Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Eug · Jan 5, 2011, 10:08 AM

It's fugly, and weighs 3.5 lbs, but the battery life is pretty good.

HP revs up Pavilion dm1 with AMD Fusion, the notbook wars have begun -- Engadget

Could this be enough to get an AMD chip in a Mac?

turtle777 · Jan 5, 2011, 10:23 AM

Ugh.

-t

Eug · Jan 5, 2011, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Ugh.

You don't like the idea of an AMD chip in a Mac? I wonder what the ULV Sandy Bridge chips would cost, for an updated MacBook Air 11.6" (that doesn't have the loose hinge problem).

turtle777 · Jan 5, 2011, 10:33 AM

Actually, I barfed at the design and 3.5 pounds for an 11" screen size.

I doubt we'll see AMD in Macs anytime soon.

-t

Eug · Jan 5, 2011, 10:45 AM

Yeah, I'm not interested in the HP specifically. I'm interested in the AMD APU achieve 9.5 hours of battery life, with decent specs. I believe the performance on the CPU side is supposed to be comparable to CULV Core 2 Duo, but the GPU side in the AMD chip is way, way faster.

It would seem from these specs that the power utilization of AMD chips is now actually excellent. AMD's problem in the past in the mobile market wasn't performance. It was performance per Watt.

OTOH, Lenovo just announced a new 11.6" machine with AMD Fusion but that one only is rated for 6 hours. So, the truth is probably somewhere in between... which is in the same ballpark as CULV Core 2 Duo.

turtle777 · Jan 5, 2011, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

Yeah, I'm not interested in the HP specifically. I'm interested in the AMD APU achieve 9.5 hours of battery life, with decent specs. I believe the performance on the CPU side is supposed to be comparable to CULV Core 2 Duo, but the GPU side in the AMD chip is way, way faster.

Is is that, or is it because they put a huge battery in it ?

The HP has a 55Whr battery, the 11" MBA 35WHr, the 13" MBP 77Whr.
The HP falls right in between the MBA and MBP, so I'm not too impressed.

-t

Eug · Jan 5, 2011, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Is is that, or is it because they put a huge battery in it ?

The HP has a 55Whr battery, the 11" MBA 35WHr, the 13" MBP 77Whr.
The HP falls right in between the MBA and MBP, so I'm not too impressed.

A 55 Watt-hr battery is not huge. The MacBook Air's battery is simply very small, and the battery life suffers significantly because of it, which sucks for a netbook class ultraportable. I have an Acer also with a 6-cell battery, and the thing lasts all day long. In fact, when I bring it to work I just charge it the night before, and leave the AC adapter at home. OTOH, when I take my MacBook Pro (60 Watt-hour battery), I feel I need to bring the adapter with me, and it has a longer rated battery life than the MacBook Air.

A reasonable choice might have been a 45 Watt-hour battery for the MacBook Air, but they chose not to. That's fine, but it's one reason I'm not as interested in it as I might have been.

bstone · Jan 5, 2011, 11:32 AM

Just wire up another battery in parallel.

turtle777 · 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

A 55 Watt-hr battery is not huge. The MacBook Air's battery is simply very small, and the battery life suffers significantly because of it, which sucks for a netbook class ultraportable.

Well, still, I don't see how the AMD in the HP gets such a spectacular mileage.

MBA: 11.6", SSD, 35Whr, 5hr runtime
HP:...11.6",...HD, 55Whr, 9.5hr runtime
MBP: 13.3",..HD, 77Whr, 10hr runtime
..
W/o having all the technical information, I would suspect that a 11" MBA with a real HD and 55Whr would run close to 10 hrs as well.

-t

Spheric Harlot · Jan 5, 2011, 11:43 AM

I think it's a pretty safe bet that adding 1.2 pounds of battery to the MacBook Air would bring it to well over 10 hours.

IOW, the AMD's advantage is less than zero, and the nice runtime is due to a design choice that Apple explicitly avoids.

Eug · Jan 5, 2011, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Well, still, I don't see how the AMD in the HP gets such a spectacular mileage.

MBA: 11", SSD, 35Whr, 7hr runtime
HP:...11",...HD, 55Whr, 9.5hr runtime
MBP: 13",..HD, 77Whr, 10hr runtime
..
W/o having all the technical information, I would suspect that a 11" MBA with a real HD and 55Whr would run close to 10 hrs as well.

Your specs are wrong. The 11.6" MBA is rated for 5 hours.

That's why I was thinking more along the lines of a 45 Watt-hour battery, to bring the battery life up by a third, getting it into the last-most-of-the-workday category, something its big brother can nearly achieve.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

I think it's a pretty safe bet that adding 1.2 pounds of battery to the MacBook Air would bring it to well over 10 hours.

No need to add 1.2 lbs of battery of course.

the nice runtime is due to a design choice that Apple explicitly avoids.

Which is why I will be avoiding the relatively high cost MacBook Air. Too bad too, since the 11.6" MBA is what I've been wanting Apple to put out for years... except for the battery life part.

As for the AMD chip, the point here is that part is quite low power, and includes a very decent integrated GPU. One of the MBA's problems is it needs a discrete GPU. That eats power.

Maybe the next MBA using a next-gen AMD (or Intel) part can save more power and increase that battery life. In fact, I'd bet that it will have better battery life, regardless of if they increase the battery size or not. ie. Perhaps the current design is aimed at next gen parts, and hence the 2010 iteration suffered.

turtle777 · Jan 5, 2011, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

I think it's a pretty safe bet that adding 1.2 pounds of battery to the MacBook Air would bring it to well over 10 hours.

You forget the HD weighs more than a SSD, and consumes more power.

I think it'd be close to a wash, with the MBA maybe a bit more powerful in terms of raw processor power(?!?!).

-t

turtle777 · Jan 5, 2011, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

Your specs are wrong. The 11.6" MBA is rated for 5 hours.

Sorry, my mistake. It's 5 hrs with continuous use of WiFi.

I sort of doubt you'd get 9.5 hours WiFi use out of the HP AMD.

-t

Spheric Harlot · Jan 5, 2011, 11:55 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

Maybe the next MBA using a next-gen AMD (or Intel) part can save more power and increase that battery life. In fact, I'd bet that it will have better battery life, regardless of if they increase the battery size or not. ie. Perhaps the current design is aimed at next gen parts, and hence the 2010 iteration suffered.

This seems quite likely. i3, hey-ho.

Eug · Jan 5, 2011, 11:55 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Sorry, my mistake. It's 5 hrs with continuous use of WiFi.

I sort of doubt you'd get 9.5 hours WiFi use out of the HP AMD.

You definitely won't.

However, I can get 6-7+ hours with continuous WiFi and even 5-6+ hours with a bit of 1080p video playback thrown in, with my Pentium SU4100 11.6" machine. (I believe they rate the machine for 8 hours.)

Laminar · Jan 5, 2011, 02:42 PM

Originally Posted by bstone

Just wire up another battery in parallel.

I'll bring my jumper cables.

bstone · Jan 5, 2011, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

I'll bring my jumper cables.

Surely you can do it with copper wires and a bit of insulation?

Laminar · Jan 5, 2011, 03:40 PM

I'd need at least 4 gauge wire.

OreoCookie · Jan 5, 2011, 04:24 PM

I'm much more excited about this announcement: nVidia will make its own cpu based on the ARM instruction set. They have set themselves the ambitious goal that they're targeting pcs, high performance computing and servers.

This, I think, may come as a big blow to Intel as Windows 8 will run on ARM-based devices.

We live in interesting times

Stogieman · Jan 5, 2011, 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

You definitely won't.

However, I can get 6-7+ hours with continuous WiFi and even 5-6+ hours with a bit of 1080p video playback thrown in, with my Pentium SU4100 11.6" machine. (I believe they rate the machine for 8 hours.)

Why the hell would you need to playback 1080p video on a 11.6" screen?

Laminar · Jan 5, 2011, 04:30 PM

and there's a 320GB drive and an SD card reader as well as 3 USB ports, HDMI and VGA out, and an Ethernet port

...

Spheric Harlot · Jan 5, 2011, 04:53 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

I'd need at least 4 gauge wire.

It won't sound any better than bell wire.

Spheric Harlot · Jan 5, 2011, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by Stogieman

Why the hell would you need to playback 1080p video on a 11.6" screen?

To run via HDMI to your battery-powered 60" 1080p flatscreen TV, of course!

mduell · Jan 5, 2011, 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by Stogieman

Why the hell would you need to playback 1080p video on a 11.6" screen?

So you only have to have 1 copy of all your videos, instead of a 1080p copy for at home, 720p for the road, etc. People have this problem with tv2.

turtle777 · Jan 5, 2011, 05:06 PM

I'm sure this $500 netbook is exactly what a 1080p video enthusiast needs.

-t

Eug · Jan 5, 2011, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

So you only have to have 1 copy of all your videos, instead of a 1080p copy for at home, 720p for the road, etc. People have this problem with tv2.

Indeed. I would have thought it was pretty obvious. I guess not.

Originally Posted by turtle777

I'm sure this $500 netbook is exactly what a 1080p video enthusiast needs.

? 720p and 1080p are pretty much the norm for downloads these days.

As far as I'm concerned, basically any machine down to an 11.6" netbook needs to be able to play back 1080p H.264 perfectly smoothly. If it can't, then it's underpowered by 2011 standards.

Indeed, my $399 11.6" netbook is fully capable of it. To buy any ultraportable laptop over $400 with less functionality than that is foolish IMO, because it's already obsolete.

Stogieman · Jan 5, 2011, 06:21 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

So you only have to have 1 copy of all your videos, instead of a 1080p copy for at home, 720p for the road, etc. People have this problem with tv2.

Yeah, I only have one copy for all my videos. I think that's the case for most people unless you're a video enthusiast like Eug. My LCD TV is only 40" so having a extra 1080p copy taking up large amounts of disk space will do me little good.

turtle777 · Jan 5, 2011, 08:19 PM

That's exactly it.

You won't believe how many think they need 1080p, and all they own is a 24" computer screen and a netbook.

-t

chabig · Jan 5, 2011, 08:32 PM

1080p is way overrated, in my opinion. 1100p is so much better.

Eug · Jan 6, 2011, 08:38 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

You won't believe how many think they need 1080p, and all they own is a 24" computer screen and a netbook.

It's not as if disk space is that expensive these days. 720p is fine, but 1080p is available for the same price, you may as well go for it. 480p leaves a lot to be desired though.

BTW, pretty much all 24" computer screens are 1080p or higher these days. The difference between 1080p and 480p is instantly obvious at normal computer screen seating distances. Even the difference between 1080p and 720p can be noticeable on a 24" computer screen, but it's much less obvious.

A new 11.6" netbook in 2011 should be able to play all of the above with ease. If it can't, you've probably been ripped off, unless you got the thing for $199 or something.

turtle777 · Jan 6, 2011, 09:30 AM

Originally Posted by Eug

BTW, pretty much all 24" computer screens are 1080p or higher these days.

I really don't see how people who watch movies sitting 20 inch away from their computer screens are relevant to the broader "video enthusiast" discussion.

Sure you could tell the difference, but it doesn't matter.

-t

Eug · Jan 6, 2011, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

I really don't see how people who watch movies sitting 20 inch away from their computer screens are relevant to the broader "video enthusiast" discussion.

Sure you could tell the difference, but it doesn't matter.

My point is you don't really have to be a hardcore enthusiast to appreciate HD. Just the fact that HD adoption is very common among Joe Blow households is a testament to that. Thus, if you're a person that downloads stuff, legal or otherwise, then at least 720p and often 1080p is often the norm now in 2011.

Why? Just because it looks significantly better to everyone, not just to some HD geeks. These files work on computers, on standalone Blu-ray players, etc. In fact, Blu-ray players with HD video file support (MP4 or MKV) for the average Joe Blow households were available over the Xmas shopping season for $99 or less from major name brands.

However, it would be a major pain if those same videos you downloaded don't work when you transfer them to your 11.6" netbook to watch on the plane or whatever. And if you spent $500 to get that video-crippled netbook in 2011, that's just foolish.

PB2K · Jan 7, 2011, 02:21 AM

[QUOTE=Eug;4040544]It's fugly, and weighs 3.5 lbs, but the battery life is pretty good.

HP revs up Pavilion dm1 with AMD Fusion, the notbook wars have begun -- Engadget

maybe a notbook is a new class of notebooks that arent notebooks

Eug · Jan 7, 2011, 10:16 AM

Heh. I noticed the same thing.

Notbook not a notebook and not a netbook?

turtle777 · Jan 7, 2011, 10:27 AM

I want a notboke !

-t

Laminar · Jan 7, 2011, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

I want a notboke !

-t