The AMD Llano Notebook Review: Competing in the Mobile Market
by Jarred Walton & Anand Lal Shimpi on June 14, 2011 12:01 AM ESTBattery Life: All Day Computing
AMD makes a point of their mobile offerings (A/C/E-series APUs) all offering “all day computing”, with a note that “all day” is defined as eight hours or more. While that’s easy to do with a gigantic battery, doing so with the typical 48/56Wh batteries in mainstream laptops is a lot more difficult. One of their test notebooks apparently manages around 10.5 hours (best-case) with a 62Wh battery, compared to 6.5 hours for a similar Core i5-2410M laptop. Without specifics on all the settings, we’ll just say that our results for “similar” laptops don’t show nearly the disparity AMD achieved, but the important point is that AMD is finally competitive in battery life.
We ran our usual series of battery life tests, with the LCDs set for ~100 nits (70% brightness for the Llano laptop). We shut off WiFi for the idle test and mute audio; the Internet test is run over WiFi and repeatedly loads four tabs of content every minute, again with audio muted; finally, the H.264 playback result is done with a set of earbuds connected and WiFi disabled. Here’s how the Llano laptop stacks up to some recently reviewed laptops—you can compare Llano with other laptops in Mobile Bench.
Starting with pure battery life, only three laptops consistently offer longer battery life than the Llano system: the ASUS U41JF, MSI’s X370, and the quad-core Sandy Bridge notebook. Also, the ASUS K53E boasts better battery life in the H.264 playback test, which for whatever reason is a test where SNB has proved particularly potent. Intel’s DXVA decode may be efficient, but it's also possible it's doing less work; we're running the test again with all of AMD's video enhancement features turned off. [Update: I retested with all the AMD video enhancement features disabled, and battery life didn't change, so Intel is simply more efficient at H.264 decoding with SNB.]
Back to the discussion of battery life: all three of the laptops that beat Llano have the advantage of slightly to moderately higher battery capacities, so the comparison isn’t entirely fair. Let’s level the playing field by looking at relative battery life.
Rather amazing is that Llano actually rises to the top of the charts in the Idle test, and it’s only slightly behind the competition in the other two tests. Considering the X370 is equipped with an E-350 APU, the fact that Llano is even close is surprising. While we should note that the X370 wasn’t the most efficient of the E-350 laptops we’ve tested, we also need to point out that the 13.3” LCD is a lot closer to the 14” panel in the Llano notebook than the 11.6” panels used in the Sony YB and HP dm1z. The dual-core SNB notebook still leads in the H.264 test, and considering it has a 15.6” panel we’d say that relative battery life is very similar between the two.
We also want to talk about AMD’s claims of “all day battery life”. If we accept their definition of 8+ hours, the test laptop doesn’t actually hit that mark in our idle test. We did run the same test again at 40% LCD brightness (around 60 nits) and managed eight hours exactly, but that’s in an absolutely best-case test. For Internet surfing, which represents a more useful metric, the best way to get 8+ hours is demonstrated by ASUS’ U41JF: stuff in a higher capacity battery!
Rounding out the battery life discussion, we also tested battery life while looping 3DMark06 at native resolution (1366x768). This represents a reasonable 3D gaming scenario, and Llano still managed a reasonable 161 minutes. Considering graphics performance is a healthy step up from what Intel’s HD 3000 offers and that AMD manages double the battery life under gaming situations compared to the K53E, mobile gaming is clearly a win.
Overall, for the first time in a long time, AMD is able to offer battery life that competes with and even exceeds what Intel offers with their current mainstream offerings. There are of course a bunch of lower power Intel CPUs we could discuss, but looking at the 35W TDP parts the combination of 32nm and power gating has brought AMD back into the discussion. Even more interesting is that you should be able to get something like our test laptop for $600, possibly less, compared to dual-core SNB i5 laptops that start at $700. But then, perhaps Core i5 isn’t the best comparison for quad-core Llano, despite what AMD might like to say? Let’s move on to general performance and gaming discussions before we decide which mobile part is the “best”.
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whoaaaaaaaa - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
A lot. I think you are very out of touch. No one buys desktops anymore, everyone uses a laptop - and quite a few people want to WOW or COD on them.luniq - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Agreed. A lot of people I know uses laptop although they rarely need to take it with them and they game too.swaaye - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
I don't think he is. Most computer users don't play games. All they need is a GPU that can run the OS's UI.cotak - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
The sort of people who use laptops and are pushing the CPUs hard are in the reality of the real world a limited bunch. Those who really need the power aren't going to be on a laptop anyhow like you say. Most office staff never use to the full potential of their issued computers even when they were using pentium 4s. And I actually think you'll find a lot of office workers are still humping around a P4 in their laptop bag.This is especially true as a lot of work now a days are done server side. About the only "office workers" who pound their CPU are those with big spread sheets. Even there I do not think you'll find many office workers who'd have an issue with most modern CPUs. They'll just go for a smoke or coffee break while it crunches.
And what review did you read that say there's no advantage in battery life? If you are pushing a game Llano lasts twice as long on the same battery.
voidi - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Lots of potential, they managed to find a valid niche in Intel's Netbook Hardware Portfolio. I think it's futile to argue about the success of this solution already, as the price will be the determining factor.As I see it, Llano has the potential to bring AMD back in the mobile market on a reasonable scale, but it also has the potential to utterly fail. Since it can't compete in the high-end area in either CPU or GPU performance, it will all depend on the value for your money. If the price is low enough, Llano will fill its niche quite comfortably.
Personally, I will wait for Trinity and Ivy Bridge, as both promise significant improvements and will likely be priced close to their predecessors.
jaydee - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
On the one hand, I'm pleasantly surprised that AMD was able to bring the power draw of a K10/10.5 down to those levels, while adding decent GPU. It's a big step up for the to be in the discussion again for laptops. I don't think anyone could have reasonably expected them to go from Danube up to Intel's SB performance level overnight, so from that perspective, it's a big jump for them.On the other hand, it couldn't be more obvious that this product should have been competing against Arrendale about 18 months ago at the price point introduced today. I want to like this product badly, but it's so hard given it's CPU performance. Sure it's great for mid-range mobile gamers, but why would anyone else look at llano? Hopefully AMD can make just as big of a stride with BD-based mobile Fusion within the next 24 months, and then we can perhaps take AMD seriously in the bigger mobile market segments.
Gunbuster - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Will this mean the lowest common denominator HP $450 laptop of the week the everyone on a budget inevitably buys at retail when they are in a time crunch will suck less?I sure hope so.
Boissez - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
I actually like the performance as it seems better balanced than in the dual-core Sandy bridges, ie., about 50% performancethe in single threads apps, 80% in multi-threaded apps and 200% in gaming. IOW better suited towards consumer needs. And battery life is good too.What AMD needs to work on though is lowering the TDP. A8-3500 performance in a 25W enveloppe would allow this to be a good alternative in the upcoming ultrabooks (especially because you can't fit a discrete GPU in those)
Boissez - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Oh yeah and make all of those APU's compatible with 1600 and 1866 Mhz RAM. RAM speed seems to be a major bottleneck in this platform.ET - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
I think that even lower performance in 25W would be attractive, but it might eat into the E-350 market, unless it's priced significantly higher. I don't think it'd be a big problem for AMD to lower power to that point (certainly for A4), but they're probably waiting to see where the market goes with the current Llano APU's. I believe we'll see a 25W version later this year.