Number 249 - February 2004

Above the Clouds with Centrino TM
By Christopher Sarson, Windows on the Rockies User Group
Well, here I am, above the clouds on flight AC 580, just about to land in Toronto, and life is good. Sure, I have a job I enjoy, and sure, I've been happily married for forty years, but that's not the focus of my present euphoria. Fact is, I'm writing this review on my new laptop, which is based on the Intel r Centrino TM technology, and that makes me a happy little computer user.    This morning I arrived at Denver airport at 6: 30 a.m., and spent 90 minutes checking my e-mail and sending back some replies using my built-in wireless Wi-Fi connection before the flight was called. On the plane I spent a couple of hours with my video editing program, reviewing scenes from the TV program I'm directing and composing some additional scenes. Now I'm landing, and my battery meter tells me that even after 3V2 hours' work, I still have 40% of my battery charge left! Yikes! Short battery life was gripe #1 about myoid laptop. Now-at last-my battery lasts the length of my journey!    My next biggest gripe concerned power. My old laptop (a 500 Mhz PIll) was fine for word processing and e-mail, but balked at heavy-duty chores like video editing. My new Centrino handles Adobe Premier with barely a hiccup! And even with its (nominal) 1.6 Ghz CPU, it's actually as fast as my 2.6 Ghz desktop! Bliss!!    And the third magic of Centrino is the built-in WiFi connection. At most airports, hotels, Starbucks, there are hot-spots that enable WiFi-compliant 802.llb laptops to access the Internet wirelessly at (on my machine) about 7 megabits per second. (My Windows Update download of all the patches for Windows XP took 20 minutes on my laptop, about three hours on my desktop with a 52 kbps connection! With Centrino, it's like being connected with a T1 line!) And no need to find a telephone line, remember a telephone number, and dial in!	This Centrino technology that makes me so happy includes three components on a laptop: a Pentium M CPU, an 855 system-board chip set, and a Pro/Wireless 2100 network connection-all made by Intel. The Pentium M chip is the first chip built from the ground up to be mobile (most laptop chips are reconfigured desktop parts); it completes more instructions per clock cycle; and it has a level 2 cache twice the size of the current P4 desktop chip-hence its great performance and long battery life. To help battery life even more, Intel has improved its SpeedStep technology, which adjusts the processor speed to match the needs of the current application; also, the new chips use less wattage. And the third component of the Centrino technology is the built-in Wi-Fi technology, which allows the easy wireless connection to the Internet I mentioned above.    But enough of the technology! The bottom line is that I'm more productive, and as a result I can spend my evenings in Toronto relaxing instead of working, and more time at home with family and friends!    As I said earlier, I'm above the clouds with Centrino!    This review is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which TBCS is a member. Christopher Sarson is a past Secretary of APCUG and past President of Windows on the Rockies User Group in Denver, Colorado. He is also the creator and first executive producer of Masterpiece Theatre, and is currently working on Roots of Empathy, a program designed to help young people understand empathy. When he's not above the clouds en route to or from Toronto, he lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Number 249 - February 2004