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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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And then there was light September 03, 2001 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/laptops/soa/And-then-there-was-light/0,2000065761,120217401,00.htm
Ultra thin and still ultra fast. For this review we received eight notebooks in total. We looked at the ultralight Compaq Presario, which only weighed 1.59kg. We also ended up receiving a few notebooks that scraped under 2.5kg which was our limit. With these heavier notebooks we saw some larger displays and built-in DVD/floppy drives. The smaller notebooks all had external DVD/floppy drives. They were a little messier but it's the only way you can shed some weight from a notebook. The greatest emphasis was placed on the build quality, weight, and performance of each notebook.
Editors' Choice
To pick a clear winner was very difficult. The Compaq is fast and was the lightest notebook we had tested. However the Mitac notebook, which seems to be a close relative to the Compaq, just snuck up behind the Compaq to win this month's Editors' Choice Award. The Mitac is priced $200 less than the Compaq and it also has a 12GB hard disk compared to the Compaq's 10GB drive. The Mitac houses a few extra niceties like additional USB ports. The Mitac is not much heavier than the Compaq and what put the icing on the cake for the Mitac notebook was its styling. The Mitac looked a lot more modern and stylish than the Compaq and most of the other notebooks.
HOW WE TESTED
Content Creation Winstone 2001
Business Winstone 2001 V1.0
Winstone 2001 is a system-level, application-based benchmark that measures a PC's overall performance when running today's top-selling Windows-based 32-bit applications on Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT (High-End Winstone runs only on NT). Winstone runs real 32-bit business suites and high-end, demanding applications through a series of scripted activities and uses the time a PC takes to complete those activities to produce its performance scores. Winstone's tests don't mimic what these programs do; they run actual application code. The CD-ROM that contains Winstone also contains all the files and application portions the benchmark needs to run. How we tested cont... WinBench 99 V1.2
WinBench 99's Graphics Playback technology reproduces the graphics operations the Winstone 99 business and high-end applications perform, affording you a better-than-ever measure of your PC's graphics subsystem. WinBench 99 returns the following main results that provide an overview of a PC's graphics, disk, and processor performance:
BatteryMark 4.0.1
Acer TravelMate 350
The Acer TravelMate was easily the sexiest looking notebook of those we tested. The modern exterior was silver-grey in colour and the keypad was all black. The keyboard was quite different to all the other keyboards we tested. None of the keys matched up in a straight line. The whole arrangement was slightly curved, but this actually worked quite well. The layout of the keys is something we were not used to but it didn't take long for us to adjust to the new angles. Located at the top of the keyboard, the Acer notebook had five buttons--three of these are user-programmable launch keys. The fourth button was a mail button which starts to flash once you have received an incoming e-mail, and the fifth was a Web browser button, which launches your browser. The touchpad had three buttons located directly below the pad. The left and right buttons are similar to the left and right buttons on a conventional mouse. The centre button can be used to scroll up or down a page. The Acer is equipped with an Intel PIII 650 processor, 128MB of RAM, and a 10GB IBM Travelstar hard disk. The hard disk pulls out quite easily from the right-hand side of the notebook. As with most of the notebooks we looked at, all you have to do to increase the system RAM or swap the hard drive is remove one or two screws from the bottom of the notebook. We found this to be a very simple arrangement and would imagine that anyone would have no trouble upgrading memory. Most of the input/output connectors were located on the back of the notebook. There were two USB connectors, one PS/2 port, a VGA port, and network and modem connectors as well as an expansion connector. On the left-hand side of the notebook was one Type II PCMCIA slot and a Smart Card reader. This was the first time we had seen a Smart Card reader in a notebook. The Acer has an all-in-one external floppy/DVD-ROM drive. The floppy drive sits on top of the DVD-ROM drive and connects straight into the external drive connector on the notebook. The Acer also comes with a handy IEEE 1394 FireWire port. The 13.3in display was excellent and the display panel is quite strong as well. This notebook only weighs in at a tiny 1.862kg. Even though it was quite wide, it was the thinnest notebook in the roundup sitting only 21mm high with its display closed. The Acer shipped with a Trident graphics accelerator, while the other notebooks came with ATI or S3 type accelerators. The Trident accelerator, however, did not perform as well as any of the other notebooks in WinBench Business Graphics and WinBench High-End Graphics. The Acer also reported similar performance in Business Winstone and High-End Winstone. While the Acer is not jammed packed full of punch it wins out in many other ways, including features and usability. Acer TravelMate 350
Compaq Presario 80XL300
Mitac M722J The Compaq and Mitac are nearly the same. You could place one notebook next to the other and you wouldn't see much of a difference. The Mitac weighs a little more than the Compaq--it weighed in at 1.622kg compared to the Compaq's 1.591kg.
Both notebooks feature identical modems and network adaptors. Pretty much all the I/O connectors and slots were in the same place. Even when you turn each notebook upside down you will find that both of these notebooks have a similar layout. The memory expansion panel is in the same spot and the batteries are also shaped the same. Both of the batteries are rated at 14.8V and 1400mAh. We tried swapping the batteries around to see if they were actually identical. The Compaq battery slid right into the Mitac notebook but the Mitac battery would not fit correctly into the Compaq. Both batteries featured life indicators. Pressing a little button shows how much life is left in the battery. The good thing about the Mitac notebook was that there was an additional battery indicator which was located on the front of the notebook so you don't have to pull the battery out to check.
The Mitac had an extra panel on the back, which let you access the CPU. If you wanted to upgrade the processor in the Compaq it would take you much longer. Both of these notebooks had a recessed reset button. This feature comes in very handy if your notebook ever hangs. Both notebooks ship with external DVD drives and floppy drives. The Floppy drives had USB connectors on the end while the DVD drives had their own external connectors. Compaq had sent us an additional CD-ROM drive as well. There is no real need for one though--especially if you've got a DVD drive. What we found interesting was the extra USB ports that came with the Mitac. What we had not seen before were mini USB connectors. The Mitac shipped with two of these built-in mini USB connectors. Mitac also supply the adaptors for these mini connectors so you can plug in a conventional USB connector. In total, the Mitac offered four USB connectors compared to everyone else's two. When we pulled back the display panel and had a look at the keypad we noticed more similarities. The keys look and feel the same. They are quite good compared to all the other offerings. One difference was the colour of their keys. The Compaq had an additional scrolling button, which made it look a little different from the Mitac. Both the Compaq and Mitac had good support for their displays, though they didn't feel like they were built quite as tough as the IBM. When we applied some pressure with our thumbs to the back of the display, however, there was hardly any rippling to be seen. The picture quality was excellent on both of the notebooks and somewhat better than most of the other displays that we tested. The Compaq notebook sounded a lot better than the Mitac. The sound out of the Mitac was very muffled. The Mitac only had a single speaker while the Compaq had two. The Compaq featured an Intel PIII 650 processor while the Mitac shipped with an Intel PIII 750. Both used the same ATI graphics accelerator but used different hard disks. The Compaq actually recorded the highest score for Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. When we had a close look at the disk scores we noticed that the Compaq PC scored marginally higher than everyone else. The motherboard as well as the drivers that had been used by Compaq would have also increased the overall performance of the Mitac. The hard drive alone would have only increased the overall performance by so much. The Mitac, on the other hand, was not much further behind. Both of these notebooks did well in our speed tests. In BatteryMark they both managed to hover around the one-hour mark, so you probably wouldn't want to stray too far away from a powerpoint. The Compaq was outstanding, and with a faster processor it would have left its opposition for dead. Both of these notebooks are excellent systems. Compaq Presario 80XL300
Gateway Solo 3350 Deluxe
The Gateway Solo 3350 was yet another lightweight contender. It only weighed in at 1.677kg, making it the third lightest notebook. The Gateway 3350 features an Intel Pentium III 650 with 128MB of RAM, 4MB ATI Rage Graphics, and a 10GB hard disk drive. The casing is finished in silver. Even though it looks very square it actually looks quite attractive because of the colours that have been used. The keyboard was all one colour--there was no distinction made between the standard and function keys. The feel of the keys, however, was very good. They offered excellent feedback, and the large palmrest area on the notebook made it even more comfortable to type. All the standard ports are on the back of the notebook. You will, however, find a port replicator connector on the base of the notebook. On the right-hand side of the notebook you'll find a single Type II PCMCIA port and on the left-hand side a USB port, headphone and microphone jack. When we took a closer look at the base of the notebook we quickly found out that we could not do much there in reference to upgrading. You can only remove the hard drive from the base and the battery. The battery was rated at 11.1V 2800mAh. It spanned right across the whole width of the notebook and it had a handy battery life indicator. We discovered that to access the system RAM you need to release the keyboard. To do this, first slide the panel that sits above the keyboard. There are four screws, which then have to be removed before you can pull up the keypad. Underneath the keypad we only found one single memory slot. This limits the overall memory capacity to only 256MB. The Gateway has an external CD-ROM and floppy drive (it didn't ship with a DVD-ROM drive). The CD-ROM and floppy drive plug into an external drive connector located on the back of the notebook. Sound quality was very poor. The speaker was positioned in the most unusual position: pointing down from the base of the notebook. Like the Mitac this Gateway notebook had a reset button, also located on the base of the notebook. If the system for some reason does not respond, you can press a straightened paper clip into the hole to shut down the system. In a system with no reset button, you are forced to turn off the power from the powerpoint and remove the battery from the notebook. The display quality was very good. The greyscales were quite good and the pictures we used to test the display quality were sharp and bright and full of colour. The display was also very well supported. The Gateway, however, did not perform too well in any of our tests. In Content Creation Winstone it only scored 15.3 and 15.6 in Business Winstone. In BatteryMark it managed to just last over 90 minutes. The Gateway is smaller than most of the other notebooks. There were, however, some smaller offerings and notebooks that packed a harder punch as well. Gateway Solo 3350 Deluxe
Gateway Solo 5300XL Deluxe
The Gateway 5300 did not look like an ultralight notebook--it looked more like a high-end notebook. It had a big display and everything was integrated. We were very anxious to see if it weighed under the required 2.5kg (with battery), but unfortunately it weighed in at 2.611kg. Gateway informed us that there is a lighter battery pack that you can order which will drop the overall weight of the notebook. The Solo had an interchangeable DVD/floppy drive bay. When we weighed the notebook with its floppy disk drive instead we managed to reduce the overall weight by 75 grams. We still, however, weren't able to get this notebook under 2.5kg as shipped to us. The Gateway shipped with an Intel Pentium III 700 processor and 128MB of RAM. The system RAM can be expanded to 256MB. The memory expansion slots were located on the base of the notebook making it nice and easy for anyone to increase the system RAM. All you have to do is remove a single screw and lift up a small panel. Also accessible from the base of the notebook is the 20GB Toshiba hard drive and an internal modem. These too can be easily upgraded. The Toshiba DVD-ROM drive takes up space on the right-hand side of the notebook, and, as we said before, the DVD drive is interchangeable with the floppy disk drive. The one disadvantage of this is that you cannot have both the DVD drive and floppy drive plugged in at the same time. On the back of the Solo we found an S-video connector, parallel port, VGA, USB, PS/2, port replicator connector and a serial port, which was missing from many of the other notebooks. The only use you would have from a serial port would be connecting a serial mouse or a PDA of some sort. For most peripherals, however, the USB port should be sufficient. The Gateway did not come with a network adaptor but there is provision for one. When we opened up the Gateway we discovered a great big 14.1in display. It's big enough to fool you into thinking that this is no ultralight notebook. There was not much support for the display however. When we applied some pressure to the back of the display we noticed quite a large amount of rippling. Overall, the display is flimsy but the picture quality, on the other hand, was excellent. The Gateway notebook came with an 8MB S3 Savage IX graphics accelerator. It scored quite high in Business Graphics and High-End graphics. In the Business Disk and High-End Disk tests, however, the Gateway did not fare as well. This result would have affected its overall score in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. In Battery Mark the Gateway managed to last for a bit over two hours, which was on par with most of the other notebooks. If you don't care about carting around a few extra grams and if you're after a notebook with a big display, the Gateway Solo 5300XL Deluxe may be the way to go. Gateway Solo 5300XL Deluxe
IBM ThinkPad T20
The IBM ThinkPad weighed in at 2.424kg. When we swapped the DVD drive for the floppy drive we managed to get the ThinkPad down to 2.325kg. It's a little heavier than many of the other notebooks but what you don't get with many of the other notebooks is a large display. The IBM ThinkPad A20p won our high-end notebook comparison last November, so we expected a lot from the T20. The ThinkPad shipped with an Intel PIII 800 processor as well as 128MB of RAM, a 20GB Hitachi hard disk, and an 8MB S3 Savage video accelerator. The IBM performed quite well but we cannot directly compare the results of the IBM with any of the other notebooks. The IBM came to us with Windows 2000 Professional instead of Windows Me as requested. The keypad was large and nice to use. The standard keys are not coloured differently from the function keys. This makes it a little harder to find specific keys on the notebook, especially if you're not very experienced using a keyboard. All the keys on the ThinkPad were black to match the black exterior. The keys are large and the layout of the keypad is excellent. There were good separators between the function keys, which made the keypad easier to use. The three audio buttons were grey in colour (volume up/down and mute). The ThinkPad was one of the few notebooks that had three mouse buttons. They felt quite light in comparison to all the other buttons we tested. There was a bit of bounce around that area as well. When we pressed down on the mouse buttons some parts of the keyboard would actually bounce around. The IBM ThinkPad was the only notebook to use a track pointer instead of a glide pad. You have to be a little more delicate when using the track pointer--it's much easier to overshoot your target. However, it doesn't take too long to get used to. The speakers are mounted to emit sound from the front of the notebook. Your wrists will actually muddy the sound a little if you happen to be typing and listening to music at the same time. The ThinkPad sports a 13.3in display. The display quality was excellent and the pick of the screens we saw. The display is also very well supported from the base. As we have said in the past, IBM notebooks are built with high-quality components and are built to last. And the ThinkPad is upgrade friendly--by turning the notebook on its back, it is easy to upgrade the system RAM. The all-in-one 10/100 network card and 56K internal modem are also accessible from the base of the notebook, and the Hitachi hard drive pulls out from the left-hand side of the base. There were a couple of other nice features that came standard with the IBM ThinkPad T20 like the expansion connector and video out connector, which didn't come standard on many of the other notebooks. The IBM ThinkPad is priced at AU$5999 and is an excellent performer; it's just a pity it didn't ship with Windows Me so we could have directly compared the performance of the T20 against all the other notebooks. IBM ThinkPad T20
HP OmniBook 500
The HP OmniBook 500 offers a terrific combination of performance, simplicity, and functionality. It is one of the best ultraportables we've seen, and its feature set makes it especially useful for those professionals who often need to give presentations, training seminars, and other public speeches on the road. The 1.69kg OmniBook's six-cell lithium ion battery held a charge for three hours and 11 minutes on our BatteryMark test with SpeedStep in low-power mode, two hours and 47 minutes without. Equipped with 8MB of graphics memory, the VGA output can drive external monitors or projectors at up to 1600 x 1200 true-colour resolution. Other presentation-friendly features include Sensaura 3D-sound enhancement and dedicated audio-mute and volume controls. The amplified headphone connector can also drive conference-room sound systems. Another nice touch is the product's programmable Presentation button, which lets you negate time-out settings, redirect video to an external monitor or TV, and launch a presentation with a single keystroke. On top of all this, we found the OmniBook's three-button TrackPoint pointing device comfortable to use, and its 85-key keyboard, though a bit noisy, was relatively spacious and well laid out. A large Sleep button positioned directly under the display makes it easy to send the system into hibernation, and a handy Help button displays on-screen manuals and Windows Help. The Omnibook's AU$616 expansions base is the most versatile on the market. Bringing the total system weight to 3.04kg, the base adds CD/DVD playback controls, a modest three-piece speaker system, and S-video output, plus two swappable bays that accommodate CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, LS-120, and Zip drives. Unlike those of the competition, the base can also accept a second battery or even a pair of 20GB hard drives. HP OmniBook 500
Toshiba Satellite 30CDT
The Toshiba Satellite 30CDT was the only Celeron-based notebook we received. It was equipped with a Celeron 500, 128MB of RAM, 10GB Fujitsu hard disk drive, and a 12.1in display. The Satellite weighed in at 2.013kg. This notebook was a little thicker than most of the other notebooks. It had a built-in CD-ROM drive. This notebook did not come with a DVD-ROM drive. Like most of the other notebooks, the Toshiba had an external floppy disk drive. But the interesting thing about this floppy drive is that it plugged into the notebook's parallel port. We must say that this particular notebook did not come with many frills. It's very conservative and basic. Most of the Toshiba notebooks we have tested in the past had track pointers. This particular model, however, had a glide pad. What we also found different was that all the I/O connectors were located on the left-hand side of the notebook (connectors you would normally find on the back of a notebook). The battery pack in this case fills up most of that area. The keypad on this Toshiba had different colours for both the standard keys and the function keys. The feel of the keys, however, was a bit on the light side and there was a reasonable amount of bounce in the keyboard. The 12.1in display, while offering a good sharp picture, was not supported too well. When we applied pressure to the back of the panel we saw some horrific rippling. It also took a few seconds for the smudging and rippling to disappear from the display. At the bottom of the display were two very small speakers. The sound though was quite good. The sound they produced was louder than most of the other speakers and it was very clear. When we turned this notebook over we didn't see any easy way to access the system RAM or even be able to swap the hard drive. We then tried to remove the keypad but we couldn't even do that. So we didn't really know where the hard drive was hiding nor where the RAM was. To get at them, we had to literally pull the notebook apart from the base. The Toshiba did not break any speed records. It did, however, manage to get some good scores in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. But where it really stood out was Battery Mark. A time of two hours and 20 minutes was enough to put this notebook in second place. With only a Celeron 500MHz CPU, this notebook had less power than most of the other ultralights in this test. With this in mind, the Toshiba didn't perform badly after all (in fact it wasn't the slowest notebook). It was faster than the Acer notebook as well as the Gateway Solo 3350. What made the difference was its performance in Business Disk and High-End Disk, which was excellent. The overall performance of the notebook was excellent but we felt there were still many areas that could be improved. Toshiba Satellite 30CDT
Sony VAIO PCG-SR17K
The Sony VAIO could not be submitted to the Test Lab in time for this article, but was reviewed here on its own. Sony's VAIO PCG-SR17K is a solidly built and innovative little machine that's packed with the sophisticated digital-video capabilities for which Sony is noted. Despite compromises necessitated by its tiny form factor, it offers a slew of advanced features rarely found in a system so small. Weighing a scant 1.32kg (1.63kg with AC adaptor), it's a very light system. The unit we looked at came with a 700MHz processor, 8MB 3D graphics accelerator, a 20GB hard drive, and a hefty six-cell lithium ion battery that supplied almost four hours of power on our BatteryMark test: three hours 52 minutes with SpeedStep in low-power mode, three hours 43 minutes in high-power mode. The VAIO also has a slot for Sony's Memory Stick flash card, which can be used to exchange daya with digital still cameras and MP3 players. And the IEEE 1394 interface connects to other VAIO computers, high-throughput external hard drives, and digital video equipment like MiniDV camcorders. But the compact package comes with some trade offs. The system's keyboard seemed a bit flimsy. And the diminutive chassis can accommodate only a 10.4in screen. Depite being extremely bright and sharp, the display felt somewhat claustrophobic. Not designed for easy expansion, the VAIO can't be equipped with a port replicator, docking station, or add-on base. Sony will sell you external USB-attached floppy disk, CD-ROM, CD-RW, and DVD drives, but the only way you can add an Ethernet port is by buying a third-party PC Card. The system also lacks parallel, serial, S-video, and PS/2 ports. Sony VAIO PCG-SR17K
Xenon Metro 3220
The Xenon 3220 was another notebook that pushed our scales to the limit. It weighed in at 2.583kg. However, once we replaced the DVD drive with a floppy drive we managed to reduce the overall weight to 2.498kg. It just scraped in but again this notebook looks and feels quite big. It has a large 13.3in display and a large palm area so you can rest your palms quite comfortably while you type. An Intel PIII 850 processor powers the Xenon notebook. On paper, the Xenon looked like it would be the fastest notebook on the block. It featured the fastest processor but that, unfortunately, did not make it the fastest in our tests. It was actually slightly slower in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone than the awesomely fast Compaq notebook, which was equipped with an Intel PIII 650 processor. The Xenon, however, performed much better in Business Graphics and High-End Graphics. We have to say that the hard drive made all the difference in Content Creation Winstone and Business Winstone. The Xenon did not score as well as the Compaq in any of the disk tests and as a result it scored lower than the Compaq in Winstone. In our BatteryMark tests the Xenon managed to run off its batteries for the longest amount of time. A time of two hours and 25 minutes was not a bad effort, thanks to the Xenon's large-capacity battery. The Xenon is silver-grey in colour and it did not have the nice curves that some of the other notebooks had. It's a very square notebook and very plain. The keypad was well supported and provided a good all-round feel. Another positive thing about the keyboard is that the function and standard keys were coloured differently. The display was also very well supported but we did see quite a lot of rippling once we applied some pressure with our fingers to the back of the notebook. The display quality was good and the display size made it a pleasure to work on this notebook. Upgrading the RAM and hard drive was a piece of cake. The hard drive pulls out from the bottom of the notebook after removing two small screws. The system RAM is also very easy to get to from the base of the notebook. Like the Gateway 5300, the Xenon has a hot swappable DVD/floppy drive. The Toshiba DVD drive was rated at a fast 8x and it can also read CDs at 24x. The Xenon has all the standard input/output connectors but it also had an S-video connector. The notebook also features an internal modem. The Xenon and Gateway 5300 were the only two notebooks that did not ship with network adaptors. The Xenon is quite a good notebook overall. With a faster hard disk this notebook would have been the fastest notebook in this roundup. The Xenon also comes with a nice Targus carry bag. Xenon Metro 3220
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Mitac M722J
