Netbook question please

"BillW50" <> wrote:

>> I do so as well
>>
>> No problems here!
>
>Pretty amazing that you can be practically as efficient with a 20 watt
>supply as you are with a 450 watt supply. ;-)
>
>--

Yep!

For the bulk of people who just surf the Net, write
some docs, do some programming..... the Atom is just
fine

In article <Xns9CA7306E25CEnoonehomecom@74.209.131.13>,
Larry <> wrote:
>Barry Watzman <> wrote in news:hbb4er$po7$3
>@news.eternal-september.org:
>
>> Keep in mind that XP probably has model specific drivers installed which
>> don't yet exist for Windows 7. Including power management drivers.
>> MANY laptops are showing horrible results with Windows 7 ... UNTIL the
>> proper (model specific) drivers are installed.
>>
>
>Keep in mind Win7 will be in "user beta test" until at LEAST 2012 when the
>world is supposed to come to its end, according to the fundies.

That's one way of looking at it.
A more realistic way, perhaps, is that Win7 is really Vista SP3, so it's
actually been out of beta for a couple of years now.

It's a matter of intended use.

For some uses (travel being one), netbooks are wonderful.

For other uses, they are inadequate, although they may not be absolutely
incapable of getting the job done.


BillW50 wrote:
> In news:hbc8gg$dre$,
> ~misfit~ typed on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:06:52 +1300:
>> My 2004 (5 year old) 14" IBM ThinkPad R40 1.6GHz Pentium M has 2GB of
>> RAM in it and has approximately 1.5 x the processing power of an Atom
>> 270. I wouldn't swap it for *two* new netbooks.
>
> I would and have already. Many experts said the same as you Shaun. And
> they believed there wouldn't be any market for netbooks at all. That all
> changed when Asus started selling them by the millions. Now it seems
> like everybody is jumping on the netbook revolution. It just takes some
> people longer than others. ;-)
>

Yes, the laptop manufacturer. Which may or may not offer them (from the
manufacturer's perspective, they don't want you to upgrade, they want
you to buy a new laptop).

Mahlon Wagner wrote:
> Barry--I was planning to upgrade my Lenovo X200 (business Vista) to
> Windows 7 when it comes out. You mention a lack of proper drivers--
> and where might I go to find those model specific drivers--Lenovo?
> Many thanks
> Mahl
>

I don't know how he measured it, but there are benchmark programs
available for that purpose, and Intel as well as tech web sites publish
benchmarks of CPUs that allow comparisons (e.g. a "Core 2 Duo ?.??GHz
vs. an Atom 270). Most of "processing power" is just a function of the
CPU although there are slight impacts from the chipset and memory. For
some applications, graphics power as well as processing power is
significant.

wrote:
> "~misfit~" <> wrote:
>
>> My 2004 (5 year old) 14" IBM ThinkPad R40 1.6GHz Pentium M has 2GB of RAM in
>> it and has approximately 1.5 x the processing power of an Atom 270. I
>
> How do you measure this?
>
> Or is it just a guess?

Barry Watzman wrote on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:47:21 -0400:
> It's a matter of intended use.
>
> For some uses (travel being one), netbooks are wonderful.
>
> For other uses, they are inadequate, although they may not be absolutely
> incapable of getting the job done.

On the contrary, I often connect up my netbooks to an external monitor,
keyboard, and mouse and most people wouldn't even know that they were
using a netbook at all. That is why I believe these things are great. As
they can act like a desktop, laptop, netbook, PDA, MP3 player, video
player, security camera, etc. There is just no way my desktop can
compete with my netbooks. ;-)

> BillW50 wrote:
>> In news:hbc8gg$dre$,
>> ~misfit~ typed on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:06:52 +1300:
>>> My 2004 (5 year old) 14" IBM ThinkPad R40 1.6GHz Pentium M has 2GB of
>>> RAM in it and has approximately 1.5 x the processing power of an Atom
>>> 270. I wouldn't swap it for *two* new netbooks.
>>
>> I would and have already. Many experts said the same as you Shaun. And
>> they believed there wouldn't be any market for netbooks at all. That
>> all changed when Asus started selling them by the millions. Now it
>> seems like everybody is jumping on the netbook revolution. It just
>> takes some people longer than others. ;-)

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)

Barry Watzman wrote on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:51:10 -0400:
> Yes, the laptop manufacturer. Which may or may not offer them (from the
> manufacturer's perspective, they don't want you to upgrade, they want
> you to buy a new laptop).

Don't forget to check the OEM too for drivers if the laptop manufacture
fails to have them. Also with luck, Windows might already have them
build in. As Windows 7 had most of the drivers for both my Gateway
laptops and my Asus netbooks.

> Mahlon Wagner wrote:
>> Barry--I was planning to upgrade my Lenovo X200 (business Vista) to
>> Windows 7 when it comes out. You mention a lack of proper drivers--
>> and where might I go to find those model specific drivers--Lenovo?
>> Many thanks
>> Mahl
>>

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)

Somewhere on teh intarwebs wrote:
> "~misfit~" <> wrote:
>
>> My 2004 (5 year old) 14" IBM ThinkPad R40 1.6GHz Pentium M has 2GB
>> of RAM in it and has approximately 1.5 x the processing power of an
>> Atom 270. I
>
> How do you measure this?
>
> Or is it just a guess?

I measured it using a utility called CPUMark. As the name would suggest, it
benchmarks the CPU.
--
Shaun.

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's
warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs BillW50 wrote:
> In news:hbc8gg$dre$,
> ~misfit~ typed on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:06:52 +1300:
>> My 2004 (5 year old) 14" IBM ThinkPad R40 1.6GHz Pentium M has 2GB of
>> RAM in it and has approximately 1.5 x the processing power of an Atom
>> 270. I wouldn't swap it for *two* new netbooks.
>
> I would and have already.

Good for you.

> Many experts said the same as you Shaun.

What did I say?

> And
> they believed there wouldn't be any market for netbooks at all.

I've never believed that. In fact I predicted that they'd take off long
before they ever actually shipped. How is it that you have all this
inaccurate information about me?

> That
> all changed when Asus started selling them by the millions. Now it
> seems like everybody is jumping on the netbook revolution.

"Just seems" is right. Do you have figures? I know quite a few people who
bought them (and thus would contribute to these figures) as a third or
fourth machine. I know others (with more disposable income than I) who
bought one out of curiousity. Of all the people I know who bought netbooks
maybe 30% of them use them more often than they use their main machine. I
don't know anyone who subsequently got rid of their main machines.

> It just
> takes some people longer than others. ;-)

Does implying that I'm slow give you gratification? Yeah, I can see the
smiley but I see you do this a lot, infer less-than-flattering things about
people and hide behind a smiley. I'll have you know that I'm very
cutting-edge. I was talking about netbooks in some computer groups I
frequent long before most had heard of them, even before they were
available.

You are the exception Bill, (albeit a very loud, very evangelical one)
rather than the rule. As I said, most people I know who've bought netbooks
either did it for a specific (secondary) purpose where size *is* important
or they've relegated them to the shelf.

If they're so popular how come there isn't a comp.sys.netbook? (And if there
is WTF are you doing here?)
--
Shaun.

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's
warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.

~misfit~ wrote on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:53:06 +1300:
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs BillW50 wrote:
>> In news:hbc8gg$dre$,
>> ~misfit~ typed on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:06:52 +1300:
>>> My 2004 (5 year old) 14" IBM ThinkPad R40 1.6GHz Pentium M has 2GB of
>>> RAM in it and has approximately 1.5 x the processing power of an Atom
>>> 270. I wouldn't swap it for *two* new netbooks.
>> I would and have already.
>
> Good for you.
>
>> Many experts said the same as you Shaun.
>
> What did I say?
>
>> And
>> they believed there wouldn't be any market for netbooks at all.
>
> I've never believed that. In fact I predicted that they'd take off long
> before they ever actually shipped. How is it that you have all this
> inaccurate information about me?

Odd, I thought you said you wouldn't trade your laptop for two netbooks?
Why would you believe they would be very successful, yet wouldn't trade
your laptop for two of them? That is very interesting. As why would you
say that?

>> That
>> all changed when Asus started selling them by the millions. Now it
>> seems like everybody is jumping on the netbook revolution.
>
> "Just seems" is right. Do you have figures? I know quite a few people who
> bought them (and thus would contribute to these figures) as a third or
> fourth machine. I know others (with more disposable income than I) who
> bought one out of curiousity. Of all the people I know who bought netbooks
> maybe 30% of them use them more often than they use their main machine. I
> don't know anyone who subsequently got rid of their main machines.

I am actually using two netbooks at the moment. One is playing streams
(Windows does better here) and this one is doing newsgroups and RSS
feeds (Linux does this so-so here).

I use my main machine about once a month. That is to do backups on it
and to make it sure still works okay. Also when I want to convert a
video file, my main machine does that faster.

Figures? Last I heard was 33 million per year and growing. And I am
hearing that netbooks maybe outselling laptops very soon. And laptops
are already outselling desktops now. Some are already predicting the end
of the desktop era.

http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...50601320090107

>> It just
>> takes some people longer than others. ;-)
>
> Does implying that I'm slow give you gratification? Yeah, I can see the
> smiley but I see you do this a lot, infer less-than-flattering things about
> people and hide behind a smiley. I'll have you know that I'm very
> cutting-edge. I was talking about netbooks in some computer groups I
> frequent long before most had heard of them, even before they were
> available.

Nope, that is wasn't what I was implying. You are taking things the
wrong way. I meant that it is probably inevitable. As people may not
have a choice in the future. Thus it takes some people longer than
others. Understand it now? Sorry you where offended, but that was never
my intent. :-(

> You are the exception Bill, (albeit a very loud, very evangelical one)
> rather than the rule.

Well I guess some people take what I say the wrong way. As that isn't my
intent.

> As I said, most people I know who've bought netbooks
> either did it for a specific (secondary) purpose where size *is* important
> or they've relegated them to the shelf.
>
> If they're so popular how come there isn't a comp.sys.netbook? (And if there
> is WTF are you doing here?)

No there isn't a netbook newsgroup, this is it. And I why do you have a
problem of me posting here and helping others?

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)