LAPTOP FORUM

> Has anyone had any experience with VIA cPU based laptops?
>
> A friend rang asking how they perform compared to say a 1.3 ghz celeron
> M, and as Ive no experience with recent VIA stuff, I couldnt oblige.
>
> VIA used to be bad news.

> Apparently the latest VIA stuff is much improved to the point that I
> believe I read that Bill Gates is using it as the basis for the world
> $100 tablet PC (the lime green crank the handle thing) for
> under-developed countries.

> The friends model in question is a MercuryIT G320 which is sold in
> Australia, India and I think possibly UK.

> I imagine it should drive a DVD player and run XP based applications
> quite OK for the sort of stuff most baseline users do.
>
> Any info appreciated
>
> Cheers
>
> Rob

> On 2007-03-20, me here wrote:
> > Has anyone had any experience with VIA cPU based laptops?
> >
> > A friend rang asking how they perform compared to say a 1.3 ghz
> > celeron M, and as Ive no experience with recent VIA stuff, I
> > couldnt oblige.
> >
> > VIA used to be bad news.
>
> Thats news to me.
>
> > Apparently the latest VIA stuff is much improved to the point that I
> > believe I read that Bill Gates is using it as the basis for the
> > world $100 tablet PC (the lime green crank the handle thing) for
> > under-developed countries.
>
> If you are thinking of the One Laptop per Child project, that has
> nothing at all to do with Bill Gates or Microsoft - and wont be
> running their software. <http://laptop.org/index.shtml> (What I
> think Ive read is that BG is opposed to the project and even willing
> to try to kill it - the last thing he wants is a whole generation
> around the world growing up familiar with FOSS software).
>
> > The friends model in question is a MercuryIT G320 which is sold in
> > Australia, India and I think possibly UK.
>
> Ive never encountered that brand here in the UK - but Via certainly
> make the innards for a number of commercial machines on sale over
> here.
>
> > I imagine it should drive a DVD player and run XP based applications
> > quite OK for the sort of stuff most baseline users do.
> >
> > Any info appreciated
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Rob
>
> Perhaps these links will be of interest
> <http://www.cpushack.net/VIA.html>
> <http://www.via.com.tw/en/index.jsp>

> Has anyone had any experience with VIA cPU based laptops?
>
> A friend rang asking how they perform compared to say a 1.3 ghz celeron
> M, and as Ive no experience with recent VIA stuff, I couldnt oblige.

> VIA used to be bad news.

> Apparently the latest VIA stuff is much improved to the point that I
> believe I read that Bill Gates is using it as the basis for the world
> $100 tablet PC (the lime green crank the handle thing) for
> under-developed countries.

> The friends model in question is a MercuryIT G320 which is sold in
> Australia, India and I think possibly UK.
>
> I imagine it should drive a DVD player and run XP based applications
> quite OK for the sort of stuff most baseline users do.

> Whiskers wrote:
>> On 2007-03-20, me here wrote:

> But is a 1 gig VIA P3 with 133 fsb significantly better than an Intel
> P3 with 133 fsb?
>
> Rob

> Whiskers wrote:
>> On 2007-03-20, me here wrote:

> But is a 1 gig VIA P3 with 133 fsb significantly better than an Intel
> P3 with 133 fsb?
>
> Rob

> In article news:, Me here wrote:

> There were some VIA support chipsets for intel and AMD processors that were
> a bit disappointing. Their newer stuff is fine and their CPUs are brilliant
> if you want low power consumption - the VIA CPU business has its roots in
> Cyrix, whose CPUs used to be as respected as AMDs as alternatives to
> intel.

> In article news:, Me here wrote:
> > Has anyone had any experience with VIA cPU based laptops?
> >
> > A friend rang asking how they perform compared to say a 1.3 ghz
> > celeron M, and as Ive no experience with recent VIA stuff, I
> > couldnt oblige.
>
> I have a desktop PC with a VIA CPU. No experience with VIA in a
> laptop.
>
> The VIA CPUs have very low energy requirements and so should suit
> mobile applications quite well, but are not the fastest things in the
> world. Most have only 64k of level 2 cache and can use only a
> single-channel memory bus which -- taken together -- does make them
> relatively slow for very memory-intensive applications. Whether
> theyre fast enough depends what you want to do. My 1GHz VIA C3 runs
> a linux desktop and drives a freeview TV card acceptable well. Its
> fast enough for most normal desktop operations, but it takes an
> absolute age to rebuild the system (this is Gentoo linux, so
> everything is compiled from source).
>
> > VIA used to be bad news.
>
> There were some VIA support chipsets for intel and AMD processors
> that were a bit disappointing. Their newer stuff is fine and their
> CPUs are brilliant if you want low power consumption - the VIA CPU
> business has its roots in Cyrix, whose CPUs used to be as respected
> as AMDs as alternatives to intel.
>
> > Apparently the latest VIA stuff is much improved to the point that I
> > believe I read that Bill Gates is using it as the basis for the
> > world $100 tablet PC (the lime green crank the handle thing) for
> > under-developed countries.
>
> Thats the One Laptop Per Child project ... NOT run by Bill Gates
> (indeed, free software is very important to the project, and it will
> probably end up running some form of linux).
>
> See http://www.laptop.org
>
> > The friends model in question is a MercuryIT G320 which is sold in
> > Australia, India and I think possibly UK.
> >
> > I imagine it should drive a DVD player and run XP based applications
> > quite OK for the sort of stuff most baseline users do.
>
> That machine is apparently sold with XP and has a DVD drive, so I
> imagine it can do all the basic stuff without any trouble, yes.
>
> Cheers,
> Daniel.
>