Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:33 am
Oh, I agree. You have to figure out what's important to you, because every laptop is a compromise among (at least) three things: power, mobility, and price. Seting aside niche products like tablets, the market breaks down into four categories:
DTRs: Maximum power, lousy mobility, high price. These tend to be heavy (8lbs+), have 16+ inch screens with hi resolution, and terrible battery life. But you can game on them better than anything else you can stick in a backpack. Just make sure you keep an eye on that backpack, because you've got a lot of money in there. These used to be strictly P4-Ms, but the A64-M is starting to show up.
"Value" or Mainstream: Less power, somewhat better mobility, low price. Low price by laptop measures, anyway. These are your celerons and XP-Ms. They're not as heavy as the DTRs but they still tend to be chunky -- it's easier to keep the price down if you don't have to engineer a lot of hot components into a svelte case. Battery life isn't great but it's usually good enough, and you tend to have more choice in screen size and resolution. The classic student laptop.
Thin and Light: Good power, good mobility, high price. Your Pentium-M niche, for people who are carrying the thing around all day and need the battery to last the whole plane trip. Typically 14" screens, though some are larger, and rarely more than XGA. These tend to be the "executive" machines, so the price is high, but to be fair packing a lot of tech into a sub-6lb package isn't easy, or cheap.
Ultraportable: Underpowered, excellent mobility, relatively high price. These are your sub-4lb machines, usually with just 12" screens and never more than XGA resolution. Usually P-Ms (hence the price) but sometimes Transmeta chips. Lots of compromises -- cramped keyboards, limited ports -- but a great thing to have if you need a little computer that stays out of the way. There are a lot more of these in Japan but the niche hasn't really taken off here.
As someone who schlepped a laptop across the country every other week for a while in 90s, I decided I would never again own one that weighed more than 6lbs. When my last laptop died, I was left in a quandry because I could really use more than XGA resolution but that's very hard to find on a thin-and-light machine. So I'm still on the fence (fortunately I haven't had a major trip force the issue on me yet). If that kind of mobility doesn't matter, and price does, then clearly you're shopping in the value category and you'll find a lot of AMD machines. And that's fine.
) died at that time too.. so I think it is just severe wear and tear...
