Comments on: Minilaptop CPU showdown: Atom vs. Neo vs. Nano

When you're on top, everyone else wants a piece of your action. Two new potential Atom-killers have launched recently, each looking to steal some marketshare from Intel with variations on the Netbook theme.

[bwahblah]

this is a bad comparison as you cannot fully attribute performance to the mere differences in processors, in using different netbooks made by different manufacturers. Ceteris Paribus does not hold

[willnotfail]

Exactly:
Your comparing a NETBOOK, with no DVD Drive to a full blown and very light notebook the DV2:

HP Pavilion dv2 (dv2-1030us) features the following specifications:

* 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo Processor MV-40
* 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM 666MHz (1 Dimm)
* Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with Service Pack 1
* 12.1" WXGA High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1280x800)
* 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 Graphics (512MB)
* 802.11a/b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth
* 5-in-1 card reader
* External Lightscribe SuperMulti 8x DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
* 6-Cell Li-ion battery
* Dimensions: 11.50 in (L) x 9.45 in (D) x 0.93 in (min H) / 1.29 in (max. H)
* Weight: 3.95 lbs (with 6-cell battery)
* Price as configured: $749

2 TOTAL DIFFERENT ANIMALS, If you want light weight PAPER WEIGHT THEN THE NET BOOK WILL WORK FOR YOU, TRY WATCHING A DVD ON IT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>LOL

[Notoapplefanbois]

Someone's been told to write equal results....

Everyone who's studied this market knows the Neo wins in multitasking and therefore encoding, maybe if itunes favored the intel atom then it would make more sense. But the Neo should win multitasking and Jalbum.

and the Via should win for battery life, unless you've allowed speedstep to step in and that would be an unfair test.

[jpmccloud01]

I have to say that this comparison is just wrong. The only way that these tests would be real is if there where multiply systems tested because of the fact that each system has a different configuration under the hood. Different hard drives, graphics co processors, board designs, and battery life. Intel now has other atom chips in some of the machines like the dell mini and sony viao. get a better cross section of systems then retest or better yet what if these companies allow to build there own systems with these little upstart chips then you really can test properly before such a bad post on this great cite

[r3loaded]

Why not run PCMark benchmarks, at the very least? iTunes encoding is a very specific task, one that fewer and fewer people are doing nowadays. Besides, who ever heard of ripping music to their netbook instead of their main system? Benchmarks for browsers would similarly be more useful.

[Brent212]

Ha ha. True. Don't a lot of or most netbooks not even have optical drives?

[streamline35]

Seems to me that they were running far more of a practical test than a theoretical test. For example, seeing as how there's nothing with the Neo running XP, then there wasn't any point in running an XP test on it. I thought the results were plenty fair, and it was already pointed out in the article that they tests weren't perfect because they were running on different OSs and with differences in RAM, but that in anecdotal usage, there wasn't much difference. Besides, some may be slightly faster than others, but in the end, they are still low powered netbooks designed for portability and long battery life, not computing speed.

If you want a perfectly equal, theoretical comparison between the three different processors, stop complaining and look elsewhere. This article has already stated that it is not it.

[Forked_Tongue]

"Minilaptop CPU showdown: Atom vs. Neo vs. Nano"

with a title like this how can you state later on in the article:

"so this is not an exact comparison"

some showdown, you didn't help anyone who read the article any. What you might want to point out is what specs each netbook had at the time of the testing, some of the limitations of such systems (like any Atom based netbook has a 2GB memory limit imposed by Intel, which may limit it's ability to adapt to the user's needs in the future), if the netbook has a DVI/HDMI/VGA output, and other comparisons of feature sets. Cite the subjective good/bad compared to one another in detail like screen resolution/glare/brightness/view angles, audio quality/loudness, keyboard, vent locations, etc to allow people to get a better perspective of how these item rates against one another. In other words do a more thourough comparison, there is a winner, it just may be in each category and not overall.

[shailyait]

It appears there is still too much misunderstanding about the design goals of atom,nano or neo processors.These netbook processors are designed to have lower TDP, ie lower power consumption.
The atom has a TDP of 2 watts(standard model), whereas if you see nano or neo, it is 15-20 TDP.
So is it fair to compare atom with others, if it is churning out more processing power consuming 1/10 the power of other processors.
Compare nano and neo with core2 ULV which will fall in same thermal design and see the benchmark results.This is the reason , because of their inferior product offering AMD and VIA are not actively promoting their processors

[ajnauron]

These tests are bunk. Those CPUs aren't the same Ghz so you can't compare performance per clock, or even performance in general.

[johnsmith67]

that was a waste of time to read that review / benchmarks.

[rjmdubois]

This is one of the worst, non-technical reviews I have seen.

[JavaEEdev]

Worst cnet article ever. This author is brainless. He should go back to spinning fleetwood mac albums. The comments written above are all better than the article, and usually the posts are just fanboy flame wars.

[DMBoricua]

these comments are all making me lol :) sincerely I believe Intel Atom processors are better overall IMO.

[mousou01]

NC20 performance boost technique
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA7O4v1QWe0

[cweiler2004]

For a few bucks more- a laptop gives good.

[ednerdtheonly]

Wow cnet, why do you have to break my heart? This is a worthless article at best, if not downright misleading. I was expecting far more from this great website.

This is clearly a case of trying to write an article to conform to a catchy title. Mr. Ackerman, I sure hope that this one gets rewritten.

[willnotfail]

Your comparing a NETBOOK, with no DVD Drive to a full blown and very light notebook the DV2:

HP Pavilion dv2 (dv2-1030us) features the following specifications:

* 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo Processor MV-40
* 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM 666MHz (1 Dimm)
* Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with Service Pack 1
* 12.1" WXGA High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1280x800)
* 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 Graphics (512MB)
* 802.11a/b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth
* 5-in-1 card reader
* External Lightscribe SuperMulti 8x DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
* 6-Cell Li-ion battery
* Dimensions: 11.50 in (L) x 9.45 in (D) x 0.93 in (min H) / 1.29 in (max. H)
* Weight: 3.95 lbs (with 6-cell battery)
* Price as configured: $749

2 TOTAL DIFFERENT ANIMALS, If you want light weight PAPER WEIGHT THEN THE NET BOOK WILL WORK FOR YOU, TRY WATCHING A DVD ON IT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>LOL

[Ah_knaa]

this is probably the dumbest comparison test I have seen.

[tipoo_]

You even stated in the article that they don't all have the same amount of RAM. Lame comparison.

[MrMurder]

If the Pavilion dv2z ran XP, it would have whooped the competion. I'd go for the Pavilion dv2z (better keep my cooling pad at hand because it does lots of heat even with Cool n' Quiet). And, it can handle HD graphics thanks to the mobility radeon discrete graphics card. Besides, I don't understand why ultraportables are downright expensive. I mean you just have to build a laptop without an optical drive or a really small laptop with an optical drive, right? And you don't need the DDR3 RAM. DDR2 is fine. I'm overall impressed with the dv2z (even though I didn't take it out for a test drive), but I think HP could have put in a faster proccessor (a ultra-low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo or at least a Core 2 Solo).

[SpeedyVT]

YOUR F*CKING DUMB*SS Dan Ackerman... How can you make a valid benchmark on these processors with out running them ON STOCK OPERATING SYSTEMS **** YOU SHOULD CRAWL BACK INTO YOUR MOTHER'S WOMB!!! ****!!! FAILURE!!! FAILURE!!! GET OUT NOW... NOW... YOUR FIRED! Well if I was your boss I would. These benchmarks are such waste please take your crap and go. O.o physically the design on the AMD Neo is far faster then the Atom and real benchmarks even show it DUMB*SS... I don't know anything about the VIA but I've heard some nice things about battery life though. Stop pocketing money from Intel and get a real career.