ZDNet: Crusoe notebook no Intel killer

"With the holidays upon them, the folks at Transmeta Corp. are asking for one thing: a fighting chance against that chip Goliath, Intel Corp. But after testing a notebook powered by one of Transmeta's new Crusoe processors, I think the company should be asking for a miracle."

"Transmeta has run into a buzz saw of bad news recently. Just this week, NEC announced that it's recalling and repairing 300 Crusoe-based notebooks with potentially faulty chips. And Sony is advising customers in Japan that they may also have trouble. At Comdex, IBM Corp. -- which had demonstrated a Crusoe-powered ThinkPad at PC Expo in June -- showed off a ThinkPad powered by ... an Intel mobile Pentium III chip. There was even a rumor -- later denied -- that Compaq was ditching plans for a line of Crusoe-based Armada notebooks."

"The PictureBook is too expensive for the casual user. And it's not powerful enough for some of the niche markets Transmeta is targeting -- real estate and insurance agents, for example, who can take advantage of the integrated camera or business users who do desktop videoconferencing."

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