to be Vista-ready. Or if you want to run 64-bit Linux now. Hardly anyone who is going to go through the nuisance to upgrade the OS is going to bother with the 32-bit Vista "PHB Edition". (Unless the Pointy Haired Boss makes such technical decisions at your company... hmm...)
Rather glaring ommission by BusinessWeek.
How do you justify the closing statement of the article? While not technically wrong it seems vastly misleading. If the new Intel Graphics Adapter uses 128Mb (or let's say even 256Mb for arguments sake), wouldn't a simple corresponding increase in main system memory suffice? Why push a 1Gb memory upgrade for the purpose of better graphics then. Sure you can break a "windows" with a rocket launcher. But wouldn't a baseball bat suffice?
With Merom behind the corner, I wonder if the current Core Duo (basically Yonah) will be obsolete soon...
The reader wanted to know if the new chip would be up to handling the Graphic requirements of Microsofts new Vista OS, and whether or not it would cost more.....One thing to remember about integrated graphics is that Intel's Unified Memory Access technology means that the graphics adapter shares the computer's main random-access memory. This makes a full gigabyte of RAM the absolute minimum for a system running Vista on unified graphics, and 2 GB is better.
Sure it will be able to handle Vista, but it will cost more since you may need 2 GB of RAM. Simply because it is a new product it will cost a bit more.
It also has bugs (albeit obscure?) the best thing might be just to wait a few months until the price comes down and the bugs are exterminated.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I am posting this from a Dell Inspiron 9400 (core duo at 1.83ghz). If Vista doesn't fly on this laptop then MS has done something wrong, not the hardware boys.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
My answer to anyone who asks if now is a good time to buy x in computer hardware. My answer is always can you wait 6 months? IF you can wait then do if not then buy now. Things will always be better/cheaper in 6 months so if you can wait you get a better deal.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
The most interesting result was that those home users, who at the turn of the century, couldn't get enough of new 'puter stuff were now satisfied with their home machines and saw no reason to update. Up until a year or so ago these same buyers were in a frenzy to have bigger harddrives and more ram, now Windows XP and a P4 is sufficient for most of their needs. Their primary need seems to have settled on photography, with scanner/printers being their last buy.
Not that a straw poll over Christmas is much to go on but I suspect the rush to new technology is over. The down side is it looks like my source of free PCs is going to dry up.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Do the right thing. Find a machine with the correct graphics chipset solution that your software currently likes. The dual-core machines don't help that much unless code is written for them specifically; there's precious little code that can really whup a dual-core just yet. So, buy lots of memory, and watch for cogent compiles of your favorite stuff. Otherwise, buy a big disk, known chipset with drivers for your favorite OS, and a display that won't blind you.
Then, be prepared to put it on the inheritance plan in three years, as mentioned above.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
When the Meroms come out, the price on the current gen of Centrinos will fall. Snatch up a nice Thinkpad for $1000.
Does the new Celeron still not clock/volt down?
I'd only ever buy a mobile CPU if I know it doesn't eat my battery for breakfast!
(actually I'm looking into buying a Turion NB, but not sure yet, as choice in that area is *slightly* limited)
Like that's never happened?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
to wait.
Why the hell are all does it only include integrated graphics? Ugh!
I say wait until newer, more hybrid machines come out with the CPU but other dedicated graphics engines.
I agree with you... yes, they're right that the move to 64 bit isn't exactly "rapid", but do you really want a chip that won't be able to run the more powerful version of the next OS? Buying a 64-bit chip costs around the same and allows you to run 64-bit applications now... I think it'd be dumb for anyone to buy a 32 bit chip at this stage, even if everything is still 32 bit.
Don't fret. Spyware is there to help you in that regard.
I heard many people just buy a new PC instead of having their old one disinfected. Why? It costs about the same.
You either pay $500 for labor or $500 for a new PC.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
As long as it'll still run Windows 2000 and Linux, I'm good. I haven't needed anything Microsoft put out since W2K, and I haven't had any need for anything faster than about 1.2 GHz. A bunch of people at work bought tricked-out new 3+ GHz machines in the last couple of months, and I asked them, "Why so fast" or "Why did you buy the $300 graphics card update?" Basically people have become so conditioned that they HAVE to buy the FASTEST and BEST thing out there or their computer is already obsolete before they even start. It's a bunch of crap anymore. Most of these people are just browsing the web, doing email, writing documents, editing photos. A $400 PC or Mac Mini would have been plenty for them. They spent $1500, and threw away a bunch of money.
I had someone say that a Dell rep told them that they really should get that Hyper-hot $350 GeForce ultra-platinum video card, because she'd need it to retouch photos on the computer. That's pretty reprehensible IMHO. A $30 graphics card or mainboard graphics would have done just fine. I say they practically stole $300 from her.
Sorry for going OT.
My first laptop (a packard-bell with win 3.1) lasted about 4 years. I remember spending something like $800 bucks on that one for a 8MB memory upgrade, aarrrggh. My second one (compaq) is now about 2 years old, and recently started to make a weird ticking noise which stops once it has been running for awhile.
FREE - Java, J2EE and Ajax Audiobooks for Software Developers - www.DeveloperAdvantage.com
This chip would be a dream for me - uses 20 watts, dual-core, high-performance, very overclockable - this is what I would die to build a silent-running desktop PC around. The problem with AMD's dual-cores is that they start at 60+ watts - hardly anything compared to Intel, but when you're trying to build a system with 1, maybe 2 fans total it's not easy to exhaust that heat.
Unfortunately it looks like the Banias/Dothan fiasco again, where desktop boards either don't exist, cost $350, or are so crippled they're not worth buying. Hopefully that'll change, or Conroe (the desktop edition of these Yonah chips) won't add too much by way of heat.
Don't Hate, Gestate
But then, you can't buy new technology tomorrow because it will be today.
If you wait for the next best things, that's all you'll do, is wait. There is always something better around the corner.
In honesty though, today's computers don't change that frequently anymore. Once a computer speed freak overclocking upgrade die hard, I have used the same computer system for 3 years, and only now I am starting to decide if I want to upgrade because I want to start storing My DVD collection on my computer for easier access. I could use something faster to rip and encode my Dvds in Divx.
Buying a computer today doesn't mean it's obsolete tomorrow, not anymore. Except for those people that feel they need the latest and the greatest. Buying any new technology today will probably last you for a few years except if a killer game or killer app comes along that demands more performance.
As for the Celeron Duo Core's. I have never liked the idea of "budget" CPU's. Why sell yourself short and get something that purposely under performs, basically a crippled version of its better performing sibling. I don't know if this is the case anymore, but I thought Celeron's were just Pentiums that Intel smashed a shoe on and broke them enough to run slower. I don't think Intel actually redesigns Celeron's, just forgets to put some components in them. Oops, we screwed up a batch of Pentiums, stamp Celeron on them and sell them slightly cheaper.
I would wait for any Duo Core technology as there are many reports of bugs that are affecting everything from battery life, security, and reliability. Wait for Duo Core 2's, but you should never fear today's technology because of what tomorrow might bring.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
wait
Unless it's needed immediately, I'd wait until the software(vista) which he is waiting for comes out. Chances are there will be at least some "improvements"(or extras) at the same price point by the time Vista rears it's ugly head. (worst case)
(best case) There may even be some relatively major improvements in the notebooks at the pricepoint such as "better" GPUs, maybe a better battery(or other power supply) technology(will be released/realized), chipsets, bundled extras, etc. (The thing that I'd be most concerned about is the GPU IMHO as it will NOT be upgradeable in a notebook. Even the few notebooks that were ever released with supposedly upgradeable GPUs, the upgrades never materialized for....)
Personally, I'm still using a 4 year old notebook, waiting to see what happens with the macbooks and x86 powermacs. I'm not really interested in 1st revs(esp. with an architecture change and an OSX version whose primary focus is on ppc, and an unclear, at this time, ability to get a variant of Windows running on it, since it uses EFI(IIRC)).
you are confusing centrino with celeron, there's no budget about the centrino duo.
New chips always have bugs and problems. So getting a laptop with a new Intel architecture is going to be a bit of a gamble.
... and I'm not an Intel bigot, I'd just as soon see AMD compete with the Centrino. Can I get a dual-core Opeteron for my Dell laptop - please, pretty please?
I think that "New" is a bit of a misnomer. Processor design today is largely a lego-like operation. Engineers and Designers have a plethora of VLSI libraries that have been proven and can be re-used in "new" "constructions". Also, the dual-core feature is achieved largely through manufacturing and chipset advances, not "new chips" per say. Combine with that the fact that SMP has been fairly standard in both Win32 and Linux for more than a few years now and I believe a dual-core Centrino sounds like a pretty safe bet...and a helluva fast laptop[1].
[1]This of course presumes your OEM (Compaq, Sony, Dell) chooses a decent chipset and didn't screw-up the many other items likely to ruin an excellent concept.
Clearly the only rational solution is to buy a Mac.
I've got a dual-core and it doesn't really help much since pretty much all the software I use regularly is single-threaded. Occasionally the disk io happens in another core from other processing, so for example rar'ing might be say 5% faster than on a single core. It is nice that I can rar huge file without impacting performance of the 'main' thing I am working on, but that doesn't happen very often.
Overall, the only thing I've really noticed that is significantly faster is Java. Most Java apps use threads, and if nothing else the GC seems to run on the 2nd CPU. For example, the graphics demo takes 100% of both cores if you set the delay to 0ms between frames. That's about the only program I've seen actually use both cores.
As a side note, I predict with more cores we will see greater use of things like Java. It may run at say 80% C speed, but 80% + 80% is still much more than 100% on one cpu and 0% on another.
If you want to run Glass (the GUI) you need to make sure you have a compatible video card. I have found in Vista that the biggest perf issues stem from low memory or not having a compatible video card. Here is nvidia's list of supported video cards, note that there are no notebook cards on it right now. Here is ATI's list of supported video cards. If you want the slick UI, just make sure you get a laptop that supports LDDM.
.: 2+2 = PI SQRT(1+N)
Jesus, if people have to ask if a dual-core Yonah chip that competes performance-wise with an Athlon64 3800+ X2 will be able to run Vista, Vista must be the most bloated and slow operating system on the planet. I've heard the recent leaked builds aren't THAT bad, but I've never used one personally. Can anyone else comment? I have a feeling all those version 1.0 managed .NET APIs wrapping on top of Win32 will be slow and painful and little-used as people just continue compiling natively for best performance.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I'm sure XP works fine on the Duo...if you don't want the Vista eye candy just stick with XP.
First, let's say the OS is well-organized to be able to handle the demands, rather than FIFO'ing them. Then let's say that the OS will assign reasonable task queueing. Let's also say that all of the cache among the CPUs has coherency, and one process doesn't hang an adjoining CPU.
It's a beautiful day.
And NOTHING guarantees this at all. Indeed job queuing is pretty much random unless the OS has native tendencies. You won't get a stochastic job distribution among the processors, except by luck, and perhaps phase of the moon. So, fie.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Yeah, the thinkpad is a really nice and tough notebook. So is the Fujitsu Lifebook and the Panasonic Toughbook, I have heard good things about Dells, but haven't experienced it first hand (and I am a former Dell Tech) I find their fans die slowly (they spin, but not enough) at about 9 -18 months and burn the thing out... but the laptops that last seven years aren't the average notebook, are they?
It was a joke, with a grain of truth. Basically a laptop's life expectancy is 1 - 3 years and more realistically a year of serious professional duty. How long does your battery last? Over 4 hours, still? That's usually the first to go... How about the optical drive and floppy? Can it read every burned disk you throw at it? In my experience, and I have a shelf full of old laptops, these things probably don't work too well. Laptops die young. This is why most manufactuers have never given them a long warranty. It's probably great for hobbist stuff, but would you still have your job if you tried issuing 7 year old laptops as standard corp. issue?
Your seven year old laptop is going to be hard pressed to run XP and I don't think any sensible admin is going to want to have a 98 book in the wild with sensitve data. How many minutes would it take me to own your computer if it's hooked up to the internet? If you really want to extend your laptop's life, get a copy of Solaris on the thing. I am running Solaris 8 for intel on an old stinkpad of the same vintage and it is as good as XP on a new machine with a gig of ram.
Now that I have explained the premise of the joke and expressed my sympathies with your concerns, I will continue with the punchline... How long has MS been telling us they are coming out with Longhorn, now Vista? A dang long time.
In reality it might come out this year, but it might be another year or two at the rate things are going. It's been delayed for easily a good three years now. See, that's why it is funny. If you bought a laptop for longhorn/Vista when it was supposed to be released it'd probably be dead right now especially if you bought a gateway, emachine, HP or sony. In anycase, it'd be slow and underpowered.
And yeah, you're better off waiting for the OS to be released and get a machine made for the OS because if the graphics card don't work, your not going to be able to swap it out... and there are a lot of components that might be questionable under the new trusted computing/closed A(nalog)-hole/DMCA/**AA design Microsoft is going for. Your best bet would be to wait. If you need a laptop buy a $500 Acer (they have a great warranty and build good gear) and save your money for the machine you really want.
And the name of my laptop? Why I use an Aristocrat!
I wonder what percentage of laptops sold today have a dedicated DirectX 9 capable video card. Most are using integrated graphics. I just bought a $1200 laptop that has decent specs (1.73 GHz Banias, 512MB 80GB, USB2&Firewire), but dedicated video wasn't on the list of things I could get in that price range.
(Would have loved to mod your comment up, but out of points right now.)
But yeah, precisely. Despite all the hype over 64 bit, it doesn't necessarily make code run any faster than it can on a good 32-bit CPU. The only "tangible" advantage is the ability to manage more system RAM. As developers have said repeatedly, 64-bit applications require shuffling around larger numbers, and only in specific instances does 64-bit give you a speed advantage with your code.
I also predict that before we start seeing the average user wanting/needing more than 4GB of RAM in a computer, flash memory storage will come down in price, and go up in capacity - making the demand for system RAM relatively less than it was before. (If you have a solid-state replacement for your hard drive, it doesn't have to be such a "performance hit" to swap out to "virtual memory".)
Because the first law of electronics pricing is you can buy a chip twice as powerful in one year at one-tenth the price.
...
The only reason to buy now would be if you have no other realistic solution.
It's like HDTV - sure, you can spend $10,000 on a top of the line HDTV now - or you can wait until 2009 when everyone has one and pay $500 for a better model that offers the exact same features and has fixed all the bugs.
Just think of all the cloning kits you could buy with that $9,500
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yeah, it's just my experience. I never really thought about it until Cory Doctrow mentioned that he finds he goes through a laptop per year and I started thinking about it...
You sound like you are lucky with your machines or really careful. You definitely carefully picked out some good machines, because those are two outstanding models I didn't include on my brief list above. I have a 75 mhz vesa that is still ticking away -- even the battery works! And it spent much of its worklife in a dairy barn!
I have serviced and revived an aweful lot of laptops and the 1 - 3 years is just an educated guess I have found to work. It seems that after three years they really start getting buggy. I definitely wouldn't buy a used laptop unless it was twenty bucks and powered up especially when you can get a faster new one (w/warranty)for a price similar to the price people want for their old junk.
And yes, I can tell you, I have talked with many owners whose laptops have died in year two.. it's not pretty.
With Microsoft saying that 512MB of RAM is a bare requirement and they wouldn't recommend running Vista at all on any PC with less than a full GB, I think we will be hitting that 4 GB mark sooner than you realize.
Even your 2 GHz Centrino or 1.6 GHz Mobile Pentium won't be crippled by Vista - as long as you have 2 Gb RAM!
The demanding requirements of Vista come from the Quartz-clone, Aero Glass. This is like Apple's quartz, only pure XML instead of Adobe PDF based (an XML/Forth hybrid/melange).
In doing so, it is between 500% to 1000% less efficient, requiring the highest end GPUs, with minimums of 128 MB VRAM.
In the end, it accomplishes little more than Quartz - with the exception of easire X-Style remote window invocation. This is a possible direction, as yet undeveloped.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
..otherwise you'll end up waiting for eternity to buy as each new technology coming out sounds more promising.
And once you do buy something, don't check prices.
I'm struggling with a decision about which laptop to buy. I'm going to be buying one in the next week, although I might be able to wait a little.
I want to run FC 5 on it, although I haven't figured out whether linux kernel is ok. Anyone know?
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
You suspect incorrectly. I have few machines that *aren't* dual CPU or better at this point, including the notebook I'm writing this on.
You must work for a chip or hardware vendor and have rose coloured glasses. I'm a critic.
It may feel faster, but in actuality, work performed is never 2x or close. Yes, faster. 2x: not even close. This isn't to say that a multi-core isn't a bad idea for performance. But realistically, it's not the panacea that some think it is. There's graphics subsystems, internal bus chipset and mgmt, the OS's decision matrix for non-multi-specific tasks and asks. And then there's how much the cache gets dirty, and how fast it can be cleansed or reused or simply reallocated.
The OSes only touch the capabilities, and apps less. But they look cute, suck power, and sometimes are nicer than swift kick in VClock.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I was reading a number of rumor sites that think Apple will update their MacBook Pro models to the 2.5GHZ Duo Core chip in summer around the WWDC. This would make sense since that will be the high end chip at that time and now Apple will NEED to update much faster or the speed comp/value with the Intel world will be clear. It would seperate the single core iBook replacement.
One thing about Apple going Intel, upgrade cycles will be dramatically shorter.
I bought the Aspire 5672 WMLi with an ATI X1400 vid-card. The sucker has 2GB of RAM, and the video card has 128MB, but can access up to 512MB (HyperMemory). Built in Wifi, bluetooth, SATA-150 120GB HD, and webcam.
Performance: GREAT! Especially running Virtual PC with Linux or other O/S. But multithreaded applications don't work in Virtual PC, so you have to compile what you want in the main O/S. Crafty SMP compiled for the O/S works just great with both threads fully clocking the CPU figuring out chess moves during game analysis.
The machine can play a DVD (or burn one for that matter) while I play 3-d games. Smooth animation and smooth network performance that never seem to have to wait for other processes, and intelligent multi-tasking (doh - running 2 simultaneous SQL queries would be dumb, wouldn't it?) will make sure you make the most of the machine.
At 1.66Ghz, I don't see why any single process is going to need more than that? And at $1500, this beautiful laptop blows away my old desktop (3 years old) in performance, is portable, lasts for 3 hours on a charge and does everything I need computing power for.
Just one man's opinion
Watch out for the inspirons, they are the consumer version laptops. So it has all the goodies but lesser quality controls. The Latitude is the business edition and tend to have better quality controls from my experience. Either way, I've found dell laptops to suck in quality. But their Extended 3 year onsite warranty ROCKS. I've used it in 3 countries without problems and with good resolutions.
Now, I was with Dell's tech support for 90 minutes for a consumer laptop 2 days ago. And the support was horrible. I may be going with Apple for future purchases. How much $$$ is your time worth?
Anyone have info on when we'll be seeing desktop/server motherboards that support the Core Duo? I'd love to be able to run a ultra-power-efficient server on it...
Talk about bloatware... it is truly amazing (in a bad way) what the minimum hardware spec has become for windows.
Its really just a graphical program launching environment yet it now needs more resouces than what a mainframe could deliver a just a few years ago.
And NOTHING guarantees this at all. Indeed job queuing is pretty much random unless the OS has native tendencies. You won't get a stochastic job distribution among the processors, except by luck, and perhaps phase of the moon. So, fie.
Well, mayhap, and yet every modern OS is damnededly more responsive on a dual core/proc machine than it is on a single. After all, bottlenecks still exist in the best intentioned code.
That's the key, really. You don't need perfect distribution, just like you don't need a multi-lane road if you're in relatively even moving traffic. However, even the most (well, almost) brain-dead OS is able to shunt you around a temporarily blocked thread that's spinning CPU like there was no tomorrow if you have an extra processor - and it can be very difficult to correctly throttle the priority of a busy thread down and task-switch the heck out of it instead.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Sure, a second one is nice. How nice? Worth the extra $$$$$ (not $$ as implied up-thread)? For some, yes. Others no. It's a luxury.... and in many cases the extra expense could be spent on a machine with an unfettered mission to do things like compiles, FFTs, rendering, and so on. Bridge them together at the hip (NFS, WinShare, some other kind of cross-mount) and life is good and inexpensive.
Or, get a process that monitors interrupts frequency and watch the square wave of performance as you jarringly try to get something done in a stream re-write, as an example.
If you have the $$$, it's nice. but OSes and compilers still aren't optimized in any stretch of the imagination to effectively use one CPU, let alone two and more.
This said as I'm addicted to two and more cores/machine. Sigh.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
More easily manage more system RAM. Plenty of processors with 32-bit registers and pointers support more than 4GB of main memory; they just make it hard for a single process to use more than 4GB (it'd have to map stuff in and out of the address space).
That's what I've been wondering since I read about it. Guess not since it uses the same socket and chipset then?
It may be a melange but at least it's 8 bit clean baby! Whoo hoo!
XML has to bend over and fall flat on its face to tie its non-existent 8 bit shoe laces. You'd think Microsoft would know better. Oh yeah, I forgot, they can't use NIH Postscript, must develop an all new incompatible melange but remember to use open standards to keep US and EU off our backs.
And people say Microsoft can't learn how to keep doing the same ol' thing they've always done.
See TuxMobil for Centrino Duo on Linux laptops and notebooks. Yesterday the first installation report about Linux on a laptop with Dual Core (aka Yonah) has arrived. And I expect even more soon. Sidenote: in previous threads 64bit CPUs have been discussed as alternative solution. Linux on laptops and notebooks with 64bit CPU (AMD64) is already widespread.
Let me get this right, my premise that Anecdotal Evidence is not Data is proved wrong because you have had good service from a laptop model that I said was above the curve?
It's like your arguing with me that the life expectancy of an average male isn't around 70 years because your Grandma, who never smoked, is a hundred and six and she's fine and there's like three other ladies in her retirement home that are over a hundred.
In the same vein you shouldn't expect the average laptop to live more than three years, and it could die sooner or live longer depending on circumstances. I am really happy for you that you have such a nice laptop, really, but are you honestly suprised that most laptops are in the trash after three years?
Again, my premise, anecdotal evidence is not data. Yeah, I have a stack of laptops that are ancient compared to your spiffy centrino and they all work fine. But would you be willing to risk your job by outfitting a fleet of salesmen fresh out of the frat house with three to five year old average Dell laptops or would you pop the extra couple hundred per device to get them new machines with full warranties? I wouldn't risk it. How much is it going to cost your company if one of the road warrior's laptop goes tits up ten minutes before his big powerpoint presentation to a huge client because the hd circled the drain? Add in the cost of the flight, the hotel, the rental car, the lost business and the cost of hiring a new tech that isn't dumb enough to outfit professionals with old junk to save a few bucks... there is no cost savings. Anyways, most Corporations lease new to keep the capital off of their books.
The money you've added to your laptop would have provided you with a new replacement with full warrenty once you have figured in the scrap value of your old one. The fact is, you are not an average user. Not everyone is happy with only 512 megs of ram, I know I wouldn't want to be running memory intensive apps like Websphere, Photoshop, Access, Premiere or even office, explorer and outlook all at once with a bunch of windows open like the average luser does.... and I sure wouldn't want to be supporting a fleet of users who were trying to, either.
And as far as being locked out of MS Vista when it is released is due to mentions in the press that DRM in Vista will require users to get new monitors and I am not in a position to say if a laptop you buy today will meet the standards of Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management(PVP-OPM) or any other whacked out DRM Microsoft will require in your hardware once Vista comes out. This is the dance M$ does with the hardware companies, new software to require new hardware and it was ever thus...right now, all we have is speculation and there has been a lot of speculation over the past three years since this new OS was supposed to be release and things will change in the next three years drastically. There is too much money at play for it not to.
Yes, the Toughbook is head and shoulders above the rest... but I have seen them die, but really my only gripe with them is proprietary drivers for onboard stuff.. not a big problem though.
Despite our best intentions, no body escapes the second law of thermaldynamics.
Just for example, I am currently involved in a project deploying several hundred ruggedized computers. We are still in the initial phases and testing out a few different types of devices. We currently have about fifty in the field and have experienced at least five catastrophic hardware failures in 6 months. Additionally we have experienced numerous data loss issues due to power interpt that has caused me to write into the application several data backup routines to avoid this unavoidable hardware gaffe.