A quick look at what was in the box.

The PaceBlade PaceBook uses the Transmeta Crusoe line of processors. While the majority of laptop/ notebook devices are based on Intel mobile processor technology, PaceBlade's selection of the Transmeta Crusoe may cause the chosen market to disregard PaceBlade as a serious tablet PC manufacturer. However, we believe that, for many applications, the Transmeta processor technology approach can still be valuable in squeezing every drop of battery power from a unit. The knock on Transmeta has always been that the processor was not fast enough to compete with the current Intel processor designs. When evaluating Crusoe as a processor, we still believe that many people may have missed the point. It is obvious to us that the Crusoe processor, although it may not offer the speed of the current generation of Intel chip, does offer a significantly reduced thermal envelope and better battery life when compared with Intel and AMD processors.

A look inside the unit exposes the ALI chipset. The chip covered with a bronze material is the Crusoe processor.

By now, everyone is familiar with the Crusoe line of processors from Transmeta. Crusoe processors were designed from the ground up to accommodate battery-hungry mobile devices. By 'accommodate,' we mean that the processor takes significantly less power to operate than its Silicon Valley counterparts. The way Transmeta reduces power consumption is through what the company calls its "LongRun Technology." LongRun technology allows the other Transmeta proprietary component, "Code Morphing" software to adjust the voltage and clock frequency 'on the fly' in accordance with system requirements. By continually adjusting voltage and clocking frequency, LongRun is able to significantly reduce the thermal envelope. And, as we all know, reduced frequency and voltage requirements contribute to longer battery life.

Transmeta's Code Morphing software is really the heart of the beast. Code Morphing translates the X86 instruction set into VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) instructions, which is the native language of the Crusoe processor line.

The Crusoe TM5600 chip that is in the PaceBook has an operating range of 500 to 700 megahertz and is fully compatible with the X86 instruction set. The operating frequency of the Crusoe that is in our PaceBook is 600 megahertz. It could be said that the Pentium III that was the state-of-the-art processor three years ago was just as fast as Transmeta's current line of line processors. However, a fair comparison of Transmeta and Intel should not be based on raw processing power alone, but also requires consideration of such factors as thermal envelope and mobile battery life.