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Retailer Planning Laptops With Intel Core i7 Chips
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Feb 02, 2009 01:52 AM
from the can-you-say-luggable dept.
from the can-you-say-luggable dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian PC retailer Eurocom is planning to ship a 12-pound laptop with Intel's Core i7 chip, which might go down well with deep-pocketed geeks. The Core i7 was designed with desktop computers and servers in mind; later members of the Nehalem chip family are planned to address portables. The 17" notebook's price, not yet announced, will certainly be in excess of $5,000."
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Submission: Adventurous e-tailer planning Core i7 laptops by Anonymous Coward
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Desktop Replacement (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever happened to the 'desktop replacement' designation for mobile but not lightweight platforms?
This reminds me of the first laptop I ever owned:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_SX-64 [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The Commodore SX-64, also known as the Executive 64, or VIP-64...
Funny, the name implies it was for business use and yet the picture shows it with a pair of joysticks...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Did you read the wikipedia entry? It brings back the spirit of the C64:
Re:Desktop Replacement (Score:5, Informative)
Reasons for needing such a powerful but heavy and battery-challenged "laptop".
Taking your apps+docs (let alone taking you OS) with you on an HD/USB key doesn't really work for most OSes and Apps. Especially if you need specialty apps, like video/CAD... or whetever really NEEDS an i7.
Being certain you'll have an up-to spec PC wherever youre going, without being dependant on someone to book it + set it up for you.
Gaming in small appartments (I assume the vid card is nice, too).
Of course, being able to maybe use the laptop a little while NOT connected to the mains is.. a nice bonus.
I've been reading forever that Intel+AMD are including "laptop" power-management features in their "desktop" parts. Maybe with heavy underclocking one can actually watch a full DVD on a single charge ?
Parent
Re:Desktop Replacement (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
A laptop... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A laptop... (Score:4, Funny)
... that's not supposed to be put on your lap, unless you are sure you don't want to have offspring. Given that this is designed for the /. kind of geek, the question of offspring is probably not too much of a problem anyway :)
Oh yeah? Well, your laptop is so fat that a...
Parent
It's not a laptop ... (Score:5, Funny)
... it is a compact electric (gonad) cooker. :-)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Penny arcade already has this covered. Maybe they already knew abotu the i7.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/ [penny-arcade.com]
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Don't you mean Penis Panini?
Re:A laptop... (Score:5, Funny)
If you're single and still getting some, a temporary decrease in fertility is a feature not a bug.
Parent
Crazy talk (Score:2, Funny)
a temporary decrease in fertility is a feature
Only if the girl's birth control pill fails to work, and in that case the after-oops pill will work just as fine.
I don't buy it as an argument for frying my balls. But feel free to do what you want to your own testicles :)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Going really into off-topic territory, but how would you know the birth control pill has failed right away in order to take the other one?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Only if the girl's birth control pill fails to work, and in that case the after-oops pill will work just as fine.
That attitude really must have women beating down your door.
From the inside.
Re: (Score:2)
Lamptop, then?
Just plain silly (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with this design is that the i7 chips put out 130 watts TDP. Even if this laptop has a battery, it's going to last less than an hour.
I should I know. I have a toshiba laptop that has a desktop P4 in it. 1 hour.
Re:Just plain silly (Score:5, Funny)
The laptop is 12 pounds: two pounds for the laptop, ten pounds for the batteries.
Parent
Re:Just plain silly (Score:4, Funny)
The laptop is 12 pounds: two pounds for the laptop, ten pounds for the batteries.
Which gives you an autonomy of 1+t hours; being "t" the amount of time you're able to keep your cycling power over 1000 watts.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The laptop is 12 pounds: two pounds for the laptop, ten pounds for the batteries.
I'm so disappointed... at 12 pounds, they could at least have included a 22" screen. At least I hope it has a quad SLI GPU for crisp Excel rendering.
Maybe next time....
Re:Just plain silly (Score:5, Funny)
THe good thing is, if you leave your lights on, you can use the battery to start your truck.
Parent
Re:Just plain silly (Score:5, Insightful)
At my company *everyone* has a laptop. The battery just needs to last long enough that I can make it to the meeting rooms and back. 'Mobile' computers have more use than just using them away from power for long periods of time. You can sit at another desk, on a whim go out on location with all your files, etc.
I'd love something like this for Matlab processing.
And weight isn't an issue because we all have laptop bags or backpacks. A 20 lb laptop would still be lighter than the books I carried in college.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Weight might be an issue to you, it is to me. Wearing a backpack is a pain in the ass and it hurts my back after a while. I actually don't take my work laptop anywhere ever, including meetings, because it's a pain in the ass to carry around. The only laptop I'll ever actually move around with is my personal EEE, due to the fact its only 2 pounds and can be carried without a special case.
Re:Just plain silly (Score:5, Interesting)
And weight isn't an issue because we all have laptop bags or backpacks
It happens to me that I'm walking around for 30-60 minutes on the airport with a laptop bag hanging on one shoulder and rolling luggage on the other hand.
I'll tell you I'm pretty glad if I get to sit down and let the laptop slide off the shoulder.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Several reasons I could think of:
- on my back it's not easily reachable (think being able to fetch PDA, phone, wallet, passport or agenda)
- but much more easily reachable by others
- company doesn't supply a backpack
- when you wear a suit or any other business-like attire, you ruin the jacket with a backpack
Yep (Score:2)
I think part of the problem is that people have a given size of computer in their mind when they hear "laptop" when really it covers a fairly wide range. What this might be called is a "desktop replacement." These are used when you want the power of a desktop, but you need some portability. You aren't looking to cart it everywhere with you, you just need to move it around from desk to desk. For example maybe for security reasons all you work needs to remain on one computer. So your desktop at work is actual
Re: (Score:2)
If you need the computational horsepower and portability, why not have a desktop and VNC into it through your laptop?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A 20 lb laptop would still be lighter than the cases of beer I carried in college.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Just plain silly (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a Mechanical Engineer. I take lots of data from test cells and process it. Gigs of data sometimes, so you can't just install it where ever. Matlab, Vector CANape and the other programs I use aren't cheap and network licenses are even more expensive.
I may have 1 meeting a day, all I said is that the laptop has to last until I make it there, I didn't say that all I did all day was run around to meetings.
It may have to last long enough for me to get to the DC/AC inverter in the test rig or until I walk down to the test cell. Or be light enough that I can take my work home.
Weight might be an issue to you, it is to me.
No one is forcing you to buy this.
If you need the computational horsepower and portability, why not have a desktop and VNC into it through your laptop?
VNC sucks, it's good for maybe setting up something on a computer or two, but you can't work through it 8 hours a day. Plus, then my company would have 2x the computers.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
They don't do that either. They get IT to do that.
They're good at "extending functionality" of firefox though.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this design is that the i7 chips put out 130 watts TDP. Even if this laptop has a battery, it's going to last less than an hour.
Depending on who you are, that might not matter. Believe it or not, but there's a market for "portable" in the "movable" sense meaning that you unhook it at one location and plug it in at another location. The alternative isn't a laptop, it's a box, monitor, keyboard and so on. Having it all rolled up into one box is a lot easier than the alternative, and the ability to open the lid and check something or bring it to a meeting for half an hour's demo without plugging in is just bonus. My dream work laptop h
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
My dream work laptop has a quad core cpu, min. 4GB ram, min. >200GB SSD and hardware support for virtualization and virtualized IO. I don't even care if it has a working battery or not, in fact my last one I used for a long time even though the battery was bad and would last seconds.
That's not a laptop, that's an all-in-one. Apple calls them iMacs, and I believe HP Gateway have knock-offs of it.
Re:Just plain silly (Score:4, Insightful)
An all-in-one doesn't fold up in a handy package that protects the screen and input devices, nor does it include a keyboard and pointing device. Desktop replacements do have legitimate uses.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
But you're right in the sense that that's not half as easy as just closing the machine and picking it up (even if you have to pick it up with a forklift).
Time to hit the gym, man. Anything under 50 pounds shouldn't be an issue to lift and carry around in a backpack, if that's what was required. Granted, I'm glad I don't need to but 12 pounds is probably a lot less than you'd carry if you were backpacking across the countryside.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
5 grand?! (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'd like to know is how on earth they can justify charging 5 grand for a laptop that has nothing special about it except being absurdly heavy and featuring an i7.
For that size and weight, you could just throw a desktop motherboard in some plastic, tape a screen and battery on, then ship it out! This machine might justify the price if it clocked in at under 5 pounds.
For more information... (Score:3, Informative)
...on the expected hardware specifications, see Notebook Review: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=348239 [notebookreview.com]
Desktop replacement (Score:2, Interesting)
I had an Toshiba P-10 a few years ago. It had an Intel P4 3.2ghz socket 478 desktop chip in it. It was a beast.
I miss having a laptop though, as I don't have much time at home.
This 12pound monster is a little bit overkill unless it has 6gb ddr3 a pair of 500gb or 1tb drives in RAID and a SLI or crossfire-x solution in it.
Then it would almost be worth it if you just had to spend 5k on a laptop.
PC architecture is not ready! (Score:3, Funny)
Because of I/O bottlenecks, on a gaming laptop with 64-bit dual core system and 2+ GB RAM, burning a DVD while copying a file from disk to disk (SATA) will kill the system to low responsiveness.
In theory the CPU is powerful enough to juggle the I/O requests (SATA, nvidia, keyboard and mouse) with the actual computing things in a manner that the user won't experience low responsiveness a-la pre-1990.
In the practice all that power is weasted, unless you run tasks with low I/O needs.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The PC architecture? Your laptop motherboard chipset with a cheap integrated SATA controller maybe. Nothing about the PC architecture limits you from designing a laptop with a PCIe 8x connected dedicated SATA/SAS controller.
Of course, if it's all from the same hard drive and you're using rotating media, it's the media that is fault not the PC bus architecture responsible for your slow down. The PC architecture is approaching 30 years of scalability.
Re: (Score:2)
Could someone clarify the parent's post up a bit or was it simply a troll? What would be a better architecture to handle all those IO reqs?
Re: (Score:2)
Doubling the RAM won't make my system more responsive, as the virtual memory on disk is never used.
Deep-pocketed... (Score:3, Funny)
...enough so to afford a Sherpa to carry the thing?
Oblig Penny Arcade (Score:2)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/ [penny-arcade.com]
Canada != Europe (Score:2, Funny)
12 pounds (Score:3, Funny)
12 pounds is quite cheap for a laptop of this spec. But I expect once it reaches the UK, it'll be more like 24 pounds. :)
Exchange rate? (Score:3, Funny)
I know the dollar has taken a hammering lately, but its not really that bad yet is it?
Ob Strongbad Ref (Score:2)
Has some of the same specs as the renowned "Lappy 486"; Battery Life: Half of ten minutes.
Where does the 12 pounds come from? (Score:2)
Does this system have 2-3 pounds of special cooling hardware?