Compal IFL90 (FORCE 3297) Updated Pricing and Promotion for Pre-Orders

papaslides, I hope you are correct that the 512mb will be the GT, if not both. And like you, I don't exactly have the money to buy one of them fancy smancy G1s laptops.

Looks like I'll be considering the Asus C90s even more now, if it is the GS. Or heck, even the older Asus models.. although I do want DX10 support.

But, as others have said, it is a waiting game and nobody seems to really have a definite answer at this time.

 

the CS90's, if I'm not mistaken the draw away from those is the lower battery life, less power efficiency, higher heat and other such things that come with using the "Conroe" desktop cpu's is that right?

 

Yes it should have less battery life(probably under 2 hours) but it has 4 fans(it shouldn't cause too much noise unless all the fans are blazing) and hopefully a decent cooling system that should offset the most of the heat.

Reason why its marketed as a desktop replacement but at least it is very upgradable/customizable

 

having a better battery life would probably make it the perfect laptop for.... well at least me. Shouldn't there at least be a swappable bay where you could add in a battery like the ThinkPads? Of course, you get the blue ray drive with the cs90....

 

I dont understand the Pan America and France part in that email.....

Until I hear from powernotebooks or Xotic I will assume nobody knows yet.

 

Yeah, it's worded kind weird. By Pan America I guess that means North and South America because they didn't specifiy which america. Unless they mean America to be USA, then pan america would just mean coast to coast and maybe canada.

Although there isn't a pan france thing so I think it might not mean N. and S. America.

 

It looks to me that there are 2 versions of the Compal IFL90. One with a 8600M GS and a 1280x800 screen and then a version with a 8600M GT and a 1680x1080 screen?? Do both have exactly the same name?

(I am not stating any facts that there are 2 or more versions I am asking a question)

 

In the US the only thing thats known for sure is the 1280x800 WXGA screen comes with an 8600 series w/256mb, and the 1680x1080 WSXGA+ comes with an 8600 series w/512mb. Outside of those differences nobody knows for certain.

They do have the same name, the Ultra, Supra and Elite models all begin with the WXGA screen.

 

Multicom (in Norway) say that the model they have testet is with "nVidia 8600M GT 512MB RAM", and can't understand that there's going to be any change in that.

But I cant say I trust them 100% when Justin and Donald is saying that it's not confirmed. But I sure do hope Multicom are right!

Could it be that the "Norway/Scandinavian/European-model" is confirmed but the "USA-model" isn't? Or is that going to happen on the same time?

- Amund

 

It seems like thats the case, but seeing the GT over there by you makes me more optimistic.

 

I really hope it's the GT as this would probably be a deal breaker for myself and probably many others if it is the GS. I was confused by the whole Pan America thing too but I'm guessing it just means the Americas in general.. North and South. But, I guess we'll have to continue waiting which is the hardest friggen part. :\

 

But in any case, its GDDR2 isn't it - which will handicap it significantly against the G1S (GDDR3), regardless of whether its got 256 or 512 VRAM?

http://www.xoticpc.com/product_info.php?products_id=1983

Petrov,

 

I think I remember Donald saying it is GDDR3.
Tim

 

It seems odd that there would be different generations of memory in the same series of video card (1 8600gt with DDR3 and another with DDR2), maybe its a misprint?

 

Well, depending on who manufactures the card, different ram could be used to bring costs down. This has been seen with a number of desktop cards that use different rated memory chips on the same pcb. For example, DDR rated at 2.5ns vs 3ns or 4ns on a number of graphics cards.

 

That's precisely why I was looking for benchmarks. Already some benchmarks between the GS and GT would give some indication of how they compare.

Ideally, we'd want benchmarks between the Asus and the Compal as spec'ed for sale to ordinary customers but I realize we can't have that right now.

 

Where did you guys read that it might be DDR2? All of my information supports DDR3 We will have the "GS" or "GT" confirmation shortly. I will personally update the thread as soon as the confirmation comes across

 

"Shortly" as in today...or in a few days. =P
Tim

 

Its on the spec sheet on your site.

Up at the top left corner

http://www.xoticpc.com/product_info.php?products_id=1983

 

Honestly, I doubt it'll make much of a performance difference as the bus is only 128bits wide. Would have been nice if nV made it 256bits instead, as that would have been more beneficial.

I can't wait to hear the official word as to which 8600M it is. I'm addicted to this thread

 

i think 512Mb would have DDR2 and will probably will have the name 8600GS. This comes only from my Desktop graphic cards knowledge. I could be wrong but i just don't see ddr3 in that 512MB

 

What we think might happen is the 256MB DDR2 and the 512DDR3? Within the next week we hope to know some more information

 

That's almost 7 days away ; ;

As an aside, why don't ODMs feel it necessary to actually tell retailers what they're going to be selling?

 

When will this begin to ship?

 

Mid June.
Tim

 

Jesse at Bizcom informed me that the IFL90 is going to have the 8600GS with DDR2 for the US:

So right now I'm crossing my fingers that he is wrong, but it appears I will be canceling my IFL90 order and getting an ASUS G1S.

 

hmm how reliable is bizcom? i think ill wait for justin or powernotebooks to confirm as ive followed them for months and trust that they will look out for us ^^

but if i knew today that IL is only coming with the GS, i would immediately order a G1s, i feel that im taking a risk waiting because its so popular and they might be sold out and ill have to wait weeks for the next shipment ><

personally i actually like the IL looks compared to the G1s so price is not that big of a deal to me. but yeah, hope for the best everyone!

 

I wonder if this is how the IFL90 gets so much better battery life than the G1S?

I'll probably still get an IFL90 because its has a more professional look. It seems to compete more with the lenovo T61s than the G1S.

 

Bizcom is Compal.

 

Wouldnt Compal be Compal? And why would Jesse tell you but not his retailers if they were? I believe Bizcom is a reseller just like powernotebooks.com or Xoticpc.com

 

Bizcom is the American distributor for Compal, I believe.

I sincerely hope he is wrong. That would majorly suck.

 

Yea, this is frustrating. I'm starting to look at the Asus c90 and am liking it more and more. But I'd hate to cancel my order for the ifl90 only to have it end up having the gt

 

The Asus C90 seems really nice, but with the standard 6 cell battery, it will have next to 0 battery life, and that array of turbines in the back may make it quite noisy.

 

Well, ask Jesse at Bizcom if the IFT00 is coming to the States

 

Agreed, but at this point I'm sitting here computerless, waiting to blow my money on something...the G1S is looking better and better although the 6-7lb 15" is bugging me to death.

 

Agreed. I've been sitting for 2-3 weeks now, wondering whether to wait for the IFL90 or IFT00 to come out or just buy an HGL30. I figured I would get an IFL90 if it came with a GT card, or an IFT00 if it came out in the states, but it still seems as if it could go either way. Bleh, another two weeks is really pushing my patience.... I blame it on my boys with toys mentality lol.

Otherwise I guess I could try to get a W3J.

 

DDR2 would be like taking a step back a few years. I can't believe it.

 

Do the IFL90/IFL00 have TPM? I didn't see it mentioned on the spec sheet.

 

My newbie is showing, but what's TPM?

 

TPM = Trusted Platform Module

Its supposed to work with encryption software.

 

Well, this is not a Business Class laptop (as far as I know), so I doubt it'll have that feature. But the features it does have make it impressive to say the least.

Come on final release info!

 

The IFL90 is almost as heavy as the G1s. Its 6.6lbs to the G1s' 6.8. Don't let weight be a factor in your decision between the two.

The DDR2 VRAM in the IFL90 is kinda dissapointing.

 

DDR2 > DDR3 isn't going to make a visible difference on the machine (atleast with the shipped gfx card), so I wouldn't base a purchase on that either.

 

Neither of the two retailers who are offering pre-orders in the U.S. have confirmed whether it will be GDDR2 or GDDR3 yet.

 

Xoticpc shows GDDR2.

 

Yea but that image on xoticpc has always said that hasn't it?

This is still the latest post from Justin in this thread on this subject:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2005139&postcount=72

I'm sure he'd just come here and tell us if there was any definitive confirmation.

 

Exactly. Your guess is as good as anyone's at this point. Nobody seems to have a final copy of the actual system specifications.

GDDR2 vs GDDR3 doesn't really matter if the GPU itself cannot utilize it well. Besides, this is a laptop.. not an extreme performance based desktop that will be water cooled in order to squeeze every last MHz out of every single component.

 

well said, 8600 generally is not a top end performer. it is still limited by 128bit. ddr2 vs ddr3 in this case would be like 5-6 fps diff (maybe). The architech is still the same (# of stream processors)

 

I was looking at the benchmarks posted earlier for the Compal IFL90, the Norwegian site ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=119874&page=19 for the review), and the G1s scores almost twice as much as the IFL90 in PCMark05 for the vid card. That's quite disturbing. =/ Kinda big discrepancy though, so I dunno how accurate the review is.

If it's true, I wonder whats causing such a huge gap.

 

I dont think the PCMark05 and 3DMark05 are the same test possibly, or the settings used werent the same. Using 3DMark05 the G1S scores 7704 in its own review, and the Dell XPS M1705 scored 8524 in its own review.

However in the IFL90 test the review used PCMark05 and the XPS only had 6500.

Edit - PcMark and 3DMark may very well be the same, but there must be some reason for a 2000 point drop on the XPS if they are.