AMD vs. Intel: Battery Life Investigated

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Yes lets do that review, making sure to mention numerous times that these laptops are 'as close to identical as you'll get'.
 


Not true. I work for a medium sized corporation and battery life is a MORE important factor than HD playback or the ability to play games. Why? Because we don't play games, we do work. When work needs to be mobile, battery life matters.

Now, if I was buying the laptop for myself, yes, graphics would be important.




This statement alone speaks worlds of your logic and bias: "You can't seriously be telling me anybody would want that intel because of it's battery life. For what?"



If AMD was more efficient you'd be having a green parade of energy efficiency and battery life.
 
So anyone who doesn't agree with your point of view is an intel apologist? How about a realist!! You have the point of view that if it is not bias for AMD then it is biased for Intel. In your eyes there are no fair reviews unless AMD wins...even when the article says AMD is a much better gamer that is not good enough for you because it didn't win the battery life contest. Yes, like TC stated in answer to Jaydeejohn, there would never be a review of anything if reviewers had to wait for the "next" thing...as soon as one thing is released the next thing is around the corner. You have to go with what you have. Gateway sent them two computers, they compared them based on battery life. How the hell is that showing bias against AMD? So I guess they should not have compared the two computers they were sent, only reviewed the AMD, sung its praises, made a side note that Gateway was dumb enough to build some intel piece of trash also, and send it back without review.....But I'm sure even that you would find fault with because intel must have paid them off to make mention of an obviously terrible intel based laptop. The only world you'll be happy in is one where only AMD exist, but bad news for you, that isn't going to happen, so I guess you are destined to be a very unhappy person.
 
If you had no need for graphics then why would you buy a laptop with the best igp you can get?

More to the point, why would you review battery life summarising that 'if you dont care about graphics' after choosing one machine that has the best igp you can get inside it?

That's exactly what happened there. The reviewer wants to review laptops for people who don't care about graphics? Find another AMD laptop that isn't using the 3200 HD, then compare. Don't say they are both almost identical then show one part of the picture that favours one of them.
 


If you do a comparison of IGPs you're going to find that AMD wins, plain and simple. That would be the result.

People like me would read it, and store it our brain as information.
 



Valid point.
 
So, after all Ive written, thats all anyone besides jennyh has to say? If the timings off, whats the point? If new cpus are coming from Intel, and someone here asks " shoukld I buy now", do you answer, yes, these are here now, dont look ahead to whats coming?
Heres the bottomline of the "preview"
"For now, if you're looking for an inexpensive laptop (not a netbook), you need reasonable battery life, and you don't care about graphics performance we suggest saving up the extra $50-$100 for an Intel-based system."
So, to me, this is crap too, because if it doesnt involve graphics, you may as well buy a netbook, but hey, they wont do those comparisons, will they?
Notice the ()? regarding the netbook?
This is going against the grain, as netbooks are kickin serious butt for this type of usage, or "if you dont care about graphics performance"
Intels market here is struggling against itself. Netbook IS all you need for this type of usage, so my advice is, save even more and buy one
 
you seem to think the reviewers are in total control of what they get....they are not. Gateway (in this case) sent them the products for review to get some free publicity for their products and something to quote on their website. I'm sure the reviewer had no say at all in what was sent.
Even though it is not your top priority, for the majority of people using a laptop battery life is second only to cpu speed. As long as they can stream videos and play a dvd most people are happy with their laptop graphics. As I stated before, not a lot of people do serious gaming on laptops. That is not what they are made for....but for people like you the article gave you all the info you need to make a decision if gaming IS your top priority. After reading the article anyone concerned about the better gaming laptop would choose the AMD. So how was AMD hurt at all by this article?
 
Belial, the point is :-

Two 'almost identical' laptops.

One of them has 30% better battery life.

-----

A lot of people reading that are automatically going to assume that if you get 2 (actual) close to identical intel and AMD laptops, the intel is going to have 30% better battery life.

Stick an Nvidia 9400 in that intel and what do you think would happen? For starters, they'd be an awful lot closer to 'identical' and funnily enough so would the battery life be. Anyone reading that who didn't actually have much of a clue would be under the false impression that the intel would still have 30% better battery life.

*Surely* you understand this?
 
"So, after all Ive written, thats all anyone besides jennyh has to say? If the timings off, whats the point? If new cpus are coming from Intel, and someone here asks " shoukld I buy now", do you answer, yes, these are here now, dont look ahead to whats coming? "

yes, that is exactly what I say. If you wait for what is coming you will never buy anything, because something big is always coming.

"For now, if you're looking for an inexpensive laptop (not a netbook), you need reasonable battery life, and you don't care about graphics performance we suggest saving up the extra $50-$100 for an Intel-based system."

How can you disagree with that? That is simply a fact.

"because if it doesnt involve graphics, you may as well buy a netbook, but hey, they wont do those comparisons, will they? "

Waaaay off. Netbooks barely have enough cpu power to surf the net. They could never hope to do the kind of WORK most people do on a laptop at a reasonable speed. You and Jenny seem to think there is only gaming and surfing the net, and nothing in between.
 
I totally agree reviewers are stuck, and specifically defended Cleeve adamantly on this, as well as other things but mostly this point.
However, look at Cleeves approach, his unsettled ideas about his findings, in his own article. He went into it further with the next article as we all know
Here, we see assunptions being made as to performance, then, you have to ask yourself, whats the point of the srticle? They mention gaming with assumptions, then they mention everything else, again with assumptions, so whats the point of the followup article at all then?
And, as for this "preview", they ended up dividing and dividing down to a smaller and smaller market, and buck the trend against the netbooks.
To me, its biased driven, profiteering driven filled with self promotion about a subject they already completed with the self assumptions, and is totally irrelvent, playing to a smaller and smaller market.
But, hey, it does make Intel look good
 


Assuming someone didn't read the entire article, but just skipped to the conclusion, they would see that the intel has a better battery life, but its at the expense of better graphics. So they would buy the intel if top priority is battery life, and buy the amd if top priority is graphics. That is made very clear throughout the article. If someone is not smart enough to get that out of the article they won't be smart enough to use either computer. As a consumer it is up to you to actually pay attention to more than one line of an article. If all they read is these computers are nearly identicle, then they will buy the cheaper one anyway. Which would make you happy. If they don't care about battery life like you claim most people dont, then they will buy the AMD. Which will make you happy. If they want the stronger cpu and longer battery life and don't care about graphics, they will buy the intel because of this horrible bias article, and you will be angy.
 
Yes we're now at the market for people who want a portable 'notebook' that doesn't need any graphical stuff done at all.

Is that what Intel win at? Do the reviewers know that an intel igp cannot contend with an AMD or Nvidia, so they now base review conclusions with the caveat of 'no graphical work required'?
 



why not get a netbook then, if all you are doing are word and excel with some internet browsing thrown in, a high end netbook would do all that, unless u want to hook it up to a 30' screen for added workspace, then more power would be needed.
 


In cleeve's initial review the findings were accurate in the comparisons of those two machines. That AMD machine sucked for the price. The problem came when trying to make a broader assumption based on that. In revisiting the article the opposite happened, and AMD was given the best case scenario and the i7 was given the worst case scenario. That was the least impressive i7 build I've ever seen. So again, it is a fair comparison between those two machines, but you cannot use that to make a broader assumption that for the same price AMD 955 will perform equally to an i7 in most cases. With a more typical i7 build the i7 would have won that by a wider margin. And that was before we had more options in the sub $200 x58 boards.
All comparison articles should be viewed with common sense as comparisons between the two items being reviewed, but the reader should be very careful and examine everything carefully before taking those results and applying them to a wider spectrum of products.
 
First of all, dont kid yourself. Anyone doing "work" on a lappy wont be seeking these
Secondly, Id point you to the comments from here
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Intel-Pine-Trail-View-Launch,8046.html
Its obvious that everyone wants gfx. Its a no brainer. The problem is, Intel doesnt fit in here well at all/ If you want a "work" lappy, you wont be looking for lowend.
If you want to just surf, create a product thats cheap, but has a very high planned obsolesence to it, and upgrade from there, thereby protecting your other markets.
Im no fool.
Why is Intel going SoC on the next iteration of their netbooks? Or better put, what took them so long, and why did they try to keep better combined solutions from this market?
Well, theres ARM out ther IOn etc, and theyre forced to do the logical thing, thus their SoC
By permitting this promotion of Intel on low end lappys is bias, as really, theres no market for low end lappys that dont have decent gfx
 
we all know this little review is aimed at back to school people, the people affected would be people whom actually glimpse at tech sites and reviews before buying, but don't have the expertise of looking under the hood to understand it all.
 

ding dong ding! best answer!!
 
Ive said this before, Ill say it again. Im tired of having to bring bad news for all the people on the gfx forum asking "will my g45 play...." in my lappy, as they cant have an alternative, theyre stuck. Its alot of people folks, and how many more on other sites? And others who simply dont know where to look?
If gfx is to be so lowly considered as Intel has done, then to me, Anand is doing a disservice to its readers by promoting this crap, because, there litlle 1 line mention of not "doing gfx" wont help the purchasers of these products down the road, and thats alot of people
 
A lot of you seem confused by this, but lots of people run cpu intensive apps on their laptops that have nothing to do with graphics. A netbook cannot run these apps. So lots of people look for the strongest cpu and longest battery life in their budget when shopping for a laptop. Most of these users will never touch a game more demanding than tetris. The vast majority of people who buy laptops fit into this category. I know in a gaming enthusiast forum it can be hard to believe, but its true. For people with those needs and the budget for it, the intel is the better choice. If the next generation of AMD laptops brings stronger cpus, better graphics, and longer battery life than intel for a lower price, you would never see me recommend an intel laptop to anyone. I you can bet every reviewer would do the same thing. When it comes to recommending something to someone, it isn't about YOUR preferences and needs, its about theirs. That is why reviews often spell out contradictary recs...IF you want blah, blah, blah, then product A is the way to go, but if you want buggettybuggety, then product B is the way to go. Every now and then a product will come out that has it all, and can be universally recommended. Hopefully AMDs next laptop will be one of those and we can all be happy
 



example please? video encode (if they are doing this on these things then wtf? get a desktop ffs)? calculations?

the people they are aiming this to is going to be playing games, listening to music, watching movies (chances are HD if they want to see something new), internet browsing and doing (home)work on their laptops

of those, two of the things I've listed are a nightmare or at least isn't ideal, and the rest can be done on a netbook.
 


Then those people made a bad purchase to begin with by buying something that doesn't fit their needs....that is like bashing AMD for their weak laptop CPUs. Everything is a tradeoff unless you can afford to have it all. People have a choice, and it is up to them to make informed decisions. You can get a strong cpu with weak graphics and long battery life, or a weak cpu with strong (by comparison) graphics and short battery life. If you buy the wrong one for your needs don't blame the company who made it. If a guy who needs to haul lumber around goes out and buys a Porshe Boxter don't blame Porshe....or do you think every product should spell out on its box exactly what it can and can't be used for.
 
intels are always going to have better battery life by virtue of the fact that their igp's are terrible. So when intel are spouting 'BATTERY LIFE' just remember the reason why.

They don't have magical parts, they just have terrible, low-powered igp's. Intels better battery life is not something that should be getting celebrated as an engineering feat, it's like that because of their weak graphical component.
 
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