What we tested
Acer TravelMate 632XC
The Acer TravelMate was definitely one of the best looking notebooks in this feature. The exterior is a nice muted grey and the keypad is all black. The arrangement of keys is a little different to what we are used to; the whole keypad is slightly curved. After a while typing with this layout, we actually found it quite comfortable.
The Acer has a good assortment of ports including USB, FireWire, and video out. It also features a smart card reader, which Acer is promoting as a security feature. The smart card can be used to log into the notebook, and can store all your settings. However, this will of course be a problem if the card is lost or stolen.
The Acer didn’t perform as well as we expected. It ended up being the slowest notebook in this feature. The main culprit for its poor performance was the graphics accelerator. It was only equipped with 16MB of video memory, which would have caused it to suffer in most tests. The Acer has a high price tag, and based on its performance we would look for something a bit faster and less expensive.
AOpen OpenBook 1845
The AOpen OpenBook was one of two notebooks we looked at to feature the desktop Pentium 4 CPU. In this case, it used an Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz processor. The notebook also shipped with 256MB of RAM, 32MB of graphics memory, and a 30GB hard disk drive. The AOpen notebook didn’t have the stylish curves of a name brand, but it certainly stands up well against the other clone notebooks. The AOpen notebook has a combo DVD/CD-RW drive, and also has a S/PDIF output, which allows you to connect your notebook to a Dolby AC-3 receiver for 5.1 or DTS surround sound (just in case your work involves watching a lot of DVDs). It also features standard ports like USB, FireWire, and video out.
The AOpen also didn’t perform as well as we had expected. In fact, most of the 1.6GHz notebooks performed better. Its graphics processor was underpowered, which would have ultimately affected its overall score in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. On a better note, the AOpen recorded the best result in Bmark with a time of two hours and 29 minutes. This was up to 60 minutes longer than some notebooks, but to its advantage it also had the largest battery.
Apple iBook G3 600
Apple’s iBook has been around for some time now. It’s a lot more affordable than the Apple Powerbook G4 and can still pack a good punch. At the heart of the iBook we looked at is a 600MHz PowerPC G3 chip with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB IBM hard disk drive.
The iBook uses the same ATI Mobility graphics chipset with 16MB of RAM that powers some Wintel notebooks. The footprints typical for a 14.1in notebook but the weight is somewhat less than a similar Wintel notebook. It weighs only 2.8kg, which is at least partly due to the fact that the notebook has no floppy drive, although it does feature a DVD/CD-RW drive. Memory expansion is limited to 640MB, compared with 1GB for most Wintel notebooks. The iBook doesn’t have any legacy ports, but offers two USB ports, FireWire, and video out.
As explained in the “How We Tested” section, comparing performance between Mac and Wintel notebooks is not easy. We relied on benchmarks in Adobe Photoshop to give us some indication of the Mac’s ability. These benchmarks showed the iBook running rings around the Toshiba—which was one of the best-performing Wintel machines—and only slightly slower than the Powerbook G4.
