Anyone has experience with laptops powered by a Transmeta Crusoe CPU?

[andylawcc]

I am in the search of a small light laptop that will do basic word processing, web-surfing, and DVD-playing; once in a while I may want to use Photoshop but that's not a necessity.
So what should I expect (and not expect) from a Transmeta Crusoe powered Laptop? (other than being much slower than competitors')

 

[Connoisseur]

First of all I don't have one. But I can tell you what/what not to expect. Like you said before, don't expect great performance. For surfing/processing, that's completely fine. Also, it runs very cool and battery life is LONG. But I'd even go so far as to say that photoshop isn't gonna be a good performer either.

 

[andylawcc]

so that would be like a "1.5 thumbs up" from you?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

minus dvd playback

The transmeta does in fact lack in performance, and the centrio does offer a better package in my opinion, however if size and battery life is everything, transmeta is a great choice. There are a few VERY nice laptops that use transmeta chips, i'd love to get my hands on a fujitsu lifebook or sony picturebook.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

oh my goodness, want.....

 

[andylawcc]

what do you mean by "lack DVD playback," Crusoe laptops can't play DVD at all?

 

[andylawcc]

that OGO thing is cool and all... but the Keypad is JUST toooo small... it would be a pain to type in that thing.

 

[andylawcc]

any more opinions? I see I can get it for about $1400 (at Fujitsu.com or PC connection).

 

[gotsmack]

I wanna buy a transmeta EFFICEON powered notebook. any ideas where I can get a US version? I know they sell them over in japan.


and I want to see some options besides the mm20 from sharp.

http://www.sharpsystems.com/products/pc_notebooks/actius/mm/20/

thanks in advance

 

[gotsmack]

forget it. I'm going to stick with intel pentium Ms.

http://www.vanshardware.com/reviews/2004/04/040405_efficeon/040405_efficeon.htm

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: andylawcc
what do you mean by "lack DVD playback," Crusoe laptops can't play DVD at all?

They probably either lack the drive or the horsepower to decode the video. a PIII 500 is about the bare minimum for DVD playback, and the Crusoe chips packed about that much punch, but lack SSE (IIRC) so they're at a bigger disadvantage.