# centrino vs. atom?



## brentduo

my current laptop has a centrino 1.6ghz. i'm thinking of getting one of those lenovo's with an atom 1.6. how would it compare performance wise?


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## TrainTrackHack

Firstly, "Centrino" is not a CPU, it's simply a an Intel-based mobile Platform, or a set of specs. It's like a marketing scheme... Centrino-branded laptops simply have Intel-CPUs and all kinds of Intel-certified hardware.

Anyways...

I believe Centrino laptops have a Core2 CPU, probably a dual-core, whereas Atoms are based on a less powerful architecture and are single-core... Centrino wins performance-wise.


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## Gareth

It depends what branding of Centrino it is. I recommend you download CPU-Z and tell us specifically what CPU you have. There has been many Centrino brand CPUs.


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## diduknowthat

As long as it's a Pentium M or better, it'll be faster than Intel Atom processors. Atom CPUs are VERY slow for their speed.


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## Kewl Munky

My acer aspire one has an intel atom at 1.6ghz, and I think it runs just fine. The atom also has hyperthreading by the way.


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## Shane

I heard teh Atom was quite good,have you considred the Centrino2?

http://www.intel.com/products/centrino/


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## diduknowthat

Nevakonaza said:


> I heard teh Atom was quite good,have you considred the Centrino2?
> 
> http://www.intel.com/products/centrino/



Atoms are good for low powered computing, but unless we're talking tiny netbooks here, I would say going with a core 2 duo would be better, even if it's a LV or ULV one.


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## brentduo

sorry guys mine is a pentium M. My current laptop is big I think a 16.5" screen, I want somthing I can use comfortably on a plane or in a car. my laptop was $1200 new. I was just wondering, since my laptop is about 4 years old, and only has 512mb ram, if a newer one thats around $400 with 1g ram would be comparable or possibly better. I am happy with the speed I have now. I just hate the short battery life, I am hoping a tiny screen would alleviate the battery issues.


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## Kewl Munky

My netbook gets 7 hours of battery with the 6 cell battery it has. It was $400 by the way.


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## brentduo

Are you kiddiing???  I am lucky to get 2 hours.... i gotta pick one of those up


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## deankenny

2 hours is about average i get about 1.5 hours on high performance


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## diduknowthat

brentduo said:


> Are you kiddiing???  I am lucky to get 2 hours.... i gotta pick one of those up



That's cause Atoms use a completely different architecture than core 2 duos. They're built ground up to be highly mobile and low powered CPUs.

My laptop gets about 3 hours on max screen brightness w/ wifi on with a 6 cell battery.


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## Kewl Munky

As everyone said, the atom isn't meant to do high powered processes likes games, at least nothing recent. But if you just want internet, msn, music, videos, and maybe like really old games, or flash games like on addictinggames.com, then an aspire one is for you. The main reason that I get such a long battery life is that the atom uses only 6 watts of power.


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## FerDeLance

brentduo said:


> my current laptop has a centrino 1.6ghz. i'm thinking of getting one of those lenovo's with an atom 1.6. how would it compare performance wise?



Why dont you run CPU Free Benchmark 2.2 on your laptop. I just ran it on my NC10 which has an Atom 1.6, and it scored 74.86. I would be interested in a comparison with other ultraportable laptops running the Pentium M CPUs


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## scooter

You can get more than an hour on battery??

wow..

My Asus & Acer both drain soooo fast!


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## FerDeLance

scooter said:


> You can get more than an hour on battery??
> 
> wow..
> 
> My Asus & Acer both drain soooo fast!





you are joking right? 6 hours easily with NC10


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## Geoff

scooter said:


> You can get more than an hour on battery??
> 
> wow..
> 
> My Asus & Acer both drain soooo fast!


I hope you are joking.  With my Asus Eee PC 1000HA (1.6GHz Atom and 6-Cell Battery), I get upwards of 6-7 hours with WiFi off and the lowest brightness, and I get about 4-5 hours with brightness at 75-90% and WiFi on.

Performance wise the Atom is a great processor, it does great for watching movies, light Photoshop work, creating documents/presentations, etc.  I even played a bit of CS on it.


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## maryyugo

*Free Benchmark 2.2 on Thinkpad with 1.7Ghz P M*



FerDeLance said:


> Why dont you run CPU Free Benchmark 2.2 on your laptop. I just ran it on my NC10 which has an Atom 1.6, and it scored 74.86. I would be interested in a comparison with other ultraportable laptops running the Pentium M CPUs



Thinkpad T41 with Pentium M at 1.7 Ghz returned 55.18 seconds ("less is better").  But this is a large 5 pound machine which originally cost much more than a netbook though the used price in good shape is now about the same.  I'd say the netbook does Ok for the size, cost and weight but if you have a need for speed, a Thinkpad X60 or X300 with a Core 2 duo CPU and solid state hard drive should do the trick.  I can hardly wait for the new i7 in laptop trim.


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