Computer CPU Processors

Intel, AMD battle over claims on battery life for laptops

Welcome to a Laptop Battery specialist of Sony Laptop Battery   First post by: www.laptops-battery-online.com

Benny Villanueva recalls being in a Starbucks rushing to finish a college paper that was due when his laptop battery, which he'd been led to believe would last hours, conked out after only about 30 minutes.

"It just shut off on me," said the 30-year-old from San Jose, who is studying dentistry. "I almost started yelling. It's kind of frustrating, but what can you do?"

Consumer complaints about being misled on how long their laptop batteries will last aren't new, of course. But the issue has had the Web roiling lately, with much of the hullabaloo centered on those two longtime chip-making antagonists, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD triggered the brouhaha in recent blogs and media interviews, contending that laptop ads often contain unrealistic battery-life claims because the data come from tests where laptops aren't used as actively as many people use them.

And last month, a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose accused Intel of essentially rigging those tests to inflate the battery life of laptops powered by its chips.

"A reasonable consumer expects battery-life measurements to reflect the way consumers actually use laptop computers," the suit said. Because of the Santa Clara chip maker's alleged contrivance, it added, "Intel has wrongly increased its profits from the sale of laptops with Intel processors."

But Intel officials called the suit groundless and characterized criticism of the tests as wrongheaded. They claim the tests accurately reflect the way most people use laptops. And while Intel would consider other ways to test the batteries such as Sony PCG-R505 Battery, company spokesman Bill Kircos disputed claims that the public is confused.

"Anyone who criticizes consumers' intelligence when shopping for laptops is underestimating the consumers," he said.

Testing service

The controversial tests are specified under a benchmark dubbed MobileMark, which was adopted several years ago by the nonprofit Business Applications Performance Corporation, or BAPCo, whose members include AMD, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other tech companies.

The class-action suit filed June 26 by the Girard Gibbs law firm of San Francisco contends the tests were pushed on BAPCo by Intel. Intel denies that, adding that the same law firm unsuccessfully filed a class-action suit against Intel several years ago. A statement issued by BAPCo said MobileMark was "vigorously debated and cooperatively developed" by its members.

Whatever the case, critics say the tests leave much to be desired.

 

MobileMark assesses how long batteries work while a laptop is in three operating modes, which include playing a DVD movie, accessing a spreadsheet and doing other tasks. And according to data provided by AMD, batteries in laptops equipped with Intel's chips consistently last longer in the tests than laptops with AMD's chips.

Various factors determine how long a laptop battery lasts, but chips play a big role and Intel has focused on making its chips energy-efficient. But AMD, which specializes more than Intel on making graphic-oriented chips, argues that MobileMark generally doesn't reflect use of power-gobbling laptop features such as graphic-heavy video games.

As a result, even though laptop ads typically caution that battery life varies with use, AMD claims consumers often find their machines run out of juice long before they thought they would.

"The measurements in the best case are confusing; worst case they are misleading the consumer," said Patrick Moorhead, AMD's vice president for advanced marketing.

Rob Enderle, a technology analyst with the Enderle Group in San Jose, agrees.

"Everyone in the industry knows this benchmark is wildly optimistic and that the actual battery life you'll get is often less than half what MobileMark suggests," he concluded in a recent note on the controversy. "This is because MobileMark measures battery life much like you might measure gas mileage if you started the car, put it in neutral and coasted down a long hill."

Other sources

AMD says a better idea would be to give consumers battery-life data from MobileMark as well as from some other test where laptops are run harder. When AMD did such a comparison, it said the battery-life difference between its chips and Intel's virtually disappeared.

Officials at Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest seller of personal computers, declined to comment on the dispute.

Sensible move

But Ketan Pandya, head of AMD-based products at Dell, said AMD's suggestion to augment MobileMark with another battery-life measure makes sense.

"It's something that is good for the industry and definitely good for the consumer," Pandya said.

Internet commentators remain divided on the subject, however.

"Shouldn't AMD be trying to make its chips use less power when they're not doing anything?" an article in laptop magazine wondered aloud last month.

But a recent article by Notebooks#com agreed with AMD, concluding that battery-life advertising claims based on low-power laptop configurations "leave those who order notebooks with graphic cards, high-speed hard drives and other extras completely in the dark."

About the Author

Apple MacBook Pro MC374LL Is A New Released 13.3-inch Laptop With 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

Apple MacBook Pro MC374LL is a new released 13.3-inch laptop equipped with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive. It sports a 13.3 inch LED-backlit display (1280×800), NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256 MB of shared memory, Wi-Fi wireless networking, Built-in iSight camera, 8x DVD/CD SuperDrive.

The laptop runs on Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard Operating System. Needless to say, the configuration is very good for our daily activity, people are very pleased with it. MC374LL includes a 13.3-inch, LED-backlit glass display (instead of an LCD panel) as well as a glass trackpad that doesn't include a button (for larger tracking area) that features Apple's Multi-Touch technology.

Every Mac comes with Mac Operating System X Snow Leopard, the world's most advanced operating system, & iLife, Apple's applications for managing movies, photos & create and learning to play music. iLife features iPhoto, to easily organize and manage photos; iMovie with powerful easy-to-use new features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand which introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.

Generally, notebooks are abide of assorted parts. With the MacBook Pro MC374LL all of those parts with just one part--the breakthrough unibody enclosure. Each MacBook Pro starts activity as a distinct block of aluminum, which is absolutely machined into unibody design. Additionally, conventional CCFL displays use mercury to create a backlight and arsenic to prevent irregularities in the glass. The LED-backlit display on the MacBook Pro, on the other hand, is both mercury- and arsenic-free. LED backlight technology also conserves energy: This display requires up to 30 percent less power than a CCFL display.

MC374LL is buttonless multi-touch trackpad, with no button on the durable glass trackpad, there's more room to track and click--left, right, center, and everywhere in between. Without a separate button, the spacious trackpad gives your hands plenty of room to move on the large, silky glass surface. It also incorporates Multi-Touch gestures--including swipe, pinch, rotate, and four-finger swipe--and even more natural inertial scrolling--an intuitive way to scroll through large photo libraries, lengthy documents and long web sites.

One of customer review is Orion. Here is what he said about Apple MacBook MC374LL "Its like driving a German Car. That is the right way to describe how it feels to use this notebook. All about this little laptop feels so solid & well built. This is my first Apple computer. Now that I have some money to afford nice things I don't mind paying for them so I decided to check this out at an Apple store and was blown away. The trackpad really won me over. The hand gestures are simply incredible and work so well. Anyway for anyone who wants a high end portable computer and appreciates well built, quality items do not pass this up. You will not find another laptop out there that comes close to the user experience this thing provides. Very well done Apple!"

Does the Intel Intel Core 2 DUO 8600 support 32bit systems?

I am thinking of buy an Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33GHz 6M L2 Cache 1333MHz LGA775 Desktop Processor. I was wondering if it supported 32-bit systems, such as mine.
I have a AMD processor. Will the new Intel 8600 work on my motherboard since I have an AMD processor now?
I would like to thank you ahead of time for your help.

Yes, the processor will run happily on a 32 bit operating system.
What you have to be careful of is the motherboard. To run the processor you'll need a Intel EM64T supported motherboard. i.e. a motherboard that is capable of running 64bit processors; even if you're only planning on using a 32bit OS.
Having said that the majority of motherboards support 64bit as standard anyway, you should be fine, probably best to check though!

Update: Sorry I took so long to notice your update. unfortunatly AMD and Intel use a completly different pin connection system and so the socket on the motherboard will not be compatible with the 8600.

HP mulls webOS sale to odd list of interested parties (Extremetech)

HP is reportedly mulling a sale of its webOS, but the number of buyers that
might use it in future products is limited.

Extremetech

Tour of an Intel Datacenter Retrofitted from a Factory Building