The Compal IFL90 (PowerPro J 10:15) is now available for PRE-ORDER with SHIPPING BEGINNING MID-JUNE

if i have to wair til mid june to order this, do you think i'll be able to get it by sometime in July?

 

Once they start shipping in mid-June how long it takes to get to you will only depend on the shipping method you choose.

What state are you in?

 

in Michigan

 

If all goes as expected it would arrive during the 3rd week of June.

Be sure to give me a call so I can give you both of our 'Call in Specials'

 

Ok, I'm confussed as to which OS to look at XP or Vista. I heard bad things about Vista. I'm having a hard time trying not to order IFL90.
Lynn

 

Its nice to see that Bizcom has Windows XP drivers on their website for the IFL90, so that those of us that have specific programs that are only compatible with XP and lower are able to run them still on the new laptop. For some reason Engineering programs seem to take a while to get updates out. I thought we liked technology....

 

Which OS to use ends up being a personal choice after weighing the pros and cons.

However unless you really WANT the 3D user interface with VISTA there is really no reason to select it over the tried and true XP. For most of us, worldwide, VISTA has been a real flop, and the sales figures show it. It doesn't offer enough "beef" to compensate for all of the negative driver and software issues it creates.

 

Thanks Donald. Wish I could place an oreder right Now!! But I have to wait..
Lynn

 

Engineers are also typically hard working people without time for glitches and bugs, so they give their tools time to mature before moving on

 

paladin44: Do you have hard specs as to whether or not the IFL90 has an MXM-interfaced graphics card? I did not see any mention of it on your site, or the XoticPC site. Cheers.

 

What exactly is the optional robson memory?

 

Robson has been discussed in many places, and also earlier on in this thread if I am not mistaken. Search for it.

I really like the price on the IFL90; a pretty good config will run less than $1500.

 

Its 1 gig of flash memory that stores your commonly used programs and files to greatly reduce load times, and i think boot as well. A search will yield a more useful explanation though.

To me, its worth much more than the $40 pricetag on the IFL90, and something has to justify Vista's existence, right?

 

The Robson/Intel Turbo Memory is said to be useless now (as i've read, apparently because of driver issues), but for the price it can't hurt as a wager that later on it'll provide a nice performance boost.

 

Where did you hear this? I've used it successfully.. It's like putting your swap file into physical ram (nice boost in speed)

 

AnandTech tested a whitebook Santa Rosa testbed from Intel (it appeared to be an IFL90). Evidently the BIOS wasn't set up right, and Robson ended up negatively affecting performance. So they completely wrote it off.

Review: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=2985
and TurboMemory in specific: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=2985&p=4

 

We don't have that information until we have the production models in hand.

Please people, understand that until we get the actual production models there will be many unanswered details...

However as to the video card I doubt that it will be MXM since virtually no manufacturers are using that technology anymore.

 

A search of this thread alone will reveal that Robson has been discussed in 28 posts, including this one http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1992145&postcount=120 where I gave a link to the Intel website where it is fully explained.

Here it is again: 1GB Intel® Turbo Memory (Robson)

I will take no more heat for recommending that people do a simple search before posting or starting a new thread.

 

Your not the only one that has explained the Robson stuff recently. I know of 4 threads atleast where I've given details on this technology.

 

Sorry pyro9219, I should have worded my post a little differently. You have certainly been most helpful explaining the benefits of Robson.

 

Oops.. that's not what I meant

I was trying to agree with you that a quick search would have given the answer in many locations. I'm pretty sure I've answered the robson question atleast once earlier in this thread alone.

 

So, what is this Robson stuff everyone's talking about???





(Sorry, just couldn't resist )

 

Now that kind of sense of humor is worth a rep point

 

You know that Intel Inside slogan? Well, Intel finally released the guys name that is hiding inside... Apparently his name is 'Robson'

I'm waiting to see when some people get there hands on this machine to see how it performs, build quality, etc... It is high on my list of upgrade possibilities.

*dreams* if only I knew a vendor that might part with the system for a week so it could have a nice review done.. *wink wink nudge @ Donald*

 

If you folks want a good idea of what Donald means, Intel isn't going to release Vista to the workers until this Fall/Winter when SP1 is due, because internal testing show's it's to much of a resource hog for our non Santa Rosa systems, and there are to many application we use that aren't friendly with Vista yet.

 

Eh, but for those of us who only want to pay for 1 OS to last the next 3-5 years, we'd pretty much just have to deal with the early Vista issues...

...well I suppose I could uninstall XP on my current system to use on the new ...but eh

 

Yeah I think I am just going to get Vista and suffer through until SP1 is released. There is always linux.
Tim

 

Vista isn't *that* bad. After SP1, you guys will be loving it like you love XP

And I think that Vista is the fastest selling MS operating system ever, so I'm not too sure about calling it a flop on the sales side.

 

Do these Compal people sell notebooks in the UK?

 

*AFTER* SP1 we will take another look. We have been advising people to wait for at least SP1 before adopting VISTA unless they are risk takers and they are not using it on a mission critical machine.

 

For the answer to your question please take a look at the very first Sticky here in the Compal section:
The Compal Notebook (read this first)-(updated 4/12/07) Or,

Buying Compal Barebone in Europe

 

We are really interested to find out if the matte screen is going to be offered in any of the worldwide markets...have you been able to confirm whether the matte screen is going to be available in Norway yet?

 

Matte screen envy..

 

Is matte harder to get or more expensive..?

If anything I thought it would be cheaper.

I thought the IFL90 would be stuck with the glossy, which seems to be kind of annoyingly glare-y .

Would a matte, if ever available, push the orders back a few months?

 

according to this website http://www.marasst.com/product-1-IFL90.htm the IFL90 has the 8600M GT, at least for the 512 MB WSXGA+ option

*edit* then again they do call the santa rosa a merom at the bottom of the site so this site is highly suspect of being unreliable

 

The CPU is still merom, but the platform has been updated to Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa uses Merom CPUs with slightly different clocks and a new socket design.

The 8600M GT is really reassuring, having the GS would have been really disappointing. I think that GDDR3 on the IFL90 is too much to hope for at this time, unfortunately.

 

I think its been discussed already, but it is possible that Taiwan and Norway have the GT, but not necessarily the US. Not that I'm rooting against the GT mind you.

 

if they have the GT in Taiwan and Norway for about the same cost as the IFL90 in the US I would expect the GT, cuz the GS would just be stupid imo if it cost more in the US.

Edit: By this i mean does someone want to compare prices.

 

is it fairly certain that the 256 mb model is going to be a gs and definitely not a gt?

 

For the US, nothing is certain yet. You'll have to wait till mid-June.

 

No. That simply makes more logical sense. Otherwise, nearly $200 for the WSXGA screen and an extra 256MB of VRAM on the same GPU is a complete ripoff.

 

Vivek, the differences are the higher resolution (say $115), double the video memory (say $35), and the 9 cell battery ($25)...hardly a rip off my friend.

 

Vivek, the CPU is the Santa Rosa, not Merom, and the chipset is the Crestline.

 

Oh, I forgot the battery so I guess the upgrade price is right on target even without the GPU upgrade. It would be nice to have the 8600M GT though

 

The Micro Express Computers website says the IFL90 will come with the 8600 GT

http://www.microexpress.net/spec/product-1-IFL90.htm

I can't vouch for their reliability, but that looks promising

 

whew! thats a relief!

 

It is encouraging in that the Specifications at the bottom of the page used to say GS, but has now been changed to GT.

However please be cautious because until we all actually get the production models in hand there is no way to know for sure.

 

I'm not sure if anyone has asked this yet, but regardless of the card, do you we know if Compal plans to under clock a little again like on the HEL80 and HGL30?

 

What's your bet as to whether it will be GDDR2 or GDDR3?

Petrov.

 

I was thinking about ordering one of these with no OS (I have a good copy of XP Pro). There any compatibility issues I'll have to worry about installing XP Pro on this machine with the new DX10 cards and drivers?