Ultraportable Notebooks
OK, My laptop died, time to get another. Here are some reviews that led me to the Sony VAIO TF3AP2. Its 3 pounds, has a CD-RW/DVD and runs on batteries for five hours. Tiny, its just what I need on the road. I'll have to get a big desktop at home, but I still need to do slides on the road.
* "TechTV":http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/products/story/0,24330,3550386,00.html. They like the Fujitsu LifeBook P5000. Has an optical drive and widescreen format so you can watch DVDs. Battery life was pretty good too. It's pretty slow at 143 MobileMark, but has a 4:22 hr MobileMark 2002 battery life. Runs on a Pentium M 1.0 GHz
* "CNet":http://reviews.cnet.com/4521-6527_7-5021302-4.html. Their top picks are the IBM ThinkPad X31, but it doesn't have an optical drive. They like the Sony VAIO TR2A which rob shurtleff loves. They didn't review the newer TR3AP2 which Bruce Ryan loves. They also likes the Panasonic ToughBook CF-W2 which does have an optical drive, 6 hour battery life,
"Intel processor comparison:http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=320039. There is much confusion about the various types of processors Intel now sells. An amazing hash of names and architectures. Here's the decoder ring that also comes from the Intel "Annual Report":http://www.intel.com/intel/annual03/ar03.pdf
* Centrino. This is not a processor at all. It means that you have a Pentium M with their glue logic for chips and things, so it basically means more Intel chips than otherwise.
* Pentium M. These are optimized for low power adn have a completely different architecture than desktop chips (Northwood and Prescott). They have lower clock speeds, but higher performance at a given clock speed because they don't have the huge pipeline, so a 1.7GHz Pentium M could be faster than a 3GHz Pentium 4. The other variants are the voltages, so you have 1.3GHz-1.7GHz Pentium M, then low-voltage Pentium M in 1.1 and 1.2 GHz and finally ultra low voltage 900 MHz and 1GHz.
* Mobile Pentium 4. These are the high burn rate version of the desktop Pentium 4. Mainly used for desktop replacement systems where heat and power consumption don't matter.
* mobile Celeron. Intel's low-end desktop line tuned for mobile uses
Posted by rich at May 22, 2004 07:36 AM