Why would anybody by the Intel Atom????

Simple question really.....

I am looking for a netbook and, quite frankly, believed the Atom would be a faster CPU which would give better battery life. I was shown the light real quick and seem to continually read threads of people who were so dissappointed with the visible performance difference between the Atom and their other systems.

I have heard over and over again that even surfing the net seems to feel like there is a bottleneck in performance.

Now, we are seeing newer systems being released with the ion which is once again throwing the battery life back down and with the new 'upgraded' Atom processors, prices are jumping out of the so called netbook range...

I could never imagine getting anything but a ULV in the 11.6" system I will be grabbing soon but seem to here and see people every day cursing at these Atom systems they bought...

So.....then....whats the attraction?????

 

It's cheap and it works for what it's meant to do.

 

I really don't know (either). What is the attraction?

When I tried a Wind a year (two?) ago, I was laughing at the newborn sized notebook Oops! sorry, netbook in my hand. I soon laughed a little less when I tried to do anything with it - and with no optical drive all you can do is 'surf'.

Even with it's Turbo mode (when plugged in, only) it was laughable to surf with it. Nothing installed on it, period. And it was a slug. I would have returned it the same day, but the store was closed. I was the first one in the store the next day!

I hope that a CULv based notebook will be a more satisfying experience. I'll be eagerly waiting to hear your experience with yours.

Cheers!

 

Oh, frustrate me, for a good price?

 

To me, the biggest frustration of a netbook is not really the Atom processor (which is often laughably slow, but I mean, for $250, what do you expect?), but the screen resolution. I think WXGA is the minimum for comfortable web browsing, and I really wish that was standard on more netbooks.

If my primary computer was a desktop, I may have gotten a netbook to supplement it. My brother got a Dell Studio XPS 435 MiniTower (upgraded video to a GTX275) and a Mini 10v for $100 tacked on top of that, which I found to be a great deal.

In fact, to me, CULVs often don't feel like they make a lot of sense. I would much prefer a nice X200 (which can be found for as low as $700 brand new these days) or even an X61, which both have more processing power, equal battery life, and similar portability - at the same price point. Netbooks make sense because they're cheaper new than any ultraportable will be (even ones from the last generation).

 

See your points but I really got hooked on the Gateway 11.6" ULV when I bought it for my son. I have had every size laptop but loved the weight and size of that construction.

With respect to it being a ULV, I loved the response with it. Now I gotta figure that what I am seeking in the end (C2D 1.4/4-8Gbram/Win764bit/256 ssd) would be plenty fast to do normal activities and then some...

I havent even consider overclocking it yet. and Oh...battery life of 7 plus hours as stated with the UL20 ...amazing.

 

attraction would be for the price and, at the very least, getting a machine that you can at least surf the web with.

i too agree with you - i really dont see why anyone would pay $300+ for a netbook when a fully functional dv4t is sub $600 but i guess there is a market for them anyway...

I have a Lenovo x200s with a really fast processor. it has a 12.1" screen and weights less than 2.5 pounds with battery. It's almost the dimensions of a netbook with enough horsepower as my desktop at work. I cannot imagine getting anything lower than this in terms of performance.

true, my x200s is like triple the cost of a netbook but it's worth it plus you can find insane deals on these things from craigslist. corporations get these units in bulk, use them for a year and you can buy one on CL for like 40% less than what it cost a year ago....


I start school later this year and have been throwing around the idea of getting a netbook... but instead of spending $300 on a netbook, im going to spend $300 on an SSD and put it into my x200s. that way i'll have a blazing portable for class.

 

that makes 2 of us. i've had an x41, x41 tablet, x60s, x61, x200s and some other lenovo/ibm models at work. the x series, hands down, is the best intersection of performance and portability IMO.

 

Lol...not a fan of Lenovo whatsoever but the closest nit of what I am looking for has just been in their updating of the U150 here:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=C74930A0FB2F461587D015FA6C813B56

11.6/C2D1.3/4Gb/Win764Bit/under 3lbs/sturdy

 

SU7300 = 3mb cache and 800mhz bus? this is 2010, i dont think any bus speed on any system should be less than 1ghz

those are some pricy systems though. alternatively, you can spend a little more to get the x200s which has 6mb cache and a faster bus.


my current x200s: C2D SL9400 | 2GB RAM | 160GB HD | 12.1" WXGA LED display -- only 2.43 pounds

after spending about $300 on an ssd and 2gb more ram, this will be my 2.5 pound "netbook" for class:

Intel SL9400 - 6MB cache, 1ghz bus, 1.86ghz
4gb DDR3 ram
80GB ssd drive
12.1" wxga led display...
(weight will also be reduced a tiny bit due to ssd drive)

i cannot think of a more bada$$ portable than that

 

not only is the Atom cheap, but so are the support chipsets and video/gpu.

With Win7 (even starter ed.) the OS really wants a dual core with efficient threading. You don't get that with Atom. With XP, it might be a tossup but so many new apps that run on msft will require win7 that XP is getting frozen out pretty quickly.

Netbooks on Atom are really best with Any Linux vs. Win7 Starter Ed.

The real problem with Atom is that there are loads of C2D and Dual Core ULV and SULV 'real' notebooks in the under $500 range.

You pay a premium for portability.

 

Maybe I will look and yes....ssd and max ram would be wonderful. NYC eh???I visit there a few times a year and always stay in Manhattan area...

 

for my own information, went to lenovo site and priced an x200s with 4gb ram

Intel Core2 Duo processor SL9400 (1.86GHz, 6MB L2, 1066MHz FSB)
12.1" WXGA LED Panel
4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
250GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm
-------------------------------

$1159 for this setup. add another ~$250 for an SSD and you'll be flying.

anyway, that's my definition of a portable for my personal use. it's certainly not $300 but it's also not an intel atom machine for business/work use, i would not consider any other machine.

 

I have to agree personally, but there is a market for the Atom. For people who only use it for email and the occasional web surfing and travel a lot. I knew a backpacker who had the first generation Eee. It was great. He could hook up to the local internet cafe and never have to worry about viruses or trojans, etc... Where as I was deathly afraid to do any more than email and general web surfing on those antiquated computers running IE 4 and no virus scanner.

I wanted to get a small laptop for traveling and ended up with the Acer AS1410. It's fast, 11.6" small, and light. And at $400, not much more than a netbook.

 

Bus speed? Are you kidding me? Bus speed for those processors does not need to be at least 1066MHz, they did that with the $999 P4 EE and it showed little to no performance gain in gaming and CPU stressing tasks. Show me one benchmark of yours that compares 800MHz bus to 1066MHz bus that shows a higher than 10% performance gain.

 

Because there are people who actually like the super portability of a netbook and do not want to cope even with an 11.6" system. Go on youtube, there are plenty of people who are perfectly happy with netbooks. I had an EEE 901 for a year and loved the portability of it, something I miss with my 3810t (and why I want an Arrandale Asus UL20 or Acer 11.6").

 

intel atom can handle downlaoded full length 720P blueray 5Mbit/s mkv movies, internet browsing, word processing. I'm happy with it so far especially with readyboost+eboostr which double, quadruple or 10x the responsivenss of the hdd based netbook. Notebookreview.com forums loads in half a second as well as almost all the sites. I have no problem going on the web whatsoever.

 

The Problem I have with Atom is the way it is designed.
Compared to CULV it runs at higher frequency while achieving poor performance.
Higher Frequency means more power consumption assuming voltage is identical.
CULV focuses on IPC (Instruction Per Clock) while ATOM focus on Brute Frequency not a very good design if you ask me.
Needless to say CULV will outmuscle ATOM in the future.

 

Higher frequency doesn't mean more power consumption, it means more power consumption/second/transistor. Since there's probably 1/10 of the # of transistor on atom compared to core2duo, atom actually isn't that bad of performer if you look at it that way. If we undervolt and underclock atom ( which quite a few people do that)... it'll probably be more power efficient than CULV

 

Atom in 2011 will be good, will use DDR3-1066 ram. Maybe by then there will be a mobile dual core.

 

i havent extensively used one outside of a store..but some people claim 15 ours on an eee pc with modified batteries...
does a better gpu really help with rendering webpages (idk, maybe it does??)
netbooks are attractive to those who don't need much...
if they don't attracted you, dont purchase one.

 

And in the meantime the new Marvel quad core (!!) will be in it's second or third generation.

 

Looking at 2011 already eheheh...Thats the loop we get drawn into is never buying as there is always something better around the corner...

Finding it hard not to jump on something now..and probably haven't only because I havent found the perfect configuration I seek yet. What ia amazing me however is how many of the new Atom systemsaregetting up above the $400 mark. Does that not defeat the purpose of the Atom which is cost efficiency?

 

For (about) $349:
- one could buy a 11.6" Acer 1410 with dual core SU2300 and 5 hours battery life.
- or an Asus 10.2" with Atom single core N450 and 12 hours battery life.

I would prefer the first, some prefer the latter.

 

i buy stuff like atom based mini-box pcs. around 200 bucks, fully working dualcore pc for light stuff. together with an ssd, very snappy and thus fast enough for users.

netbooks, similar thoughts.. if it works good enough, it's good enough for a lot. especially women, as far as i can see, don't care about the system being all too fast. it should just never block, they get pissed by that..

 

Menlow/Moorestown Atoms+US15 actually would be perfect for netbooks. They have consume less energy than standard N-series Atoms+chipset - Menlow is in the class of Pineview and Moorestown consumes supposedly 1/10th the power of Menlow. The graphics also support decoding of two 1080p streams, as well as being DirectX 10 capable.

 

*looks at her HP 2510p and smiles*

A conventional ultraportable like HP's 2000 range or Toshiba's Portege to me is a much more attractive option. The former especially is surely the best answer to the smaller notebook question. Optical drive, small, light, great screen, low voltage dual core cpu that's not entirely gutless and doesn't overheat and plenty of RAM. I would never buy a netbook. HP's own mini 311 with the Ion graphics is over £300 in the UK for which you could buy a full 15.4" HP dual core laptop or for around £20 more a second hand yet pristine 2510p. The initial netbook idea has got lost with more and more features, they're just not worth it to me any more.

 

I have recently been bitten by the atom bug, I know own 3 atom based systems.
1. MSI Wind U100 - replaced a PIII Thinkpad A30 - weighs less more powerful and serves my GFs needs perfectly (Flash games, Web browsing and email only). Plus it was only $200

2. Acer Revo1600 - replaced a P4 Optiplex GX280 - maybe not as powerful, but with the Ion it handles HD way better plus it looks way better in my entertainment center than the Dell and is cheaper and more efficient to run.

3. OK here is the one you may not understand. Asus 1201n - replaced Emachines 520 (T3400 w/ 4500M) - You are right it is way less powerful for CPU tasks, but it offer mediocre gaming (something the 4500 couldn't do), way more portable (much smaller and weighs less than 1/2), looks better and was a new toy. It does everything I need and while you could spend a little more, I don't think there is a system out there for brand new under $500 that would beat it on all round performance. Plus I picked up a couple of peripheral upgrades of the 520.

Tho now I have just realized I don't own a single computer system that actually has an optical drive or that can do any heavy lifting.

 

When I had an acer aspire one it worked ok for internet, email, and I eveen used it at work for multiple RDPs on top of everything else. It wasnt speedy and the battery life wasn't the best (about 5-6 hours on a 6cell) but it got the job done. The main reason I got rid of the acer was because the keyboard and screen were no big enough for extended use. Would I buy another atom based notebook? No, probably not. Im not a fan of the netbook craze, granted I dont hate them or the idea, but I can think of better things to spend my money and time on.

 

Cedar Trail=Graphics wise it'll likely use modified GMA 4500MHD.

Higher memory speeds won't help on a CPU like the Atom.

Eventually Pine Trail platforms will end up cheaper than Diamondville(N270/N280) based versions. Cedar Trail will continue the trend of lower cost of manufacturing.

BTW, Moorestown refers to a very specific implementation. Lots of the power advantages will be lost on a Netbook.

 

I just bought an Asus Eee PC 1201N, my first Atom-based computer. However, unlike 99% of netbooks out there, the Atom 330 in the 1201N is dual-core (which shows up as 4 in Windows thanks to Hyper-Threading). It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium and a 720p resolution LED panel, and nVidia ION graphics. To me, it blurs the line between netbook and ultraportable. It's very responsive, and it's not bad with games either. There are very few occasions where it hangs, usually when I launch multiple large apps at a time (Firefox, Steam and iTunes, for example), and then only for a few seconds.

For under $500 and with over 5 hours of battery life, I think it's just about perfect.

 

With the SU2300 Acer 1410 floating around with better performing cpu, gpu and more desirable 1366x768 resolution, only reason would go a netbook would be 8+hr battery life of 63Whr units, eg: Toshiba NB200, Asus 1005. Fry's had the 1410 for $350 a few days ago.

11.6" US$400 Acer AS1410-2801 SU2300-1.2 2GB 160GB GM45 1366x768 W7HP 1.4/6cell

Concur with other comments. One-gen older ultraportables (X61s, 2510P) offer better grade materials, onsite warranties and performance but scarcity appears to have *raised* their s/h prices.

Hopefully atoms will get better chipsets, rather than hand-me-downs, to really extend their battery life. Netbooks have otherwise been a great influence on the notebook market: smaller/thinner/lighter, better battery life, pci-e SSDs in 2010, cheaper-priced CULV/ultraportables.

 

nando4, all excellent points you make.

Just a question though, is the Acer 1410 the same as the 1810tz? If they are, I thought the 1810tz offered 10hrs of battery power?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers!

 

Ok, so here's a value point about TDP.

The lower the CPU TDP is, the less the difference between maximum and minimum battery life. With a higher CPU TDP but a big battery it might get 10 hours in idle, but 2.5 with HD playback, and 4-5 hours with web surfing.

With Atom you might get similar 10 hours idle(or screen off playing music), but it'll do 7-8 web browsing too.

 

1410=44000 mAh
1810TZ=56000 mAh (+27%)

Acer quote 6hrs for the SU2300 1410. SU2300 doesn't have speedstep.

 

I recently bought a Samsung NC10 with an Intel Atom N270 processor, and while the processor is undeniably weak, it is enough for the basic tasks that I demand of it (taking notes in class, checking email/outlook, listening to music, etc.) If Intel had managed to make the processor + gpu combo a bit more powerful, so that the computer would be zippier, I would be thrilled.

What I like about Intel Atoms is how cheap the computers can be. I've seen Dell Mini 10's go for low 200's (refurbished), and my Samsung was, post-upgrade, about 310. I was seriously tempted by the Acer 1410, for its screen resolution and power, but it cost roughly 60-70 more out the door. While some can justify the extra money for the added performance, I couldn't considering my limited budget and needs, especially since I also have a Dell Latitude E6400 at my disposal. Maybe one day, when I'm out of college and working with money to spare.

 

really , the new atom is still weak... graphics with X3150 is a huge improvement but a CULV with 4500MHD and core 2 duo CULV or the new core i5 ULV would own atom and still have great battery life... i would nver buy an atom...too much like P4... only with a <5W TDP..

 

I get 7+ with my 1410. Wifi internet and some word processing.

 

Thanks all for the input because it has helped guide me in the right direction, at least I think....

Bought a 1810T on the net tonight at an awesome price (705) with a SU9400 1.4/4Gb/4500HD and I'm going to be throwing a ssd and Win 7 Ult 64bit as soon as she comes in...

Very happy...

 

^ congrats but now we need pictures and a review!

 

Yeah Les, congrats!

I too look forward to your impressions with this machine.

For now, here is a review I just found (haven't read yet):

See:
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/acer-aspire-1810t.aspx


Cheers!

 

Thanks for that!!! It is a nice review and I am curious now as to the difference with respect to mine with the newer SU9400 and ssd. Initially, I am going to be throwing in my Samsung 64Gb but then looking for a good price on a newer 256 Gb Samsung to throw in... Oh and....64 Bit Ultimate of course.

Thanks again!!!

 

Les, I too (just) read the review and since graphics is not why I would buy this machine for, it is getting more and more interesting all the time.

You now have me curious with your Samsung SSD's... from my research they are the ones that seem to use the least amount of power, so for this Timeline, it is a good fit, I would guess (although everything points to Intel G2's for me).

If you could compare the original mechanical HD that ships with the unit to the Samsung SSD's (in your 'typical' usage pattern, whatever that may be), this may better confirm Samsung's major point - lowest power consumption.

If you had a chance to also test a G2 in the same configuration/install with the same machine/battery this would be even more useful!

I'm surprised that the review quoted the price at almost $600 - I thought the TL 1810tz was around $500 (or under). Curious what the final price was for you? (If you don't mind me asking).

Cheers!

 

I bought my netbook knowing that it wasn't powerful. My intention was to just bring it to class to take notes and surf the web (shhhhhh!).

My battery life under WinXp was 7 hours (haven't tested under win7 yet). It could play youtube. At one point I was using it to run virtual machines in class ... it ran them fine! Just a lil slow.

Even as an "it guy", I'm able to use the atom netbook (windows or ubuntu) for weeks at a time without even touching my other computers ... it does everything I need it to.

YES it is underpowered. I knew that going in. Will I be able to sell it? NO ... it wasn't worth anything to begin with and certainly isn't now. Will it's replacement have an Atom and be 10.1 or smaller? Absolutely not.