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Quote:

Originally posted by Steve Carlton
A computer guy in my office building speaks very highly of Chembook laptops; he resells them. Supposedly they're built with the best components. What do you guys know?

www.chembook.com

Found a test on one of the Chembooks. Sounds like quite a machine.

Here's the link:

http://laptopmag.com/Review/ChemBook-2037.htm

A laptop should have a low-voltage chip. -- how hard is that concept?

Apparently, pretty tough for a lot of these laptop makers.

I know a fellow CAD guy who has a smoken-fast Dell XPS. Battery life; about 15 minutes. --that's not a battery . .. its a mini-UPS.

edit: just a little peeved here . .. the newest moble chips are not much faster than my 2+ y/o machine. . . . and desktop chips are not a viable solution.

Island: this may be a good solution. The review says it has the power of some of the most powerful Pentium M units - and is cheaper.

http://laptopmag.com/Review/Apple-14-inch-ibook-G4.htm?Page=0

Quote:

Originally posted by island911
A laptop should have a low-voltage chip. -- how hard is that concept?

Apparently, pretty tough for a lot of these laptop makers.

I know a fellow CAD guy who has a smoken-fast Dell XPS. Battery life; about 15 minutes. --that's not a battery . .. its a mini-UPS.

edit: just a little peeved here . .. the newest moble chips are not much faster than my 2+ y/o machine. . . . and desktop chips are not a viable solution.

Doesn't (very) low voltage generally = low clock speed though?

FWIW, my 1.6ghz M notebook (Latitude) is noticeably faster (at 100%+) than my slightly older 1.3 P3 notebook (Inspiron). Both used the same RAM, and were both running XP Pro. So, I'm thinking it has to be the processor & chipset, because you wouldn't really notice the difference between a 1.6 and a 1.3, all else being equal. Or am I missing something?

As to battery life, I think the M/855 setup is a nice balance. I get about 3.5 hours on a full charge, with average use. Even more if I disable wi-fi and/or a few unneeded processes.

What's the FSB on your P3 compared to your P-M?

Quote:

Originally posted by BlueSkyJaunte
What's the FSB on your P3 compared to your P-M?

Ah, good point. I believe they are the same (400mhz), but now you have me wondering...
I should probably check on the L2 Cache of them both now too (I know the P-M has 2mb). Any other variables I should consider that may have skewed my comparison?

You got it: L2 cache and FSB are the things I can think of.

Though your vid controller/RAM can certainly have an impact in various tests.

Quote:

Originally posted by Eric Coffey
Doesn't (very) low voltage generally = low clock speed though?. . ...

well, thats what intel is giving us. But of course, "low voltage" doesn't have to mean " low clock speed".

higher "clock speed" does seem to mean higher power consumption . . . and that's why the faster chips ought to be lower voltage. IMO

But, apparently, the marketing guys see the sales pull of tiny 'puters, to run the inter-web and play DVD's . . on tiny batteries. :rolleyes: