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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Budget beaters: 6 notebooks for less August 19, 2002 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/laptops/soa/Budget-beaters-6-notebooks-for-less/0,2000065761,120267457,00.htm
Notebooks have long been the province of executives on healthy salaries -- who could afford them -- and travelling salespeople who had a genuine need of them. Small users, and especially those on a budget, could ill afford these pint sized computers. Notebook manufacturers have realised that there's a large market out there for portable PCs -- sales are booming while desktop profit margins are whittled down to even more cutthroat levels. The practical upshot of this is that it's easier than ever to buy a notebook bristling with pure computing power. The problem for most people is that it's still quite expensive. The good news is that a budget notebook doesn't necessarily mean a poor quality one. We've examined six different notebook options with one thing in common; they all cost less than AU$3,000. This puts them in a particularly sweet spot for an awful lot of technology purchasers. On the corporate side, why spend AU$6,000 on a top of the range model if budget kit suits your needs? On the home side, AU$3,000 may be all you have to spend. Just because your budget is limited, doesn't mean that you have to limit your choices, or even the technologies you end up implementing. Acer Travelmate 233X
Acer's Travelmate 233X presented us with a mixed bag of results and features. On the one hand, it has the equal lowest memory, a middle of the field processor and the smallest amount of graphics memory on offer of any of our test notebooks. It also managed the second lowest productivity score in our tests, which would seem to indicate a notebook best left behind. Where it really impressed us, though, was in battery life, where it simply blitzed the field.
The Travelmate 233X makes a few concessions to style. Instead of the basic black that many notebooks clothe themselves in the 233X comes with a matt silver lid with a glossy Acer badge embedded in it. Under the hood is a 1.13GHz Mobile Celeron, 128MB of SDRAM and an 8MB onboard Intel 830MG chipset graphics and audio solution. This is a notebook geared towards the corporate market; while it sports a combination CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, the lack of graphics grunt and relatively low memory make the 233X a less appealing choice for the home/multimedia user. Keyboard layout is quite good; Acer's opted for a nearly full layout with the Windows key in the proper position. The 233X also has four function buttons for common features. We're not fond of the 233X's power button, which is a sliding switch on the side of the notebook; in our experience this makes the unit all to susceptible to inadvertent powering-on when in a bag. Speaking of bags, the 233X is the only notebook in our roundup to come with its own notebook bag. Without a doubt, the Travelmate 233X's best feature is its exceptional battery. In our Productivity tests, we were a touch disappointed by the 233X's mundane score of 60. In getting that score, however, it managed to stay powered up for an exceptional 225 minutes, nearly half an hour more than its nearest competitor, the Toshiba Satellite 1400. It managed to beat the field in our reader tests as well, with a staggering 286 minutes; that's more than four and three quarter hours. To put that in a working perspective, you could board a Perth-bound plane in Sydney, and barring a meal break and the mandatory take-off/landing powered-down periods still have enough juice to use the 233X all the way west. If you're after the fastest possible system for under three grand, the 233X isn't your machine. If, on the other hand battery life is the single most important thing in your mobile computing experience, the Travelmate 233X comes highly recommended. Acer Travelmate 233X
Apple iBook
From a pure specifications viewpoint, Apple's iBook looks like a bad buy. After all, it only has a 12in screen, no floppy drive, and a 600MHz processor. However, because it's not a Windows box, the comparison based purely on technical specifications isn't accurate or fair; Apple controls both the hardware and the software on its platform, and as such it can leverage power in areas that Windows cannot. Being an Apple machine, our benchmarking software wouldn't run on the iBook, so we can't give it a true comparative review; all we can do is comment on how it runs as a Mac notebook.
The 12in screen may be seen as something of a drawback for the potential notebook buyer, although to its credit the screen itself is quite clear, runs to the entire edge of the casing and helps keep the notebook weight down to a breezy 2.2kgs - the lightest notebook in our budget feature, in fact. At budget prices you won't often see true portability like this. The iBook is also the best looking notebook of our test models. Again, at budget prices you can normally expect to sacrifice snazzy design, and you have to like white quite a bit, but there's no denying that the iBook stands out. While the all-white keyboard stands out, we weren't all that impressed by its responsiveness; in order to keep the entire unit as flat as possible there's very little travel on the keys, and we found this impacted our typing speed quite a bit. We also found that the screen didn't have quite as wide an viewable angle as on other notebooks, meaning anyone peering over your shoulder may have a tough time of it. The iBook's main limitation is in the upgrade possibilities path. There's no PCMCIA slot, no way to upgrade the drives or swap in optional batteries or anything of the sort. Buy an iBook, and all you can do with it is upgrade the memory and install an Airport (802.11b) card. The unit we examined had been pumped up to 256MB, which brought the final price in at AU2,960. If you wanted to, you could save AU$165 and just get the base 128MB model, but we wouldn't advise that - OS X on 128MB is only just bearable. While it lacks the PC Card slots of its bigger PowerBook cousins, what it does have is a nice range of external ports; 2 USB ports, one firewire port, modem and NIC all manage to squeeze in on the left hand side of the iBook. On the software front Apple offers the iBook with OS X. By the time you read this, you'll get OS X 10.2 ("Jaguar"), although the test notebook we examined was only running OS 10.1.4. Apple also supplies a copy of World Book OS X edition, Mac Internet Explorer and the full run of software that comes with OS X 10.2. It's very easy for the PC Notebook market to scoff at Apples and make claims of being overpriced. While the 12in iBook does have its limitations, it offers a well powered attractive unit for a decent price, and once you get past all the silly "My OS is better than yours" posturing, that's what you really want from a notebook.
Apple iBook
Dell Inspiron 2650
From simply looking at the specifications, we suspected that the Inspiron 2650 was going to top out our Productivity tests. Then again, it had what some might deem an unfair advantage. While the rest of the field was made up of Mobile Celerons in the 900Mhz-1.2Ghz range, the Inspiron 2650 packs a meaty Mobile Pentium 4-M clocked at 1.6GHz. Having that kind of muscle does have its drawbacks; its steroid-like stature might allow it to process at higher rates, but those extra clock cycles tend to eat up power like nobody's business. The Inspiron 2650 tended towards the bottom half of the battery life statistics, with 158 minutes in our Productivity tests and 224 minutes in our reader tests.
The Inspiron 2650 isn't the prettiest Dell we've ever seen; while other Dell units branch out into multicoloured inserts and groovy additional buttons, the 2650 comes in basic black with a small keyboard layout. In order to conserve space, the Windows key has been shuffled up to the top right corner, which we found a little irksome. It's a flaw shared with the Toshiba Satellite 1400. The Inspiron 2650 was the second heaviest notebook we examined (the Toshiba Satellite 1400 is 40gms heavier), which could be a concern for anyone planning to lug it around. 3.26kg might not seem like a lot until it's stuck on your shoulder for an entire afternoon, especially in summer. As Dell's whole philosophy is build to order, the Inspiron 2650 is available in a staggering number of combinations. The unit we looked at shipped with 256MB of SDRAM, a 30GB hard drive and an 8x DVD-ROM drive. A tasty nVidia GeForce2Go with 16MB of memory makes it a potential multimedia candidate and rounds out a very nice package. About our only concern with the 2650 was the somewhat limited upgrade scope for the memory; according to Dell's specifications it can only go up to 512MB, which could be a concern if you're looking to keep this notebook for the long term. The other catch with the 2650 is that it only has one PCMCIA slot, which again limits the upgrade/extension possibilities. The space where the second PC card might be placed houses a fan, presumably to deal with the higher heat requirements of the meatier processor. Like the Acer Travelmate 233X, the Inspiron 2650 only just squeaks in under our AU$3,000 limit, but with the feature set it brings to the table, it's still excellent value for money. We have no hesitation in awarding it our Editor's Choice for budget notebooks.
Dell Inspiron 2650
IBM ThinkPad R31 26562MM
You can't miss an IBM Thinkpad. Well, to put it more accurately, you could miss an individual Thinkpad if it were in a field of Thinkpads. Like Henry Ford's Model T, customers can have any design for a Thinkpad they like -- as long as it's black and boxy. That's not entirely a bad thing, however. IBM's Thinkpad design has lasted as long as it has because corporate buyers love the things. They're reasonably robust, they protect the screen quite well, and they can survive quite a lot of user abuse. IBM doesn't specifically warrant against the user abuse, of course; it's just a side effect of the boxy design. They also share the boxy design in order to share common notebook components across the same lines, which is great if you're upgrading from older Thinkpads.
In terms of specifications, the IBM ThinkPad R31 26562MM sports a 1.13GHz Mobile Celeron, 256MB of SDRAM and 32MB of integrated memory in the familiar Intel 830MG chipset. It's the only Windows-based notebook in our roundup to ship with only a CD-ROM drive; everything else but the iBook sported either a DVD-ROM drive or a CD-RW/DVD combo drive. Then again, what (legitimate) use do corporate users have for CD burners and DVD-ROM drives? The Thinkpad R31 26562MM is the only notebook in our roundup not to opt for a Glidepad. It instead uses the Thinkpad-standard Trackpoint nubbin housed inbetween the G and H keys. Individual preferences vary; we like this more than a Glidepad but would simply pack a mouse in with any notebook we were going to use for the long term in any case. Corporate buyers looking for a robust notebook that works within their IT structure (presuming you're standardised on Thinkpads) will love the Thinkpad R31. At the higher end of our under-three-grand pricing structure we'd tilt everyone else towards the Dell Inspiron 2650.
IBM ThinkPad R31 26562MM
Sony Vaio PCG-FX950
Sony products have a reputation for style in terms of visual design; whether or not you like an individual product, you usually can't help but be bowled over at how cool the casing looks. In the case of the Sony Vaio PCG-FX950, we suspect it must have gone past Sony's design team on a Friday, as there's a half hearted effort to make the unit look snazzy by some seemingly random purple plastic. The effect isn't pleasant to our eyes; we may find black notebooks dull, but dull beats ugly most of the time.
The PCG-FX950 boasts the slowest processor of our Windows machines, a poky little Mobile Celeron 900MHz. We were therefore somewhat surprised that it somehow managed to pull itself up by its bootstraps and outdo the competition in our Productivity tests, where it beat out both the Acer Travelmate 233X and Toshiba Satellite 1400. We were less impressed, however, with the battery performance, where the Vaio came dead last every time. It only managed 133 minutes in our Productivity battery tests, and 163 minutes in our Reader tests. To put that in perspective, the next worst notebook, the IBM Thinkpad R31 26562MM, managed 212 minutes. This isn't a notebook you'd want away from a power supply for any extended period of time. In terms of standout hardware, the Vaio is one of only two of our budget notebooks to ship with a combo DVD/CD-RW drive, and the only Windows machine to come with inbuilt firewire, although it is Sony's less impressive four pin i.link variant, which requires an adapter for most devices and doesn't supply a power line. The keyboard is pleasant enough to type on; not quite as good as the Toshiba 1400 keyboard, but certainly workable. Mousing is done via the touchpad, and as there's no PS2 port. You'd need to sacrifice a USB port to attach an external mouse. There is a serial port, though, so if you had an ancient serial mouse, you might be able to work that way. From an upgrading perspective, our only concern was that according to Sony's website specifications, the Vaio is maxed out at 256MB of memory; that's what it comes with and the maximum it can support. The Vaio may not have impressed us with battery life, but it does boast the most complete third party software library of any of the notebooks in our roundup. Apart from purely Sony applications like PictureToy and SonicStage, you also get full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Norton AntiVirus 2002.
Sony Vaio PCG-FX950
Toshiba Satellite 1400
Of the Windows systems we've examined for this review, the Toshiba Satellite 1400 by far has the best overall design; the keyboard is nice and responsive, although we're not wild about the relocation of the Windows key, a fault shared with the Dell Inspiron 2650. The visual design, accented by a silver trim, actually makes the system look better than most budget machines. The Satellite 1400's base specifications aren't top of the range, but they're also nothing to be scoffed at; an Intel Mobile Celeron 1.2Ghz provides the grunt, backed up by 128MB of SDRAM and a 20GB hard drive, alongside an 8x DVD-ROM and a 16MB Trident chipset graphics card.
In terms of results, the Satellite 1400 was exceptionally similar to the Acer Travelmate. It disappointed us in Productivity terms, coming dead last, but managed to offset that disappointment with solid battery performance, where it came second, both times to the Travelmate. It fell just shy of 200 minutes Productivity battery life, and managed to hold on another 45 minutes in our Reader tests. While all of our testing was done with battery saving features disabled, it's worth making note of the Toshiba's incredibly indepth power management console, which allows you to set individual levels for everything from screen brightness to hard disk activity depending on your current battery level. It would certainly be conceivable to eke out even better performance than we got with the Satellite 1400. The one factor that does make the Satellite 1400 stand out is the RRP; Toshiba lists it at AU$2,640, making it the cheapest notebook in our roundup. While it doesn't quite have the multimedia grunt of the Inspiron 2650, Toshiba's clearly aiming the 1400 at the consumer market; it comes with two customisable buttons near the power button, and CD controls on the front face if your notebook also doubles as your entertainment center. The Toshiba 1400 bottomed out our performance tests, making it a poor choice for anyone needing absolute fastest performance. Its battery life is something of a saving grace, as is the responsive keyboard and relatively low price.
Toshiba Satellite 1400
How we tested
The Reader test mimics the action of reading a single large HTML file -- in this case "War and Peace" -- until the battery is depleted, and delivers a single battery time score. All tests were performed with notebook battery saving features disabled. All notebooks were also tested with an intensive period of physical testing, covering all aspects of notebook performance. Particular attention was paid to screen quality as observed over a number of hours and keyboard quality from typing in large documents as these are factors that users will have to deal with each and every time they use a notebook.
And the winner is...
Special runners-up mention must go to the Apple iBook and Acer Travelmate 233X, both of which fulfill certain notebook criteria very well. The iBook is the only unit of those we've tested that we'd like to carry around for any period of time. Apart from looking snazzy, it's also lightweight for a budget notebook. Carrying a notebook around is fine, but if it dies before you can actually use it, it's just a paperweight, and here the Acer Travelmate 233X stunned us with its excellent battery performance in both Productivity and Reader modes.
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