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AMD Llano laptops have been disappointing so far

M

micrometers

Diamond Member
The hope would have been an AMD A8 "ultralite" notebook similar to a chrome book for like $450, 13" or below.

The reality is the crippled A4 makes many appearances on "multimedia" notebooks, largely 15" screen size.
 
karmypolitics said:
The hope would have been an AMD A8 "ultralite" notebook similar to a chrome book for like $450, 13" or below.

The reality is the crippled A4 makes many appearances on "multimedia" notebooks, largely 15" screen size.
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An A8 was never intended, designed for, or marketed for the ultra light notebooks, as an Atom competitor, or for the ultra cheap markets. The A8 is a flagship CPU.

I have no problem with an A4 in a 15in notebook, provided the price is right on the other specs are up to par for that price tag. Its more insulting to see E-350s in 15in notebooks with 720p screens. The E350 is a fantastic piece of silicon, when its put inside 10-12in notebooks. Not so much when its in 15in and bigger notebooks.
 
I have an A8 powered laptop and it's awesome. Dell Vostro 3555, 15.6"/5.5 lbs, $500. Inexpensive, light for 15" and fastest IGP ever.
 
The real problem with Llano notebooks is that i3 and even some i5 Sandy Bridge laptops are available in the same price range.
 
Bateluer said:
The E350 is a fantastic piece of silicon, when its put inside 10-12in notebooks. Not so much when its in 15in and bigger notebooks.
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Why diss the 15inch screen? I bought my nephew a 15 inch E350 and it works great for him. Sure it's not a gamer, but for everything else the thing can handle it. For a $280 laptop with a 3-6hr battery it's golden.
 
I'm sure that's not just an AMD platform problem. PC laptop makers are too obsessed with cost cutting and flooding the market which results in product lines that are too fragmented and too vast that confuses consumers, compromising quality on stuff people places high priority in such as screens, cooling and keyboards etc and stupid decisions like not making highly sought laptops available in areas that wants them. *cough Acer 3820TG*.

And they wonder why their sales are dwindling.
 
StrangerGuy said:
I'm sure that's not just an AMD platform problem. PC laptop makers are too obsessed with cost cutting and flooding the market which results in product lines that are too fragmented and too vast that confuses consumers, compromising quality on stuff people places high priority in such as screens, cooling and keyboards etc and stupid decisions like not making highly sought laptops available in areas that wants them. *cough Acer 3820TG*.

And they wonder why their sales are dwindling.
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I agree
 
The problem with llano is that pentium B940/950/960 notebooks can had for $300, and offer better cpu performance and somewhat acceptable gpu performance. And it even beat amd to the market. AMD is such a failure. They cannot compete with the sheer volume of the B9x0 platform. And when ib comes along and doubles the gpu power? There will be no reason at all to own a llano, assuming intel's drivers work of course.
 
sm625 said:
The problem with llano is that pentium B940/950/960 notebooks can had for $300, and offer better cpu performance and somewhat acceptable gpu performance. And it even beat amd to the market. AMD is such a failure. They cannot compete with the sheer volume of the B9x0 platform. And when ib comes along and doubles the gpu power? There will be no reason at all to own a llano, assuming intel's drivers work of course.
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With llano - AMD did not set out to beat Intel at their own game. Of course the B9xx CPUs do what they do best, cheap to make in quantities with acceptable performance. Llano is an IGP with a CPU present to handle the mundane stuff. They have the BEST integrated graphics - ever - by a long shot. I'd call that a *success*. It's not for people that need a fast cpu - and neither is the B9xx series.

Either way all you have to do is look at sales. Sure AMD can't sell as much as Intel - Some of that is a manufacturing problem. No one really expects them to. However, compared to other AMD CPUs, I'd say it's doing well. (However, Zacate/Ontario are still better for AMD IMO)
 
Another problem with llano is that oems see all AMD chips the same so they jsut buy the cheapest one and stuff it into a bunch of skus and sell that at volume. Because llano is a "step up" (the motherboard and chipset must change, its not just a faster cpu option) it loses the discount effect from selling heavy volumes. AMD basically shot themselves in the foot with the E-350. It should not be in so many notebooks. But of course AMD does not have the power to stop oems from stuffign that chip into a place where it clearly doesnt belong, like in a 15 inch notebook that sells for more than a pentium B950 notebook.
 
I love mine. Used to have to pay $1000 for a notebook that would even run current games. Less than $400 and it does fine, with 5+ hour battery life too.
 
The biggest problem I think is finding any available. I looked in Oct or so @ Office Depot where they had lots of lappys and only 1 Llano based lappy. Maybe things are getting better now though.
 
sm625 said:
Another problem with llano is that oems see all AMD chips the same so they jsut buy the cheapest one and stuff it into a bunch of skus and sell that at volume. Because llano is a "step up" (the motherboard and chipset must change, its not just a faster cpu option) it loses the discount effect from selling heavy volumes. AMD basically shot themselves in the foot with the E-350. It should not be in so many notebooks. But of course AMD does not have the power to stop oems from stuffign that chip into a place where it clearly doesnt belong, like in a 15 inch notebook that sells for more than a pentium B950 notebook.
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Your typical B950 owner is most likely not what one would call an enthusiast and likely doesn't even know what their CPU model name is, let alone its CPU performance relative to its competitors. They walk into the store and say "ooh honey, look, 500 gigs, lets get this one" and walk about with their $350 compaq. If you need fast CPU performance, neither a llano laptop, nor a pentium B950 are very good options.
 
If I needed a laptop today I would definitely pick up a llano -based one. You can overclock them if you need more performance and the price is right. Back then to even think about gaming on a laptop you would've needed a dedicated gpu. Not anymore, and not at the $700+ range.
 
StrangerGuy said:
I'm sure that's not just an AMD platform problem. PC laptop makers are too obsessed with cost cutting and flooding the market which results in product lines that are too fragmented and too vast that confuses consumers, compromising quality on stuff people places high priority in such as screens, cooling and keyboards etc and stupid decisions like not making highly sought laptops available in areas that wants them. *cough Acer 3820TG*.

And they wonder why their sales are dwindling.
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thats because they want / expect you to upgrade faster then you would with a more expensive laptop.

The days when lappys were 1000+ are gone.
No vendor wants you to hold onto a 450 dollar laptop, as long as the 1000 dollar laptop.
They hope you upgrade the 450 dollar laptop once in the same time frame as the 1000 dollar laptop, so they cut cost and keep trying to cut cost, so your upgrade cycle is higher yet overall spending kept slightly lower or near the same.

People dont understand this notion.... they all think buy and keep still holds on the lower and cheaper brands... when its not intended that way.

Price is kept low and very low, because they hope u get most of what u can out of it, and then upgrade to a newer / updated version faster.... which is how the low end pc market works now.
 
Schmide said:
Why diss the 15inch screen? I bought my nephew a 15 inch E350 and it works great for him. Sure it's not a gamer, but for everything else the thing can handle it. For a $280 laptop with a 3-6hr battery it's golden.
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I'm not dissing the 15in screen, I'm dissing the combination of a 15in screen with a 720p resolution.
 
Bateluer said:
I'm not dissing the 15in screen, I'm dissing the combination of a 15in screen with a 720p resolution.
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I guess you mean the 768 screen? Regardless you're not going to find a high-res laptop (>768) with any processor for less than $600. There is no reason to single out the E350 just because of the class of laptop it comes in. The combination argument is moot.
 
Meh, a 15 inch 768 screen isn't terrible. For you it probably sucks, but for my wife who does nothing but read cooking blogs it's perfect. 768 isn't half bad and is a pretty good resolution for viewing text. For a few hundred bucks you really can't expect much more.

PC laptop makers are too obsessed with cost cutting and flooding the market
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PC laptop makers are obsessed with meeting market demand and the market is demanding cheap notebooks. Most customers find that they meed their performance needs just fine. My wife's 1.3ghz Core 2 Duo is plenty fast for everyday tasks. She never notices the difference between her laptop and her twice as fast desktop.
 
My work issued notebook is a Dell something or other with an Intel i5 2520M (2.5GHz dual core) with integrated graphics. I absolutely loathe it.

I end up doing my work on the desktop I built in my siginature because as far as actual usability, it's so much better in every way.

I wish I had an A8 powered notebook. This i5 can't multitask worth a damn. I don't really care what the benchmarks say. It's slow and struggles with basic tasks. No, nothing is "wrong" with it.
 
RPD said:
If you know what the chip does and offers, its AMAZING. I love my HP dm1z.
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I agree the dm1z is a very attractive package. But I also agree that the E350/E450 does not belong in a full size laptop, especially when Llano is available. Worse yet, they even put the E450 in desktops. Dont really see the point of a power sipping chip in a desktop.

As far as Llano availability, they have been quite often on sale at best buy in the last few weeks. I have been checking availability on line and they are usually available at the start of the week, but unavailable by the end of the week. So if you were quick to pull the trigger, you could probably get one. I just have been hesitating because I cant decide between the dm1z, a full size laptop, and a tablet.
 
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