Experiences with HP, Compaq?

[StefanEßer]

On 2003-12-24 10:50 -0500, Martin Cracauer <cracauer at cons.org> wrote:
> > > The specs for the two notebooks are nearly identical: AMD Athlon XP-M
> > > 2500+, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HD, ATI Mobility graphics, USB, FireWire,
> > > CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive.  I don't expect the built-in wireless (11g) will
> > > ever work, but I'd like to know 100Base-T does.  "16-bit Sound
> > > Blaster Pro-compatible audio" could be anything, I suppose.

The -current NDIS driver framework does already support the Broadcom 
802.11g chip (assuming that is what's in that system), though as of 
now without support for WEP.

> >     For about that same price, Best Buy has an eMachines laptop w/17"
> > widescreen (1280x768) LCD, the same Athlon-M, and the same ATI video
> > chip.
> 
> I looked at that part yesterday.  For $800 (if you manage to get the
> mail-in-rebates) you can get that thing with a Celeron 2.4 GHz and the
> Intel 852 GM graphics, or as you say a more expensive model with an
> Athlon and ATI graphics.

Beware: The P4 based Celerons are just a rip-off!

Expect a Celeron with 2.4GHz to consume as much power as a desktop
P4 (it does not support SpeedStep !) but do perform no better than
a PIII at half the clock speed !!!

(Exception to the rule: Multimedia applications using SSE2 instructions
and running within the small L2 cache of the P4-Celeron.)

A shared memory graphics chip does not help at all, since the CPU 
has to access RAM much more often than a P4 (which has about 4 times
the memory bandwidth requirement of a PIII or Centrino or Athlon 
running at the same speed).

> I think I would have bought the Celeron version if they had it
> in-store which they didn't and I cannot mailorder it because it will
> not arrive in time to use the mail-in-rebate (one of the most awful
> aspects of current U.S. corporate practice from a German standpoint,
> BTW). 
> 
> Anyway, I had a closer look and the whole thing feels so flimsy and
> cheap mechanically-wise that I am pretty much put off it.  I might
> have a second look these days but I really wouldn't like to buy a
> notebook with a keyboard that breaks.
> 
> But hey, it's widescreen and a 2.4 GHz Celeron for $800.  Mumble.
> 
> >     I have no idea if FreeBSD will run on it.
> 
> Should be fine, at least on the Intel part, including graphics.  I
> don't know what chipset the AMD version uses.

The Rage Mobility in the Athlon based machine should be well supported.

Regards, STefan