4 ms·

> "Looks nice - but can it play Youtube without having to close everything else on the system? I've been badly burned by "netbooks" powered by Atom CPUs... nice

> "Looks nice - but can it play Youtube without having to close everything else on the system? I've been badly burned by "netbooks" powered by Atom CPUs... nice battery life but forget opening Facebook or Youtube" You should have no issues, the Atom used in these is not your 2010 PIII based Atom, it's a modern part that can handle the modern Web. > "and the ultra low screen resolution doesn't help either when web sites are designed for FullHD+ monitors." If 1920x1200 is "ultra low screen resolution" then what do you consider high res? The GPD has higher resolution than my 27" 1080p display, and I have to turn up magnification on that just to be able to read comfortably on most sites.

mschuster91 9y ago
> You should have no issues, the Atom used in these is not your 2010 PIII based Atom, it's a modern part that can handle the modern Web. Pentium 3? Ew. I thought the Atoms were descendants of the Core2 family. > If 1920x1200 is "ultra low screen resolution" then what do you consider high res? You're right - I had overlooked this in the specs and based my judgment on the "screenshot" a bit below...
- zelos 9y ago
  The Atoms are a completely separate architecture, I don't think they're really related to the main Core etc. Intel CPUs.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  first atoms were pentium arch on modern semiconductor tech, that's how they achieved low TDP.
opencl 9y ago
The early Atoms weren't P3 based, they were an original low-power design and actually quite a bit slower than the P3 at similar clockspeeds. Though a lot of the unpleasantness of using those machines was more from the extremely anemic GPU which has also improved considerably since then. Here's a benchmark comparison between the Atom used in the EeePC 901 (N270 @ 1.6Ghz), the GPD Pocket (x7-Z8750 @ 1.6Ghz), and a 1.1Ghz P3: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2968&cmp[]=1381&cmp[]=614 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2968&cmp[]=13... The P3 is slightly faster than the old Atom in spite of the lower clock, and the new one is over 2x as fast single threaded and over 7x as fast multithreaded.
- haikuginger 9y ago
  > Though a lot of the unpleasantness of using those machines was more from the extremely anemic GPU which has also improved considerably since then. Specifically, the GMA950 that didn't have hardware video decode for H.264, which was already the mainstream choice for any Internet video. Combined with the anemic in-order Bonnell core, it was dead on arrival for most uses involving any sort of video. Some netbooks even came with a separate Broadcom PCIe card whose only purpose was hardware video decode.
- morganvachon 9y ago
  Actually they trace their lineage directly to the PIII. The original Atom was based on the Stealey line, which in turn was based on Pentium M, which in turn was based on the PIII design. Later Atom revisions left that legacy behind and became their own distinct process.
marvy 9y ago
According to my calculations, you shouldn't need too much more than 25 to 50% magnification or so. Details and assumptions below: I don't know how far you sit from the screen, nor which websites you typically visit, but unless I miscalculated, your screen resolution is roughly 82 pixels per inch. I also don't know what OS you run, but at least on Windows, things render by default at 96 pixels per inch. (I've heard that some other systems have smaller text than windows though.) Thus on Windows you should be seeing things about 18% larger than "true" size. (That is, things take up more inches on screen than they would on paper.) This is actually too small: according to this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch, people read the screen from 30% farther than they read paper. So the DPI should be scaled to compensate. Then you need further fudge factors to account for small font sizes some websites use, and some other stuff I'm too lazy to think about now. But still 25 to 50 percent should do it, I think?
- morganvachon 9y ago
  I generally browse text-heavy sites with basic web fonts, and I do so at 120% (two taps of Ctrl-+ in Firefox on Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, or macOS). When I wear contact lenses instead of my glasses, I browse at normal magnification.
  - marvy 9y ago
    Makes sense

mschuster91 9y ago

> You should have no issues, the Atom used in these is not your 2010 PIII based Atom, it's a modern part that can handle the modern Web. Pentium 3? Ew. I thought the Atoms were descendants of the Core2 family. > If 1920x1200 is "ultra low screen resolution" then what do you consider high res? You're right - I had overlooked this in the specs and based my judgment on the "screenshot" a bit below...

zelos 9y ago
The Atoms are a completely separate architecture, I don't think they're really related to the main Core etc. Intel CPUs.
agumonkey 9y ago
first atoms were pentium arch on modern semiconductor tech, that's how they achieved low TDP.

opencl 9y ago

The early Atoms weren't P3 based, they were an original low-power design and actually quite a bit slower than the P3 at similar clockspeeds. Though a lot of the unpleasantness of using those machines was more from the extremely anemic GPU which has also improved considerably since then. Here's a benchmark comparison between the Atom used in the EeePC 901 (N270 @ 1.6Ghz), the GPD Pocket (x7-Z8750 @ 1.6Ghz), and a 1.1Ghz P3: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2968&cmp[]=1381&cmp[]=614 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2968&cmp[]=13... The P3 is slightly faster than the old Atom in spite of the lower clock, and the new one is over 2x as fast single threaded and over 7x as fast multithreaded.

haikuginger 9y ago
> Though a lot of the unpleasantness of using those machines was more from the extremely anemic GPU which has also improved considerably since then. Specifically, the GMA950 that didn't have hardware video decode for H.264, which was already the mainstream choice for any Internet video. Combined with the anemic in-order Bonnell core, it was dead on arrival for most uses involving any sort of video. Some netbooks even came with a separate Broadcom PCIe card whose only purpose was hardware video decode.
morganvachon 9y ago
Actually they trace their lineage directly to the PIII. The original Atom was based on the Stealey line, which in turn was based on Pentium M, which in turn was based on the PIII design. Later Atom revisions left that legacy behind and became their own distinct process.

marvy 9y ago

According to my calculations, you shouldn't need too much more than 25 to 50% magnification or so. Details and assumptions below: I don't know how far you sit from the screen, nor which websites you typically visit, but unless I miscalculated, your screen resolution is roughly 82 pixels per inch. I also don't know what OS you run, but at least on Windows, things render by default at 96 pixels per inch. (I've heard that some other systems have smaller text than windows though.) Thus on Windows you should be seeing things about 18% larger than "true" size. (That is, things take up more inches on screen than they would on paper.) This is actually too small: according to this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch, people read the screen from 30% farther than they read paper. So the DPI should be scaled to compensate. Then you need further fudge factors to account for small font sizes some websites use, and some other stuff I'm too lazy to think about now. But still 25 to 50 percent should do it, I think?

morganvachon 9y ago
I generally browse text-heavy sites with basic web fonts, and I do so at 120% (two taps of Ctrl-+ in Firefox on Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, or macOS). When I wear contact lenses instead of my glasses, I browse at normal magnification.
- marvy 9y ago
  Makes sense