Is there any news on what Pinetrail can be used for? Are there going to be 11.6" / 1366x768 Pinetrail netbooks? Or indeed any 1280x720 10" netbooks with Pinetrail.
All these 1024x600 screens are not particularly enticing, and it's higher resolutions which really give some appeal (plus 11.6" chassis mean a bigger keyboard, which is nice if you actually want to be productive, same for a higher resolution screen).
Anandtech did a preview of a lenovo S10-3 with a 10" 1280x720 screen a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it's not available yet, nor is the 10" 1366x768 EEE 1005PR.
There are a few 10"ers out there with 1366x768 screens. The Dell Mini 10 and HP Mini 210 have it as an option (combined with the Broadcom HD chip). All of the forthcoming Ion 2 netbooks have wxga screens as well, as does the Asus Eee 1201 update.
Very good review. But I disagree that higher brightness is better. In specific situations (outdoors in bright light) it can be useful, but normally LCDs are too bright and you can measure benefits to users from reducing brightness. See the Eizo guide to eye fatigue: http://www.eizo.com/global/products/flexscan/vdt/G...
Sure, but a bright screen can always be turned down, while a dim screen is dim no matter what. Given that these are netbooks and not DTRs there is a decent chance they will be used outside, and a 120 nit screen might well be unusable there. Plus color accuracy is already bad here, so any drop from dropping screen brightness isn't a big deal.
The labels in the relative battery life chart are all messed up. The number labeled HP Mini 311 should be the ASUS 1005PE, the one labeled Gateway 5409u should be labeled HP Mini 311, the one labeled Dell 11z should be the Gateway 5409u, the one labeled ASUS 1201N should be the Dell 11z, and the one labeled ASUS 1005PE should be the ASUS 1201N.
Sorry... I updated the spreadsheet to list the battery capacity, and then copied/pasted the labels. I thought all of my tables were in the same order, but the relative chart was jumbled and so I screwed up the labels on most of the laptops. The chart is now correct.
Could we PLEASE see a review of an AMD-based netbook? Like the ASUS Eee PC 1201T-MU10? Should be better cpu, better graphics, bigger lcd, less battery life at a tad higher price. Anandtech even had a giveaway of a Lenovo x100e with the AMD MV-40 processor, but no review. How do these cpu's compare?!?!?
I've got a couple AMD-based laptop reviews in the works. Vivek will be getting the Acer Ferrari One this week (CULV alternative), and I've got M300 and M600 laptops to compare with an i3-430m setup. Honestly, other than a lower price AMD laptops are still a tough sell in my book. The better IGP still isn't that great; the Intel HD i3/i5 IGP is good enough for anything but gaming, while the HD 4200 needs low detail and 800x600 resolution to be playable in most titles. Couple that with generally lower performance and battery life and there's not a lot of benefit.
CULV with a discrete GPU can give you better battery life and gaming performance if that's what you're after, though it will cost (a lot) more. At that point, the CULV + Optimus laptops end up being the best recommendation. So the choice is pretty much 8 hours battery life with 4500MHD (Intel CULV) or 4 hours battery life with HD 4200 (AMD), for around $400-$600.
About $60 more and you get 12" screen, 1366x768 resolution, 2GB of RAM, HDMI out, stronger CPU and much stronger integrated graphics. You lose on battery life, and doesn't come with an OS, but for people with extra WinXP licenses or wanting to put Linux on it, I think it provides a much stronger value than the above Acer/Gateway twins, don't you think?
How would it compare to Atom+Ion? It'll still be cheaper, but should even out the battery life.
Hey, I just wanted to throw out a suggestion for the firefox sqlite issue: install a RAMdrive app (I use Dataram RAMDisk - it's free and works flawlessly, even with win7 x64) and move your profile to the RAM drive. I did this on my HTPC as this is something that has been nagging me with a WD Green drive where the drive would noticeably lag when the head is unloaded and I start typing into the address bar. The time to generate "suggestions" as you type is now instantaneous! You can configure it to load the image on startup and save it on shutdown, so it works exactly like normal, but the only time it accesses the HDD is on startup/shutdown. It also saves you the wear of the very frequent unnecessary random writes to the HDD every time you load a page or reads when it fills in what you type.
Having said that, I would also like to see how SSDs would fare in laptops, and in addition to your suggestions, I hope that Anand would also throw a typical 2.5" HDD into the SSD power charts as a reference for those of us considering SSD swaps into laptops.
You wrote: "we don't know if the ASUS laptops are truly more energy efficient". You probably use ASUS Super Hybrid Engine in auto mode. When running on battery SHE cripple notebook performance. CPU and RAM frequency is reduced by 20% and battery life is longer.
I think it is a flaw in your test, that you don't check performance when on battery.
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Lonyo - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Is there any news on what Pinetrail can be used for?Are there going to be 11.6" / 1366x768 Pinetrail netbooks? Or indeed any 1280x720 10" netbooks with Pinetrail.
All these 1024x600 screens are not particularly enticing, and it's higher resolutions which really give some appeal (plus 11.6" chassis mean a bigger keyboard, which is nice if you actually want to be productive, same for a higher resolution screen).
DanNeely - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Anandtech did a preview of a lenovo S10-3 with a 10" 1280x720 screen a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it's not available yet, nor is the 10" 1366x768 EEE 1005PR.Vivek (AnandTech) - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
There are a few 10"ers out there with 1366x768 screens. The Dell Mini 10 and HP Mini 210 have it as an option (combined with the Broadcom HD chip). All of the forthcoming Ion 2 netbooks have wxga screens as well, as does the Asus Eee 1201 update.jabber - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Yes okay okay they are netbooks but at least give us a little more screen depth!CSMR - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Very good review.But I disagree that higher brightness is better.
In specific situations (outdoors in bright light) it can be useful, but normally LCDs are too bright and you can measure benefits to users from reducing brightness. See the Eizo guide to eye fatigue:
http://www.eizo.com/global/products/flexscan/vdt/G...
strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Sure, but a bright screen can always be turned down, while a dim screen is dim no matter what. Given that these are netbooks and not DTRs there is a decent chance they will be used outside, and a 120 nit screen might well be unusable there. Plus color accuracy is already bad here, so any drop from dropping screen brightness isn't a big deal.strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
The labels in the relative battery life chart are all messed up. The number labeled HP Mini 311 should be the ASUS 1005PE, the one labeled Gateway 5409u should be labeled HP Mini 311, the one labeled Dell 11z should be the Gateway 5409u, the one labeled ASUS 1201N should be the Dell 11z, and the one labeled ASUS 1005PE should be the ASUS 1201N.Qubix1 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Relative Battery Life chart needs a look:HP Mini 311 = 5.47 m/Whr (9.48)
Asus 1001P = 9.48 m/Whr (9.42)
Acer AO532h = 7.75 m/Whr (7.75)
Gateway LT2120u = 7.48m/Whr (7.48)
Acer 1810T = 7.47 m/Whr (7.45)
Asus 1201N = 3.92 m/Whr (7.15)
Dell Inspirion 11z = 7.11 m/Whr (6.89)
Gateway EC5409u = 6.90 m/Whr (5.47)
Asus 1005PE = 9.37 m/Whr (3.95)
JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Sorry... I updated the spreadsheet to list the battery capacity, and then copied/pasted the labels. I thought all of my tables were in the same order, but the relative chart was jumbled and so I screwed up the labels on most of the laptops. The chart is now correct.jaydee - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Could we PLEASE see a review of an AMD-based netbook? Like the ASUS Eee PC 1201T-MU10? Should be better cpu, better graphics, bigger lcd, less battery life at a tad higher price. Anandtech even had a giveaway of a Lenovo x100e with the AMD MV-40 processor, but no review. How do these cpu's compare?!?!?Thanks!
JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
I've got a couple AMD-based laptop reviews in the works. Vivek will be getting the Acer Ferrari One this week (CULV alternative), and I've got M300 and M600 laptops to compare with an i3-430m setup. Honestly, other than a lower price AMD laptops are still a tough sell in my book. The better IGP still isn't that great; the Intel HD i3/i5 IGP is good enough for anything but gaming, while the HD 4200 needs low detail and 800x600 resolution to be playable in most titles. Couple that with generally lower performance and battery life and there's not a lot of benefit.CULV with a discrete GPU can give you better battery life and gaming performance if that's what you're after, though it will cost (a lot) more. At that point, the CULV + Optimus laptops end up being the best recommendation. So the choice is pretty much 8 hours battery life with 4500MHD (Intel CULV) or 4 hours battery life with HD 4200 (AMD), for around $400-$600.
jaydee - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
But I think the ASUS Eee PC 1201T w/AMD mv-40 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... could give the traditional Atom-based netbook a good run for it's money.About $60 more and you get 12" screen, 1366x768 resolution, 2GB of RAM, HDMI out, stronger CPU and much stronger integrated graphics. You lose on battery life, and doesn't come with an OS, but for people with extra WinXP licenses or wanting to put Linux on it, I think it provides a much stronger value than the above Acer/Gateway twins, don't you think?
How would it compare to Atom+Ion? It'll still be cheaper, but should even out the battery life.
hybrid2d4x4 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Hey, I just wanted to throw out a suggestion for the firefox sqlite issue: install a RAMdrive app (I use Dataram RAMDisk - it's free and works flawlessly, even with win7 x64) and move your profile to the RAM drive. I did this on my HTPC as this is something that has been nagging me with a WD Green drive where the drive would noticeably lag when the head is unloaded and I start typing into the address bar. The time to generate "suggestions" as you type is now instantaneous! You can configure it to load the image on startup and save it on shutdown, so it works exactly like normal, but the only time it accesses the HDD is on startup/shutdown. It also saves you the wear of the very frequent unnecessary random writes to the HDD every time you load a page or reads when it fills in what you type.Having said that, I would also like to see how SSDs would fare in laptops, and in addition to your suggestions, I hope that Anand would also throw a typical 2.5" HDD into the SSD power charts as a reference for those of us considering SSD swaps into laptops.
m4nm4n - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
If I had these connected to my Wifi router, the router would be named Gleek.popej - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
You wrote: "we don't know if the ASUS laptops are truly more energy efficient".You probably use ASUS Super Hybrid Engine in auto mode. When running on battery SHE cripple notebook performance. CPU and RAM frequency is reduced by 20% and battery life is longer.
I think it is a flaw in your test, that you don't check performance when on battery.