Newest and best Wi-Fi Laptops benchmark
Date:
Topic Mobile & Handheld Industry
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from ZDNET Australia
Kire Terzievski, Technology & Business magazine
If you?re going to have to lug it around, you might as well get a laptop that will make business colleagues green with envy.
In this feature we look at some of the fastest notebooks on the market, as well as many that are very well featured in other words, notebooks that will drive your friends into paroxysms of envy. Today, there are just about as many different types of mobile users as there are people, and thankfully there is a notebook to suit almost everyone. With the notebooks we looked at in this comparison, no expense was spared. And while that would have meant ridiculous price tags even only a few years ago, you can now get real mobile performers at prices that are (almost) down to earth. Let?s take a look at some of the features buyers should familiarise themselves with before making that purchase.
Displays
All of the notebooks we tested featured 14in or larger TFT displays. At 14in, displays are large enough for you to be able to do a presentation to a small number of people. Then again, you can of course connect any notebook up to a monitor or projector for larger audiences. Note that for those intimate gatherings, Apple has notebooks with 15in and 15.2in screens.
Connectors
For those of you who are after the latest and greatest and who want every connector known to man, this is your class of notebook (and obviously size and weight are not your top priorities). Most of the notebooks we tested here featured all the new and standard connectors that you could possibly need. The Apple and Toshiba, however, didn?t feature any legacy connectors. With the growing popularity of multiple USB ports, you?ll find legacy ports on fewer and fewer new notebooks. DVI didn?t seem to be a very popular interface with most of these notebooks but almost all of them featured a 15-pin RGB out connector and/or an S-Video out connector.
What you will find extra is FireWire and SD Slots, as well as Smart Media Card slots. These are extremely handy if you?re pulling video down from a digital or video camera.
S/PDIF is another connector that you may only find in these sorts of notebooks. This will enable you to improve your cinema experience by being able to connect some digital speakers to your notebook.
Drives
Hard drive capacities varied from 20GB to 60GB, which should be more than enough for most users. You can even get a hard disk for your notebook that spins at 5400 RPM for those of you who require fast access. Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drives are very common nowadays-more recently, DVD recorders have been made available for notebooks.
Graphics
The two heavyweights in the area of graphics for notebooks are nVidia and ATI. nVidia for some time now has been delivering fast and feature-rich processors from its GeForce range. They come in a variety of model types but what they all do ensure is an increase in overall performance in your notebook, battery life, and DVD and video playback. You will find the Quadro 4 Go GL in many mobile workstations and varieties of Geforce 4 Go in most high-performance desktop replacement notebooks.
ATI has been doing similar things with the ATI Mobility Fire GL 9000. This has been designed for digital content creators and other professionals seeking stable workstation-class graphics performance on a mobile platform. The Mobility Radeon 9000 targets the Geforce 4 Go processors. It delivers fastest 3D graphics and support all the latest games as well as features that enhance all aspects of the visual experience.
In our tests, the nVidia processor came out on top. The Toshiba notebook we tested housed an nVidia processor together with an amazing 64MB of video memory. It?s a shame we couldn?t compare this unit directly with another ATI-based notebook that also had 64MB of built-in video memory.
Networking
Bluetooth and 802.11b (Wi-Fi) are usually standard features with this category of notebook. With Bluetooth, you can link your notebook to devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. The 802.11b (Wi-Fi) technology on the other hand has also rapidly gained acceptance in many organisations as an alternative to a wired LAN.
However, there are still some security issues surrounding this protocol. All the notebooks also featured an integrated 56K modem and 10/100 Ethernet.
Battery life
Intel?s SpeedStep technology is one of the reasons why we have seen such significant improvements in notebook battery life.
However, as processors get faster, screens get bigger, and more external devices are developed for portables, more pressure is put on the battery. Vendors have taken necessary steps to improve battery performance by using utilities that allow you to customise your notebook?s power usage.
You can set the notebook?s CPU to work at slow speeds for certain tasks to save power. The LCD brightness can also be reduced to save power and turned off automatically if the notebook had been idling for even as little as a minute. The same sort of thing can be done with the hard drive.
If battery life is still not up to delivering the performance you need, some models make it possible for you to attach a second battery.
The Machines:
Acer TravelMate 650
The TravelMate 650 is an exciting new notebook from Acer-thin and stylish, it is nevertheless slightly on the heavy side.
This new Acer features an Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz processor, 256MB of RAM, a 40GB hard disk drive, and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive. It has a Smart Card reader as well as a single Type II PC Card Slot. There was no shortage of USB ports?four in total?and what surprised us was that it still managed to house all the common legacy ports on the back of the notebook. Unlike any of the other notebooks, it has a Smart Media slot, which will come in handy for transferring images from your digital camera. There?s also an SD slot on the front of the notebook.
The arrangement of keys is different to what you may be used to. The whole keyboard is slightly curved but it?s actually quite comfortable to use. The palm rest area is also very large. The Acer has front-mounted speakers, which we?re not big fans of, especially when you?re typing?you tend to lose quite a bit of sound quality once you place your wrists over the palm rest area.
The Acer was quite fast in all of our tests. The Acer ran all the tests at 1024 x 768, which is its native mode. The other notebooks had higher native modes. The main reason for this was the fact that the display was limited in terms of display resolution and in terms of image quality the display was very poor.
Apple PowerBook G4
The Apple Titanium PowerBook G4 has had some major upgrades since we last had a look at it some six months ago. It sports a faster 1GHz G4 processor and a 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics accelerator. The PowerBook is still only 2.54cm thick and only weighs 2.5kg, making it the lightest notebook in this review. This is quite remarkable considering it has a 15.2in screen display. And the display quality was absolutely stunning. You can now for the first time watch DVD movies on your notebook in a widescreen format (outside work hours, of course).
From the outside, the PowerBook is all silver-grey. It looks very reserved but modern and stylish at the same time. The PowerBook also features a huge 60GB hard disk and 512MB of RAM, which can be expanded to 1024MB. Also featured is a one-inch thick slot loading Super Drive. The Super Drive (DVD-R/CD-RW) will let you read and burn data CDs, as well as DVDs that can be played in most consumer DVD players.
On the back of this PowerBook we found a DVI port (which is a rarity except on Apple notebooks) as well as FireWire, TV out, and two USB ports. There were no legacy ports, however. The PowerBook also features a built-in AirPort card.
Unfortunately, we did not benchmark the PowerBook simply because there aren?t any comprehensive cross-platform benchmarks that can run on both a Mac and PC. We have used Photoshop benchmark in the past but that only really measures the relative CPU performance in Photoshop.
We should also make you aware that a new top-of-the-line PowerBook G4 has just been released in the US that has a huge 17in LCD display as well as built-in Bluetooth and a built-in AirPort Extreme card (54Mbps).
Dell Latitude C640
Like the IBM T30, the Dell Latitude C640 has been floating about for some time now. It hasn?t changed at all since we last saw it at the end of last year. It?s still charcoal black, even the standard and function keys are this colour. Dell has also continued to offer both a track point and glide pad.
On the back you will find the most common legacy connectors but it fails to deliver more than one USB connector. It doesn?t feature FireWire, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth and the optical drive is only a DVD/CD drive while the other manufacturers went one step better by offering at least a DVD/CD-RW drive.
On a brighter note the Dell does have an integrated wireless-ready antenna and a modular bay, which can be set up to house a second battery or a second media device.
The Dell was the fastest notebook we tested in the December issue. It however hasn?t taken very long to make it the slowest this time around. Despite this, it?s still very fast in both 2D and 3D. You can expect the battery to last almost three hours, which is also very good.
The Dell isn?t a bad notebook but we must say that most of the leading manufacturers have surpassed this model in more ways than one.
IBM ThinkPad T30
The IBM Thinkpad T30 combines plenty of punch and portability. It weighs only 2.5kg making it, together with the Apple, the lightest notebook we reviewed. It features an Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz processor like most of the other notebooks as well as the same graphics processor, hard disk and DVD drive.
But what makes this unit so special is the way IBM packages each notebook. The titanium composite used in the top and bottom covers makes the notebook robust and light. This T30 notebook offers Wi-Fi, and features a dual antenna built into the display for better wireless performance. The T30 comes with a ThinkLight, which is a small light that illuminates the keyboard. This is a great feature that gives you the flexibility to keep working in low-light conditions. Another nice feature are the differently coloured function keys. Having the option of using either a trackpoint or glidepad controller for the mouse is also nice.
The T30 also has an easy-open cover that can be unlatched and opened with one hand. The casing also comes with an ?airbag?. Actually it?s just a small air cushion the size of a 5-cent coin mounted on the base of the unit. This absorbs a lot of the impact if the notebook is ever dropped flat on a table or the floor.
On the performance side of things, the T30 was fast enough to handle any office or desktop publishing type applications. It?s also very good in 3D. Despite it working harder at 1400 x 1050 it still had enough punch to record some high scores. Its battery life wasn?t too bad?it managed to run for 2 hours and 45 minutes in our test.
Toshiba Satellite 5200
Toshiba has only just recently launched this product. We were lucky enough to be one of the first to get to play around with it. We can assure you we were sad to see it go back.
This Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz-based notebook houses the first DVD-RAM/DVD-RW/DVD-R/CD-RW/CD-R drive. So not only will users now be able to burn back up copies of their movies, users can also benefit from the high-capacity/low cost DVD-RAM storage format.
It also features 512MB of RAM, a 60GB HDD, 15in display (native 1600 x 1200) and nVidia?s new GeForce 4 460 graphics processor together with 64MB of video memory.
This notebook is very large and heavy and you may find it a bit of a beast to cart around. However, with all the size available to this notebook, Toshiba has made sure it?s well equipped. Apart from the modem and LAN jacks (which pretty much come standard with every notebook these days) the Toshiba also offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It also offers heaps of common connectors as well as an S/PDIF jack, which will enable you to connect up to digital speakers.
It doesn?t end there. There?s an SD slot as well as a single Type II PC Card slot and a Style bay that can house a second battery. You will also find a great pair of Harmon Kardon speakers and a subwoofer.
Now for the really cool features (if the above aren?t already enough): there?s a set of control buttons on the front of the notebook that will let you play CDs without having to turn the notebook on. With these buttons you can also control your DVD player. Furthermore there?s an LCD display that will display the mode you are in as well as other things like the time and date and the battery charge level. What we loved was the fact that we were able to operate all this from a remote control. You can even power the notebook on and off from the wireless remote control.
The Cpad is even more impressive. It?s essentially a glide pad that has a back light and lights up like a PDA. You can tap on little icons on the Cpad to open up all sorts of utilities like calendars, calculators, and notes so you can capture signatures. You can also launch Windows-based programs from the Cpad. Another nice touch is the various backgrounds or screen saver type animations you can have running on the Cpad.
This is also a very fast notebook. It offered not only the best graphics performance but the longest battery life as well. It was a tiny bit slower than the IBM and Acer in Business Winstone this was because it had to run this test at a higher resolution, which would have ultimately affected its score. You can run this notebook at a lower resolution but we suggest you use stick to its native resolution as it offers the best image quality.
We unfortunately couldn?t run Multimedia Content Creation Winstone on this Toshiba. This was mainly a software issue with the benchmark.
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