CNet has a roundup of Intel Centrino and Pentium M laptops:
From the start, notebook vendors have raced to speed up their notebooks but almost always at the expense of battery life: faster processors meant limited time away from an outlet. Thankfully, times change. Rather than throwing more megahertz at computing tasks, Intel’s new Pentium M processor, which makes its long-awaited debut today, significantly increases notebook battery life. One notebook we tested–IBM’s ThinkPad T40–hit the seven-hour mark.
There are also seperate reviews of the seven models. The first three are Centrinos, they run Pentium M’s with the 855 chipset, and they have Intel’s wireless pro (802.11b) chipset:
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Toshiba Tecra M1: 1.6 Pentim M, 60 gig hard drive, DVD burner, bluetooth, 5 hour battery life.
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Acer TravelMate 803LCi: 1.6, 60 gigs, 512 megs RAM, 64 meg video card, 15 inch screen.
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Gateway 450: 1.6GHz PM, 60gigs, 256megs,32 megs ATI M7. It’s light, thin and sexy. They have an entry level model for $1499
The rest of the pack runs Pentium M but not one of Intel’s other required components. Consider this corporate BS more than anything else. Anything that runs Pentium M should have pretty swet battery life:
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Compaq Evo N620c: 1.5GHz PM, 40 gigs, 512megs, 32 megs ATI Mobility Radeon 7500.
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Dell Inspiron 600m: 1.6GHz PM, 40 gigs, 512megs, 64 megs ATI Mobility Radeon 9000.
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Dell Latitude D600: 1.6GHz PM, 40 gigs, 512megs, 32 megs ATI Mobility Radeon 9000.
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IBM Thinkpad T40: 1.6GHz PM, 80 gigs (4200RPM drive tho), 512 megs, 32 megs ATI Mobility Radeon 9000.
There is also a product comparison chart that does a really good job at not actually comparing the models. Also, if you click on the ‘specs‘ tab of the review, you don’t actually get any specs. You just get a few disclaimers. Haha, joke is on you.
Overall I was quite dissapointed with CNet. I had major user interface issues and the complete lack of any information beyond superficial oohs and aahs pissed me off to no end. In order to find out basic specs on these machines, I had to scroll down to the bottom of the ‘battery life’ page of several reviews. Blegh.
It looks like the Pentium M computers will be $300-500 more expensive than their P4m counterparts. That’s okay though. If I can get 5-7 hours on a standard battery with a small sleek laptop, I think it’s worth a few extra bucks. I would definately like to see a more detailed roundup done by one of the more hardware oriented sites. How it looks is only a portion of what is important.