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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."
RTFA, the /. headline is stupid and misses half the facts. The article is about the i945M integrated graphics, not the Core Duo itself, and whether the integrated graphics will be able to handle the load of Vista.
The iMac/x86 are bundled with ATI's X1600 and the Macbook pros have an ATI Mobility X1600, they're not using integrated graphics from the chipset.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
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!