I have been waiting a while for Sony to come out with something like this. If the review is half as good as I think it will be, you can kiss another $3,000 of mine good-bye! :drool:
[quote author=“JMR”]The U50 uses a Celeron M. I am pretty sure the CPU does support speed step.
JMR
Nope. Celeron Ms do not have any SpeedStep technology enabled. Yeah, it’s actually on the chip but it’s disabled in addition to 512KB of disabled cache. So, the Celeron M cannot dynamically adjust its frequency like the Pentium M.
The Celeron M is based on the Banias core so it does have some power saving techniques from the Pentium M. It has various sleep modes like the Pentium M but it does not support the Deep Sleep modes of the Pentium M. Also, the even at the same sleep modes, the Celeron M uses up to 30% more power consumption.
In terms of performance, the Celeron M can actually keep up with the Pentium M in most benchmarks only scoring marginally lower due to the smaller cache size.
Yes, all Celeron M chips run at full speed (including the ULV models). So, yes 900Mhz means 900Mhz all the time.
Trust me. Celeron M has no SpeedStep technology enabled at all. I say enabled because the unit is actually there on every Celeron M chip but it’s purposely disabled by Intel. That said, the Celeron M is still going to run a lot more battery efficient than a regular Mobile Celeron or Pentium 4-M (based on regular Pentium 4 - P6 architechture) because it’s based on the Banias architecture.
You’ll get all the details about the U50 when I’m done with the review. :wink:
As I read the review Drachen posted I am concerned about three things so far:
1) Will it ever make it to the U.S. - thus making it fully English
2) Is the standard battery really 2.5 - 3.5 hours or is it fluff?
3) Will other suppliers carry it other than iCube? This would effectively lower the price (competition benefits us!)
If anyone knows please give your input. Otherwise I will wait for gr00vy0ne’s review. I will certainly buy this VAIO. It is just a question of when. I have waited this long, so I can wait a little longer to make an educated purchase. :wink:
Best bet would be to pool money and get someone who speaks japanese to get these for us. I would trust some of the regulars here.
This way has proven useful but is a bit tricky as we are talking BIG $$$.
I sure would like to save $500 on one of these. (It tends to make the buying experience considerably more pleasurable )
I use a rule when I make decisions like that. It is called the profit / hassle ratio. In this case the hassle far outweighs the profit, which leads me to say ‘no’. There are too many variables in that process and too many things to go wrong to save a few hundred dollars.
)
