Consumer Reports – Powerful Centrino not a casual laptop

If you’re looking for a new laptop, you may have heard the hype about Intel’s new Centrino Duo mobile technology, the chipset that provides longer battery life and faster wireless data transfer than previous versions. Consumer Reports’ initial tests of several new laptops with the latest version of the Centrino Duo show that it lives up to some claims but falls short on others.

As CR’s tests showed, the main reason to go with the Centrino Duo is to get longer battery life ‘ say, for frequent air travel. You can tell that a laptop has the new chipset if its processor is labeled T7x00, where x is an odd number. Ask a salesperson to be sure.

Here’s what CR’s first look at the new Centrino Duo laptops uncovered:

‘ Battery life. Equipped with the Centrino Duo, an Apple MacBook Pro and a Lenovo laptop showed gains of 35 percent and 50 percent, respectively, over similar models using the previous chip. That translates to an hour or more of extra use.

‘ WiFi data transfers. Intel says the new wireless adapter, which uses a draft version of the 802.11n standard, is up to five times faster than the 802.11g. In CR’s tests, wireless transfers ran about 70 to 80 Mbps (megabits per second), compared with about 20 Mbps with the old WiFi ‘ impressive, but less than claimed. While the improvement won’t affect Web downloads, it can speed data transfer on your home network.

‘ Application speed. Intel says the Centrino Duo is up to twice as fast as a single-processor Pentium. That might be true, but compared with the fastest dual-core processors of the most recent generation, CR found it only marginally faster running common applications.

‘ More memory for less money. Typically, upgrading your computer’s memory from 1GB to 2GB should boost performance about 17 percent, at a cost of about $150. Intel claims the new Turbo Memory upgrade can enhance speed almost as much, and it costs $30. But CR found that Turbo memory improved performance a barely noticeable 5 percent.

The bottom line: If you’re ready to buy a new laptop now, there’s little reason to insist on the latest Centrino Duo, CR says. Laptops rated by CR that use the previous generation of chips should be fine for typical use, and prices might drop as retailers make way for the new models.

The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch ($2,000) ranked highest overall among 15.4-inch models in terms of ergonomics, display quality, portability and other factors. It features a 2.16-GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a very bright screen with a wide viewing angle.

A newer model with the same name and price has replaced it, but adds the new Centrino Duo, 2GB of RAM and an LED-backlit display.