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Notebook Systems December 1999 • Vol.7 Issue 12 |
Premium-Priced Notebooks Speed Doesn't Always Kill, But It May Cost More Than $3,000 | ||
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If you skipped the first two price categories of the "Notebooks" section and flipped here right away, don't feel bad—it's our favorite category of notebooks, too. The notebooks in this category are pricey, but they offer the best performance, the best multimedia capabilities, and the best design money can buy. As we mentioned in the introduction to our "Notebooks" section, we had a first in this issue of our Smart Computing Guide To Buying Computers. For the first time in five issues of this publication, a vendor submitted a notebook containing a Celeron processor for review in our "Premium-Priced Notebooks" section. The upstart Celeron was matched against 400MHz Pentium II processors with twice as much RAM, and . . . well, we think the results will surprise you as much as they surprised us.  Think Different. This is also only the second edition of this publication to include a non-PC notebook in our head-to-head reviews. In this edition, we reviewed Apple Computer's excellent PowerBook G3 in this section. Even though it's always tough to draw direct comparisons between PCs and Macs because they use different operating systems and have disparate internal designs, we thought we would give you a peek at what it's like to "Think Different."
In the last year or so, Apple Computer has kept the fire burning by offering attractive, innovative alternatives to the Wintel personal computers that continue to dominate the computer market of today. The most notable examples of the company's new direction are probably the iMac and the iBook. Apple's best efforts, however, don't always come in fruit flavors. The company's PowerBook notebooks have been around for some time and offer both performance and intelligent design. Specifications. Our PowerBook G3 (model # M7308LL/A) came with a 400MHz G3 processor with 32KB of primary cache and a whopping megabyte of backside (secondary or L2) cache. Apple packs 64MB of standard synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM) into the G3, but you can expand the amount of RAM to 384MB. For storage purposes, Apple includes an IBM 6GB hard drive and a Matshita 2X DVD-ROM drive. (As is the case with many newer Macs, no diskette drive is present.) The G3 offers good connectivity capabilities via its internal 56Kbps V.90 modem and a standard 10/100Base-T Ethernet network adapter. These devices make connection to both the Internet and a local-area network (LAN) equally convenient. A lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery provides power to the G3 when an outlet is not available. Although it didn't give us any trouble, we couldn't run our usual battery life software test on the G3 because the software is made to work only with the Windows 98 operating system. A gorgeous 14.1-inch active-matrix display rests atop the G3. ATI's Rage LT Pro video controller with 8MB of video memory controls the display. If you want to buy your G3 online through Apple, you can customize many of the components that make up the PowerBook to fit your needs. For example, you can opt for alternate processor speeds, hard drive capacities, and amounts of RAM. You can also add a CD-ROM drive rather than a DVD-ROM drive, add a second battery, add a Zip drive, add a SuperDisk LS-120 drive, or add one of several other options. Design. The PowerBook's smooth outer shell is a pleasing blend of form and function, with smooth, graceful lines and no apparent problems in the area of durability. We liked the fact that Apple chose to stick with traditional black for this unit rather than offering a potpourri of candy colors. The PowerBook is pretty, but it's all business. A stiff outer lid that doesn't twist, bend, or distort much protects the bright, exceptionally sharp display. The unit's speakers, which are on the base above the keyboard, provide an impressive amount of sound and clarity. At the very top of the notebook's volume range, however, they do tend to distort a bit. The PowerBook's keyboard is fantastic. It offers large, well-arranged keys that provide excellent feedback and make touch-typing a breeze. Best of all, because Macintosh keyboards don't come with all the Windows keys and cursor-control keys that are often crammed onto PC keyboards in inopportune locations, the keyboard is uncluttered and easy for all levels of users to adapt to with little or no practice. Performance. Evaluating the performance of our PowerBook review unit was rather tough because we are primarily set up to test PC-compatible notebooks. Thus, we had to rely mostly on our observations. We spent some time opening and using several applications, and the G3 did everything we asked of it quickly and efficiently. One area in particular that is easy to compare to other units is DVD movie playback. We were impressed when we ran DVD movies on the G3; they ran smoothly with no apparent slowdown or pixelization. As we mentioned earlier, we were unable to quantify the exact capacity of the notebook's battery. Apple's claim of five hours of battery life, however, is not hard to believe considering the increased performance boasted by the latest Li-ion notebook batteries. Final Word. Comparing the performance of Macintosh computers to PCs is always tough. The impression we received from the PowerBook G3 is that it will hold its own in terms of both performance and battery life when compared to the latest and greatest notebook PCs. Aside from this, the unit is durable, well-constructed, extremely functional, and possesses an undeniable aesthetic charm. Its estimated street price of $3,499 makes it a considerable investment, but we think the value it delivers is well worth it, especially for Macintosh fans and those looking to break away from the traditional PC mold.
Compaq's Armada notebooks are for corporate business use. This purpose is apparent with a glance at their austere, efficient exteriors and their considerable price tags. Compaq characterizes the E700 as having "workstation class" performance. If that means that it is fast and has a lot of stuff, then the company's definition is right on. Specifications. The processor at the heart of the E700 is a 400MHz Intel Pentium II, the fastest mobile Pentium available as of this writing. This unit comes with 128MB of RAM (only one other notebook in this issue offers as much standard RAM). If you need to, however, you can expand the memory in the unit to a whopping 320MB. A huge, 14.1GB hard drive serves as main storage for the E700, and other storage options include a modular 1.44MB diskette drive and a modular 4X DVD-ROM drive. These two drives are stacked one upon the other in the E700's unique dual-stacked MultiBay device ports at the front of the notebook. The MultiBay also supports the use of such optional equipment as a CD-ROM drive, a second battery, a second hard drive, or a SuperDisk LS-120 diskette drive. A 56Kbps modem is, of course, standard. The E700's standard battery is a 14.4-volt Li-Ion unit that makes a decent mobile power source. The E700 measures 12.6 inches wide x 10.2 inches deep x 2 inches high, and at 9.2 pounds, it is the heaviest notebook in this issue. Its display is a 14.1-inch active-matrix beauty controlled by ATI's Rage Mobility-P AGP video chipset with 8MB of video memory. Design. The large, heavy Armada E700 is well constructed, and it exhibits little flex throughout its case. The display panel flexes a bit but not enough to cause concern. The display itself looks sharp and bright. The unit's speakers are also good; they provide decent volume and excellent clarity and bass. The only problem with them is their placement, which is smack dab in the middle of each side of the wrist rest where they are almost completely obscured when typing. This causes them to sound muffled when you're typing, and, if you're like us, you prefer a little music to write by. Compaq went all-out in providing quality input devices for the E700, including an excellent keyboard and a pointing stick that makes Windows navigation a breeze. The keyboard is very spacious and well arranged, and the left and right pointing stick buttons are spaced just right for comfortable simultaneous pointing and clicking. Performance. The Armada breezed right through BAPCo's SYSmark ‘98 performance benchmark software. It cranked out a 162 in Office Productivity, a 161 in Content Creation, and an overall score of 162, which is just four points shy of matching the best overall score we've ever received from a notebook. It produced good battery life scores, too, turning in an elapsed time of 3:19:49 and completing three complete test application loops. These were the second-best battery life scores in the E700's category, although we were unable to compare it to Apple's PowerBook. Final Word. The E700 missed our Best Performance award by two performance points and a few other considerations, but it is nonetheless an amazing mobile PC. It is big, heavy, and expensive, but its performance, quality input devices, and excellent multimedia capabilities fairly scream desktop replacement. If you can afford it and want to do some upper-body work, the E700 might be for you.
Dell's Inspiron line of notebooks embodies all that's right in the world of portable PCs. Past Inspirons have impressed us by combining great performance and excellent feature sets, and the latest 7500 continues this trend. The first notebook to enter our "Premium-Priced Notebooks" category with an Intel Celeron processor, the 7500 may just be the best notebook we've reviewed to date. Specifications. The Inspiron 7500 is built around a 466MHz Intel Celeron processor and 64MB of standard RAM, which you can expand to 512MB, the largest RAM capacity of any notebook PC we have ever reviewed (except for the other Dell in the "Premium-Priced Notebooks" category). An enormous 25GB hard drive is another first, providing more permanent storage space than many desktop PCs on the market today and dwarfing the drives of all our other premium-priced notebooks. The innovation, however, does not stop there. Dell combines the 7500's 1.44MB diskette drive and 4X DVD-ROM drive into one modular unit that you can easily swap out in favor of a diskette/CD-ROM drive combo. The case of this notebook is 12.9 inches wide x 10.5 inches deep x 2.5 inches high. In this case, the unit also includes an internal 56Kbps modem and a 14.4-volt Li-Ion battery that has astonishing staying power. The notebook weighs a substantial 8.9 pounds as tested; it is the second-heaviest unit in this issue. The sizeable lid of the 7500 contains a 15-inch active-matrix display that looks great, thanks to the direction of ATI's Rage Mobility video control chipset with 8MB of video memory. Design. The outer shell of the Dell Inspiron 7500 doesn't display any weaknesses. From the display panel to the keyboard to the top of the unit's base, everything is rock solid and ready to travel. The 15-inch display offers exceptional brilliance and clarity, and, thanks to the 8MB of video memory commanded by the 7500's video controller, it plays DVD movies with no noticeable hitches or pixelization. Even though they are not quite up to the standard of the unit's display, the speakers provide plenty of volume and little distortion, even when pushed to their limit. Dell blessed the Inspiron 7500 with an excellent keyboard that is both large and well-appointed. There is no cramping of cursor keys next to standard keys on the keyboard, and the keys themselves feel solid and comfortable. The touchpad follows suit with big, well-placed buttons that are easy to use and allow fast, accurate control of the Win98 pointer. The folks at Dell sent our Inspiron 7500 with the Win98 Second Edition operating system and a smattering of proprietary Dell applications pre-installed. The company's usual complement of helpful, intuitive documentation was included, as well, to help users accomplish every task involved with getting the Inspiron 7500 up and running as soon as it comes out of the box. Performance. Although it missed our overall notebook performance score record by two points, the 466MHz Celeron processor inside the Dell Inspiron 7500 impressed us by beating two 400MHz Pentium II processors with twice as much RAM rather handily. It threw out scores of 157 in Office Productivity, 173 in Content Creation, and 164 overall. But the Inspiron wasn't done wowing us yet. It went on to run our battery life test software for 4:25:37 while completing four loops of the test applications. Even though these battery life scores were not the best in this issue of our guide, they were quite substantial and were better than the rest of the units in our "Premium-Priced Notebooks" section. Final Word. Dell's Inspiron 7500 is quite simply one of the best notebooks we've ever seen. Its weakest link is a good pair of speakers (as opposed to a great pair). In addition, even though it offers the biggest display, the biggest hard drive, the largest total RAM capacity, the best performance scores, the best battery life scores, and the best combination of multimedia and input devices in its category, at $3,301, it costs LESS than all its competition. What else can we say, except that the 7500 is both our Best Performer and our Best Value for the "Premium-Priced Notebooks" category in this issue.
The Latitude line of business notebooks is made up of some good units; notebooks that combine performance, solid construction, and maximum portability. The Latitude CPi isn't quite as small and light as the Latitude CS, but it's more than two pounds lighter than the top two notebooks in its category. In addition, only the Apple PowerBook is thinner when closed. Specifications. Intel's 400MHz Pentium II processor powers the CPi, and it gets help doing so from 128MB of RAM. (64MB is standard; you can add 64MB more for $200.) If for some reason you should find yourself in need of 512MB of RAM, the CPi will dutifully accommodate you. Although a 4.8GB hard drive is standard with the CPi, our review unit came with a 6.4GB drive that adds $99 to the notebook's price at purchase. Our unit also came with a modular 4X DVD-ROM drive (a 24X CD-ROM drive is standard) that adds $299 to the price of the CPi. You can use the unit's standard 1.44MB diskette externally if connected by the included cable to the CPi's parallel port, or you can swap it into the bay that holds the DVD drive. Our Dell Latitude CPi notebook came without a modem, which is standard, but you can order a PC card modem from Dell at the time of purchase or separately if you choose to. A 14.4-volt Li-Ion battery provides portable power, and it contributes to the 6.7-pound weight of the notebook. The outer shell measures 12.56 inches wide x 9.94 inches deep x 1.77 inches high, and the lid contains a 14.1-inch active-matrix display. The display takes instructions from a NeoMagic MagicMedia 256ZX video chipset with 4MB of video memory. Design. The case of the CPi is sturdy. The display panel does flex a bit, but there is a bit of a buffer space between the outer shell and the LCD mechanism that affords the display enough protection to assuage our worries. The display is of average quality, and the speakers are pretty good, too. They do, however, tend to distort sound quite a bit when turned up to 75% of their total volume. The input devices for the CPi are its best features. The keyboard is as good as the one we liked so much in Dell's Inspiron 7500 (also in this category), and the touchpad is responsive and accurate enough to make getting around in Win98 quick and easy. We can't stress enough the importance of a good keyboard, especially for users who plan to use their notebooks for extensive word processing. Like many business notebooks, the Latitude CPi comes with only an operating system (in this case Win98) and a few of Dell's own applications pre-installed. Performance. The CPi's overall performance score tied for second in its category—only another Dell notebook beat it. It produced a 162 in Office Productivity, a 162 in Content Creation, and an overall score of (you guessed it) 162. Its battery life scores were disappointing, however, as it managed only an elapsed time of 2:21:58 and completed just two loops of test applications. These were the poorest battery life scores among our premium-priced notebooks. Final Word. The CPi has impressive performance scores, offers decent multimedia capabilities, and has a great keyboard and touchpad. Unfortunately, its shortcomings outweigh its assets. It costs quite a bit, considering its feature set, and its battery life scores were really quite poor compared to many of the other notebooks we reviewed. There are certainly worse notebooks than the CPi, but, if you want to save some cash and don't mind lugging a heavier unit around, we'd suggest picking up Dell's Inspiron 7500 instead.
This is our first look at a Panasonic Toughbook, and even though it's not quite fair to compare the Toughbook's performance to that of our other premium-priced notebooks—it's really in a category of its own—we were impressed. The Toughbook lives up to its name in every way; for those that need ultra-solid construction for rigorous travel, there is no better choice than the Toughbook. Specifications. The Toughbook 71 is built primarily to be durable, but Panasonic didn't want to sacrifice performance. Thus, Panasonic built a 366MHz Intel Pentium II processor into its Toughbook 71, and it added 64MB of standard RAM to keep everything running smoothly. (You can expand that amount up to 192MB if you choose.) The unit's hard drive is a 10GB Fujitsu drive that is mounted in a shock-absorbing polymer gel to protect it if it is dropped, kicked, or checked at the airport with your suitcase. A modular 24X CD-ROM drive opens to the left of the notebook, and you can substitute a modular 1.44MB diskette drive with a quick swap. We do not care much to have to choose between one device and the other, but apparently it is a necessary part of the Toughbook 71's design. The 71 doesn't come with a standard modem, but it does include two PC card slots on its right side, either of which you can use to attach a PC Card modem. A standard 10.8-volt battery provides mobile power to the components within Toughbook 71's 11.7 inches wide x 9.4 inches deep x 1.8 inches high frame, including its 13.3-inch active-matrix display. NeoMagic's popular MagicMedia 256AV video chipset drives the display. Design. Whereas portions of some notebooks are constructed with magnesium-alloys, the Toughbook 71's case is entirely made up of magnesium. The benefits of this are apparent as soon as you get your mitts on one. The outer shell is solid, including the display panel, which prevents disturbance of the display by allowing only the minutest amount of flex. The display itself is nice, and it provides a clear, bright picture. The 71's speakers, however, are not quite up to par. They don't produce much volume, and they exhibit considerable distortion at relatively low volume levels. The sealed, spill-proof keyboard is large enough to be comfortable, and its keys feel good. The arrangement of the keys, however, leaves something to be desired. Even though it is not uncommon, the practice of cramming cursor-control keys such as HOME, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, and END tightly against the right side of the unit's normal keys is nonetheless annoying, and it makes for a considerable amount of typos until one acclimates oneself to the layout. We were similarly disappointed in the touchpad for the 71. It moves Win98's pointer around the screen somewhat erratically. As a result, pointing and clicking (the basis of Windows navigation) is something of a chore. We like Panasonic's bare-bones approach to pre-installed software. The Toughbook 71 came with Win98 installed and not much else. Performance. The Toughbook's performance scores didn't set any records, but were better than most of our midrange notebooks' scores. It turned in a 126 in Office Productivity, a 146 in Content Creation, and a 134 overall, the lowest performance scores in its category. It did better with our battery life tests, producing an elapsed time of 3:11:52 and completing 2.75 loops of SYSmark for Battery Life 98's test applications. These results placed it fourth out of the five units in this category, but more than three hours of battery life is still a respectable achievement. Final Word. If top-shelf performance is one of your priorities, the Toughbook 71 probably isn't for you. It came in last among our premium-priced notebooks, and it produced battery life scores that were next to last. Its keyboard, even though spacious and spill-proof, is poorly arranged, and its touchpad offers dodgy performance at best. On the other hand, it did manage to produce better than three hours of battery life, and its keyboard, touchpad, and LCD are all sealed and impervious to coffee spills. Add to that its seemingly bulletproof outer shell, heavy-duty handle, and dust-resistant lid hinges, and you have a notebook worthy of Indiana Jones. Toughbook isn't just a name. Premium-Priced Superlatives. Our winner for Best Performance in the "Premium-Priced Notebooks" section is Dell's Inspiron 7500. This might be the best notebook we've ever seen. Really! It offers the best multimedia, the best input devices, the best performance, and the best battery life of any of our current premium-priced notebooks. In addition, it costs less than all the other notebooks in its category, which also makes it our winner for the Best Value award in the Premium-Priced Notebooks" section.  by Chris Trumble Premium-Priced Notebooks Chart
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