Can someone explain Centrino to me?

[rnmcd]

All that I understand is that Intel has developed it to use with notebook computers. Is it sometype of integrated 802.11 card?

Is it that big of a deal?

Thanks.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Click me

 

[DaveSimmons]

There is a very nice article on the main Anandtech website under the "mobile" tab: Meet Mr. Centrino!

 

[rnmcd]

I had already read the article that Justanaverageguy mentioned and it didn't do a whole lot for me...the Anandtech article kindof reinforced what I thought--there isn't anything super special about Centrino...no wonder we don't hear alot about it except for the ads that were prevalent about a year ago.

 

[eLinux]

Well, yah...the links that were posted were pretty straight-forward. To have a centrino laptop, you have to have the wireless support, the processor (Pentium M), and then the special intel chipset...

Really, though, rnmcd, I wouldn't just shrug it off and "nothing special." I remember playing on a P4 M (note, quite different from a Pentium M -- the 4 makes a huge difference), and it sucked! The battery life was absolutely horrendous. The computer was huge, bulky, heavy, and maybe it was "fast," but it ran super hot. The Centrino I own (IBM t40) is amazing. I can stretch the battery life to 5 hours, and if I buy a 9 cell battery, I can probably stretch it more than 7 hours (at least I believe I've read the 7 hour figure).

It's a great idea, and personally I can't why anybody would buy a non-Centrino laptop (except maybe an AMD mobile processor...I've heard "okay" thinks about those, nothing exceptional). The pentium 4 processors that manufacturers put in laptops are just ridiculous... They're hot and they absolutely eat a battery for lunch...

Just my $.02 worth.

 

[Schadenfroh]

its like a fancy name for allot of industry standard features, marketing my friend, now the pentium M is interesting, its like intel copying AMD when it comes to mhz/performance type crap

 

[Zepper]

Centrino is an idea/technology one will avoid if one cares about having a choice of operating systems.
.bh.
:brrrrrrrrr... Looks like 4 deg was the high for today here - temp's already headed south.

 

[NFactor]

The Centrino mark itself is only for pure marketing purposes, the card is only 802.11b anyway. Now the Pentium M, that is one nice chip.

 

[vegetation]

It's a great idea, and personally I can't why anybody would buy a non-Centrino laptop (except maybe an AMD mobile processor...I've heard "okay" thinks about those, nothing exceptional). The pentium 4 processors that manufacturers put in laptops are just ridiculous... They're hot and they absolutely eat a battery for lunch...

They are not ridiculous, they just appeal to a different market. For example, it's not that hard to find a $600 celeron laptop. At that price I could easily buy two units for what you paid on your Centrino.

 

[us3rnotfound]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Centrino is an idea/technology one will avoid if one cares about having a choice of operating systems.
.bh.
:brrrrrrrrr... Looks like 4 deg was the high for today here - temp's already headed south.

bh?

 

[Zepper]

My initials.

 

[eLinux]

Originally posted by: vegetation

It's a great idea, and personally I can't why anybody would buy a non-Centrino laptop (except maybe an AMD mobile processor...I've heard "okay" thinks about those, nothing exceptional). The pentium 4 processors that manufacturers put in laptops are just ridiculous... They're hot and they absolutely eat a battery for lunch...

They are not ridiculous, they just appeal to a different market. For example, it's not that hard to find a $600 celeron laptop. At that price I could easily buy two units for what you paid on your Centrino.

Well, you're right...maybe my wording was a bit off. My needs required a long battery life... No way to get a power adapter plugged in for my laptop in some of my programming classes in school, and I needed a laptop wich a very long battery life...

The P M met my needs.