CoolBookController mini review

F*ck. Wrong group.

Crap, memory leaky Apple programs? (c:

Sounds a bit crap to me, why didn't you get something running nice XP or Vista out of the box?

Funny that, as throttling has been a feature of Intel laptop chipsets for ages.

Or maybe a tiny little notebook isn't designed to be run 24/7?

Lol.

If I run this on XP, the fans go crazy.

Apple claim that the OS takes care of everything - but if you have one s**te program running (My current favourite suspect is Azureous) the OS loses control.

Anyway, I'm happy that someone has released a decent front-end for the Kernel CPU controls.

Doesn't seem to bother my Thinkpad, and presumably it has to work harder on account of being slower and less powerful.

Lack of drivers for the Mac's chipset?

Azureus? It is s**te as far as memory and CPU time are concerned on all the platforms I've tried. It also makes my netgear routers throw hissy fits from time to time.

You wouldn't need to be if you'd chosen a decent OS...

Agreed, what's the point in buying a laptop with a decent CPU, then turning it down to prehistoric power...

I have a Thinkpad and the MacBook on the coffee table in front of me.

The Thinkpad is twice as thick, twice as heavy, around the same width but a good few inches deeper than the Macbook..... I think we can assume there's a lot more space inside the Thinkpad for air to circulate.

No, 'cos there's nothing in the chipset that's specific to the MacBook in reality.

That's probably what's causing the issues, then.

Says the man who shelled out a lot of money on a Mac desktop.

Because, in reality, you don't need 2GHz of Core Duo power 99.9% of the time.

Much better to throttle back for better battery life / energy efficiency.

Let's put it this way - I haven't noticed any significant slowdown in performance even though I've cut CPU speed by half.

It doesn't do D-Link routers any good either. I'm not sure what happens but hte D-Link just gets slower and slower and slower. No other P2P application causes the same problems. It doesn't seem to cause problems with Draytek routers which is plus, but a few months back I crashed the network at a Holiday Inn when I tried to download a bundle of documents.

Sadly some of the research community seem to think that distributing code and documentation via P2P is a good idea.

Why did you buy a grossly overpowered computer in the first place then?

I'm gonna run my car on 2 cylinders to see if I can tell the difference.

The same reason you bought a rag-top car whilst living in one of the coldest and wettest places in Europe ;-)

I fail to get the comparison.

I'm barely stressing this hardware - because an Intel Core Duo at 1GHz comprehensively outperforms a 1GHz G4 (which is what my last laptop had).

Why didn't I buy something slower? - perhaps because you can't - the MacBook is Apple's entry-level consumer notebook these days.

utorrent is the way.

Crap BIOS emulation software?

I'm using the Thinkpad at the moment, and I bet my Mac desktop cost less than your overheaty, ripoffly named "Macbook".

That's like having an M5/M6 and setting it to 400bhp mode cos "It's still pretty fast" heh.

That's what I currently use, except my current ISP doesn't seem to like P2P much.

Depends if you want a tiny little notebook for a bit of basic interwebby stuff (most of the time) or an industrial strength door-stop with crap battery life and injury inducing weight. (I carry the Thinkpad around all day and my shoulder is starting to suffer).

Possibly. Or possibly it's the price you pay for cramming the power of a MacBook into such a small format case.

Maybe, but I doubt it.

The MacBook was £629, delivered. A bargain, given what it's capable of.

I have had the roof down every single day I've driven it and I've never been rained on yet. (c:

Half the capacity. It's like eating half the cake. Or throttling the CPU to half.

But does your Thinkpad overheat or run its fan at 100% all the time? Mine doesn't, but I suspect it's not the same as yours.

OK, I was wrong on that one. My Mac's similarly powerful and has a bigger screen than your Mac though, and it's older.

You've bought something with a NorthStar engine?

The fan does kick in quite a lot. It's quieter than the MacBook fan, though. But then it's a big, heavy beast.

You can't really compare the two, 'cos the Thinkpad is half as powerful but significantly bigger. It's bound to run cooler.

Anyway - it appears we've narrowed things down to Azureus. Although I'm still not convinced a laptop should be run 24/7.