T410s Switchable Graphics: How is it Implemented?

I know tons of us are interested in this answer and I have found nothing. I'm sure tons of us would like a review of the T410s switchable in general.

So who has the T410s and is willing to explain?

 

Hi,

My system only arrived today so havent had much of a chance to play with it. You can right click on the power icon and select performance or energy saving which switches modes, the default mode can also be set by power management profiles. Switching takes a second or so, with a screen flicker.

I havent seen any evidence of dynamic switching based on graphics demand, but will investigate further at the weekend when I have more time.

Nice machine by the way, impressed so far.

G

 

Sounds like it is not Optimus. That is unfortunately. Thanks for letting us now and keep the info coming!

 

Personally, I don't think that optimus is as good of a thing as everyone seems to think it is. If you follow tech news, apple is currently having some trouble with their automatic switching system running down the battery faster due to certain apps that may or may not need the graphics boost kicking on the discrete options and draining the battery. This is the difficult thing with seamless graphics switching.

While automatic graphics switching sounds cool in theory, in practice it still has some significant kinks to work out. I have no doubt it'll be great in one or two tech generations' time, but in the interim I like having control over my computer as to whether I need performance or longevity at the given time.

 

Note: Apple's switchable graphics system was designed in-house and does not use Optimus.

However, I do agree, the auto-switching won't be as good as a knowledgeable user manually controlling when to switch. Then again, most people aren't power users like people on this forum, and they may not know when it's best to use what GPU.

What we need is a control icon that gives the options: Auto, discrete only, integrated only.