Intel Core 2 CULV Roundup: Who Needs Atom?
by Jarred Walton on February 4, 2010 4:00 AM ESTCULV: Great for Mobility
If we just limit ourselves to a discussion of long(er) battery life laptops and netbooks, the rundown simplifies a lot. Your choices are between Atom and CULV, with better battery life and lower performance on the Atom side. NVIDIA's ION platform offers better graphics and video support, but you're still saddled with a slow Atom CPU. Pricing is closer to $500 on most ION netbooks, and opinions on the size are split between those who feel 10.1" is fine and those that feel it's too small - I'm in the latter camp. Battery life, incidentally, is slightly worse with ION than CULV laptops. As an alternative, the ASUS 1201N goes for dual-core Atom 330 and ION, further reducing battery life but improving the form factor if you're not a fan of 10.1" keyboards. CULV is still faster in non-gaming tasks, but gaming and video playback work quite well on the 1201N. CULV is a great way to balance performance, battery life, and cost while keeping a small size. Given the choice, we'd either go with one of the CULV models or we'd move up to CULV with switchable graphics; Atom remains more of a secondary (or tertiary) computer. Sure they cost more, but we feel the cost is justified.
Which is the "best" of the above options we just listed? Honestly, that's a question you need to answer for yourself, and hopefully we've given you enough data to determine where you stand. Right now, I'm going to recommend CULV for most users looking at a decent laptop, simply because it fits my mobile lifestyle. If I were in need of a new laptop and only had $300, I'd skip Atom and save my pennies until I could afford a CULV laptop instead. They may be almost twice the cost, but in my book they're more than twice as good. With CULV I feel I can do everything I need without serious compromises; Atom is just too slow to be my only PC. We're very curious to see if the new Arrandale CULV offerings can improve on current CULV or if they'll be a case of two steps forward, two steps back. We should know some time in the next month or two.
We looked at three CULV laptops today, and unfortunately we had some fundamental complaints with both of the 11.6" units. We didn't like the Acer AS1810T keyboard much, and the Dell 11z touchpad was, in a word, horrible. There's another option that we can recommend for those that want to stay close to netbook sizes: the ASUS UL20a. The chassis is essentially the same as the 1201N, which we liked quite a lot, with battery life listed at 7.5 hours. It includes an SU7300 CPU, but memory is cut to just 2GB compared to 4GB on competing offerings. Still, 12.1" is close enough to 11.6" that few would complain. The only remaining drawback is that you lose HDMI output, which the Dell 11z, Acer Timeline, and Gateway EC5409u all provide. Overall, we feel the best current CULV designs priced at $600 or less all come from Acer and Gateway.
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The Gateway EC5409u is an excellent choice if you like the larger keyboard and LCD, and subjectively it's my favorite of the bunch. The Acer Timeline 3810TZ and 4810TZ are close behind, with keyboards that are fine for typing (but unfortunately no aluminum cover unless you buy one of the more expensive models). We've tested the EC5409u, and we've looked at the Timeline 3810, 4810, and 5810 at local stores. Frankly, we're impressed with what Acer and Gateway have put together, and we're happy to award all four models our Bronze Editors' Choice award. The 11.6" Acer and Gateway models have quirks (specifically, the keyboard), but the 13.3", 14.0", and 15.6" offerings are all very good and worth a serious look. The only caveat is that we only recommend the versions with dual-core CPUs, so make sure you order the right model - the Pentium SU4100 or Core 2 Duo SU7300 are both much better than the Pentium SU2700 or Core 2 Solo SU3500.
Why only a bronze? Because there's still room for improvement; think of this as an "A-" award rather than an "A+" - and if you're keeping score, that means the ASUS UL80Vt is still our preferred solution. Give us a better LCD panel and more of the aluminum shell on the EC5409u and we're looking at a Gold award. Now we just need to wait and see what companies can do with Arrandale CULV. It took a couple years for Core 2 CULV to hit its stride, but hopefully the Arrandale laptops will build on the good (low price and great battery life) rather than returning to the CULV of old (underpowered and overpriced).
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JarredWalton - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
There's not a ton of flex - nowhere near as bad as some older MSI laptops, for example - but it does have a bit of spring and it's a "soft touch" keyboard, which just feels mushy to me. I prefer a bit more click, and the spacing and shape of the keys on the 1810 wasn't as nice as the 11z. But, that's a lot of personal preference so if you like the 1810 keyboard there's nothing else I'd complain about with the design.OCedHrt - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link
Maybe it is just me, but the graphs would be a lot clear if the processors were listed out.I assume the power draw graphs at the end of the battery page is based on the run time and battery capacity?
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link
Power graphs are based on power draw from the outlet, at 100nits LCD brightness, with all power saving features enabled (balanced power profile).Adding the CPU to each line compresses the graphs in a way I don't like. Just to quickly list the various CPUs:
Acer AO751h = Atom Z520
Acer AS1810T = Core 2 Duo SU7300
ASUS 1201N = Atom 330
ASUS 1005HA = Atom N280
ASUS UL80Vt = SU7300 (dark gold = OCed to 1.73GHz)
Dell Inspiron 11z = Pentium SU4100
Dell Studio 14z = P8600
Gateway EC5409u = Pentium SU4100
Gateway NV58 = Pentium T4300
Gateway NV52 = Athlon X2 QL-64
Gigabyte M1022 = Atom N280
HP Mini 311 = ION with Atom N280
MSI X610 = Athlon MV-40
Ralos - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
The title of the article suggest this is a CULV vs Atom showdown. When I look at the graphics, I don't see this, I see a bunch of Acer vs Asus vs HP vs Dell and from what I gather, performance seems to be similar whatever brand the same CPU is sold with, so it really should show the name/speed of the CPUs in there.JarredWalton - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
Per request, I've updated the chart colors to highlight other important systems. Atom 330 (ASUS 1201N) is orange, MSI X610 (Athlon MV-40 with HD 4330) is red, ASUS 1005PE (Atom N450 Pine Trail) is dark green, and ASUS 1005HA (Atom N280 Diamondville) is black. Hopefully that will help read the charts.OCedHrt - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link
Well, thanks for trying anyways :)I guess my question is where a Z550 would stack up. Its safe to say it's 50% faster than the Z520, but I don't see that laptop in the performance line up.
I'd wager that it's marginally faster than the ASUS 1005HA with less power draw (but how much less?).
Basically, I'm trying to figure out what is the possibility of a CULV Sony X laptop in the near future ;) It may be unlikely simply due to die size..
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link
I think Z550 gets paired up with the GMA 500 chipset, which is good for HD video decode but I'm not sure that it's actually worth using. I know Linux users don't like it because it's a new proprietary GPU with no driver support.My experience (which is limited to the Acer 751h) was that it frequently crashed; what I don't know is if that was the chipset, or just a poor sample laptop from Acer. I also know that I've heard from a few readers saying they have one that crashes all the time as well. Hopefully it's the 751h and not the chipset.
As far as power draw, it should be about the same as the other Atom laptops - probably more than the 751h and 1005HA, given the 2.0GHz clock. Even then, look at the two N280 units (ASUS 1005HA and Gigabyte M1022) and you can see that not all netbooks are created equal. The Gigabyte seems to be a poor example of a netbook, though, with much worse battery life than the competition.
At 2.0GHz Atom Z550 will still be much slower than any CULV, so I'd recommend sticking with CULV unless the pricing is very compelling.
OCedHrt - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link
The Z550 actually has a slightly lower (0.1) TDP than the N280. It's not the pricing that's compelling, but the form factor: 1.6 lb 11.1" 10.95"(W) x 0.55"(H) x 7.29"(D)KaarlisK - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
Power consumption should be lower - the TDP of the entire Poulsbo chipset is only 2.3W. However... the damn GMA 500 is HORRIBLY slow. Even for Aero. And Intel still hasn't (and probably won't) released WDDM1.1/DX10 drivers, even though the hardware supports it. Also, the driver doesn't support 8bpp color at all.OCedHrt - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
Best bet is probably to not run windows on this one ^^I really wish there was a CULV option, even a core solo would be much better.
I saw in some forum that they got OS X running on it. *shudder*