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BY: Janice J. Chen, Technical Editor, Philip Albinus, Assistant Reviews Editor, and James A. Miller, Lab Assistant
Next time you fly, glance around at your fellow passengers and you'll see that notebook computers are no longer an extravagance exclusive to the first-classers. As notebooks become competitive with desktop computers in price, power and expandability, more users are opting to go mobile.
Notebooks are coming packed with fast processors, lots of RAM, big hard disks and active-matrix screens, letting you take the power and usability of a desktop on the road with you.
Better ergonomic designs make them comfortable to use for extended periods.
The five notebooks reviewed here are systems that you wouldn't be ashamed to have as your full-time desktop system. All have 90MHz Pentium processors at heart and are fully loaded with 16MB of RAM, active-matrix screens and 500MB or bigger hard disks. But that's where the similarity ends: Some notebooks go all out on the ergonomic front, while others take the middle road for features and price. One notebook includes an internal fax modem in addition to PCMCIA slots--a nice touch that has been disappearing from notebooks lately. Four notebooks provide 16-bit sound.
All the notebooks performed admirably on our benchmark tests, putting to rest the argument that portable processing power is an oxymoron. But power shouldn't come at the expense of battery life, so we ran two types of battery torture tests. Read on to find out which notebooks dropped out early and which kept going and going and going.
Once you play with the Dell Latitude XPi, you may never go back to a desktop. It includes everything on our wish list and more. Dell leads the pack in this review by using the latest notebook technology: It's the only unit reviewed that uses a long-lasting lithium ion battery and Intel's 90MHz Pentium chip with Voltage Reduced Technology (VRT), designed specifically for notebooks (see Smaller, Smarter Pentiums -- Low-voltage chips keep things cool.).
Cutting-edge technology carries a higher price--the Latitude costs over $600 more than the next highest priced notebook here--but the benefits outweigh the extra cost. If you're planning to dish out the cash for a 90MHz Pentium notebook, you'll want to make the purchase worth your while. The only feature the Latitude lacks is sound: While all the other notebooks reviewed here include 16-bit sound, Dell leaves it out to focus on the basics.
The VRT-enhanced chip and lithium ion battery combine to give the Latitude the longest lasting battery by a huge margin. In our PowerMacro battery rundown tests, the Dell outlasted its closest competitor by almost a half-hour. Unfortunately, you can't get something for nothing. Along with the high battery scores, the Latitude received somewhat lower application performance scores. Nevertheless, scores on our WINDOWS Magazine Wintune benchmarks were commendable. Intel claimed that the VRT incorporated into this computer's processor does not carry a performance penalty, and said that other factors (cache timing, memory specifications and so forth) account for the somewhat slower performance.
It takes more than power and battery life to make the ideal notebook, though. Dell's attention to ergonomics ups the ante: The Latitude measures 2.3 by 11 by 8.75 inches and weighs 6.2 pounds, making it the lightest notebook reviewed. The 10.4-inch active-matrix display is truly crisp and vivid; only the MidWest Micro's screen came close. A full-size and responsive keyboard, a 19mm trackball with large buttons and an ample wrist rest make the Latitude a pleasure to use. Fold-down feet on the unit's back provide just the right keyboard tilt. If you like feedback, you'll like the simulated keyboard clicks produced by the notebook's internal speaker. If the sound becomes irritating, though, you can adjust the speaker volume or disable it altogether.
The unit we reviewed shipped with a removable 524MB hard disk, 16MB of RAM and 256KB of synchronous-burst level 2 cache. The built-in floppy disk drive is conveniently located on the unit's front; a PCMCIA slot on the left side accommodates two Type II cards or one Type III. Six LEDs that go around the screen's hinge let you monitor the notebook's status whether the unit is open or closed.
The ports on the notebook's back are hidden behind two cleverly designed doors that flip up into the unit like miniature garage doors, helping to minimize breakage and loss. One of the doors covers the Latitude's port replicator, while the other covers connectors for a keyboard/mouse, external VGA, and serial and parallel ports.
The Latitude XPi came with a rich assortment of Windows applications preinstalled, including America Online 2.0, RadioExpress, AutoMap Direct, Reuters Money Networks and OAG FlightDisk. Perhaps the most impressive of the bundled applications, however, is Traveling Software's CommWorks, which includes LapLink, LapLink Remote Access and TS Fax. SystemSoft PCMCIA card services are also preinstalled. Although our system had MS-DOS 6.2 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 loaded, by the time you read this Dell will offer a choice between WFWG and Windows 95.
Other Dell accessories include: an excellent Online User's Guide; the Dell Control Center, a toolbar with icons for the expanded Control Panel options; the Dell Glossary, an online glossary of computer terms; and a Battery Status gauge. Because the Latitude doesn't ship with any diskettes, the Program Diskette Maker lets you create master diskettes for all preinstalled software.
The Dell Control Center icons are in the expanded Windows Control Panel as well. These include icons for Security, to set a password and the option to boot from hard disk only; Speaker, to adjust the internal speaker's volume and enable simulated key-click sounds; Display, to adjust the screen's brightness and contrast; and Power, to set Dell's own Power Management software (in addition to the standard Windows Power Management). The SysInfo icon displays configuration info. I/O Ports lets you enable, disable or map port addresses, and enable or disable the integrated trackball. Wake-up provides options for when the system will come out of suspend mode.
You can also tweak power management, password and many other settings in the easily accessed System and BIOS Setup. One of the nicest touches on this computer is that you can access the System Setup program at any time--even from within Windows--by pressing the Fn and F1 keys.
Documentation is gratifyingly complete. The online manual and other accessories are so good that you may never have to look at the paper manual.
Dell's attention to detail is evident in the Latitude's easy-to-use features--from the well-designed keyboard and trackball, to the excellent accessories and utilities. Once you get your hands on a Latitude XPi, you won't want to let it go--it's a good thing the outstanding battery life keeps you from running out of juice!
You get what you pay for: DTK's value-oriented DTN-5P90 is the lowest-priced notebook reviewed, but after using it awhile, it's easy to see where corners were cut. Although the DTN-5P90's performance was acceptable, the unit is marred by subtle flaws.
The first of these became apparent when we initially booted up our review unit. It displayed an error message concerning a PC Tools file, although the machine did not ship with PC Tools for DOS or Windows. To solve this, we removed a load line in the WIN.INI file. Then we noticed that the machine produces quite a bit more noise than the other notebooks reviewed. A look under a removable panel above the keyboard revealed the source: a fan mounted on top of the CPU, the regular 3.3-volt 90MHz Pentium chip originally designed for desktop systems.
The system measures 2.1 by 11.1 by 9.1 inches--slightly larger than the other notebooks reviewed here. It weighs an average of 6.4 pounds. Our review unit shipped with a 750MB hard disk drive, 16MB RAM (expandable to 40MB) and 256KB of level 2 cache. The 9.4-inch active-matrix screen was the smallest of the notebooks in this group. The built-in floppy drive is on the right side, along with a microphone input jack, an external speaker jack and a volume-control switch for the two built-in speakers above the keyboard.
The unit's back has serial, parallel and external SVGA ports, as well as connectors for DC-IN, a docking station, and an external keyboard or mouse. On the notebook's left side is the removable hard drive and a door that covers a PCMCIA slot for two Type II or one Type III card.
The 750MB hard disk did not support 32-bit disk access, which can account for its somewhat low disk scores on our Wintune tests. According to DTK, the disk vendor did not supply 32-bit drivers for this size hard disk.
The DTN-5P90's full-size keyboard has large, flat keys, which are responsive, if a bit loose-feeling. They make an audible tick when you press them. One keyboard complaint: The Alt key is beneath the Shift and Z keys, rather than farther to the right. The nonstandard placement can be inconvenient if you use a lot of Windows keyboard commands.
The trackball is positioned awkwardly--directly below the V and B keys. Most other notebooks place it below the B and N keys. The odd position does not make for easy or intuitive use while typing. Unless you are left-handed and have switched mouse-button settings, you'll find the trackball's placement annoying. The trackball itself is in a round depression surrounded by two narrow, curved buttons. The trackball functions well enough, but we'd prefer larger buttons.
The DTN-5P90 has a 3-inch wrist rest in front of the keyboard. It's useful, but not as comfortable as the larger ones on the Dell and MidWest Micro machines. Above the keyboard are nine red and green LEDs that display notebook status, and a big power switch that, were it smaller, would leave room for a larger wrist rest.
The active-matrix screen's colors seem faded. Although there is a sliding brightness control along the display's bottom, it offers little in the way of brightness changes. You practically have to move the control to the opposite end to register a visible change in the display brightness. There are no subtle gradations with this unit.
The DTN-5P90 shipped with a 14.4Kbps PCMCIA fax modem, and Delrina's WinFax LITE and WinComm LITE. Other preinstalled software included CardSoft card and socket services, as well as trackball, audio and video utilities. The unit lacks Windows-based power-management utilities.
During our Wintune 2.0 benchmark tests, the DTN-5P90 delivered a respectable 95.5MIPS CPU score, compared to the best score of 97.0 from the MidWest Micro notebook. It outpaced only the Dell Latitude in the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint macro tests. The DTN-5P90 performed respectably in the battery rundown test, registering the third longest rundown time of 102 minutes (a mere 33 seconds ahead of IPC Technologies' Austin). However, with a score of 76 minutes, it was the second unit to run down during the intensive PowerMacro test.
With a street price under $3,800, the DTK Computer notebook is a value-priced deal. Had DTK paid more attention to the small, but important, ergonomic details, the DTN-5P90 would have been a real bargain.
Ergo's PowerBrick P90 is like the quiet kid in class: It may not stand out, but you can depend on it to deliver solid performance. This machine scored straight B's on our report card, finished second on the battery test, and scored well on our application and Wintune benchmarks.
The review unit's configuration included an ample 810MB hard drive (a 1.3GB drive is available), 256KB of level 2 cache, a built-in 14.4Kbps fax modem, a PCMCIA slot for two Type II or one Type III card, and a trackball pointing device that you can remove readily for easy cleaning. The computer provides 16-bit audio from a single speaker and has a 10.2-inch active-matrix display, which seemed somewhat dim when we compared it with those on the other review units. The notebook weighs in at a healthy 6.8 pounds and is solidly built. You can easily upgrade the RAM to as much as 40MB by sliding off the computer's top front cover just above the keyboard. The PowerBrick uses a nickel metal hydride battery (extras are available for $149 a pop).
A docking station port is located behind a flip-down cover on the unit's front next to the built-in floppy drive. You'll find serial, external video and parallel ports on the unit's back behind another flip-down cover. You can set the parallel port to work in either standard, enhanced, ECP, or enhanced and ECP mode in the BIOS.
Like the IPC Technologies Austin, whose case is identical to the Ergo's, connectors for these ports are installed upside down compared to most notebooks. This atypical positioning can cause some problems. For example, the Xircom PE3 Ethernet adapter that we used to load test programs wound up with its status LED on the bottom of the adapter, where we couldn't see it. Other ports include a jack for the bundled external microphone, speaker jacks, a docking station port and an external PS/2-compatible keyboard port. It also includes a PS/2 adapter for an AT-style keyboard.
A status panel--located near the power button, just above the keyboard's left side--is composed of six LEDs identified by some cryptic icons. The LEDs provide feedback on the hard disk, power, battery, Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock. The LEDs do perform a useful function--they provide information on the status of the system--but they are not as informative as LCD displays like those on the notebook computers from Dell and MidWest Micro.
The 85-key keyboard uses a function key, located on the keyboard's lower-left side, to expand its utility. An embedded numeric keypad has values printed on each key's front. Press the Fn and Num Lock key simultaneously to activate the pad. The Fn key, in conjunction with various other keys, activates suspend to disk, access the power management menu, enter suspend mode and discontinue the battery warning buzzer, as well as set contrast and brightness controls for the display.
The keyboard's touch is a little too soft: Keys don't provide quite enough feedback for your fingers. The PowerBrick lacks a built-in wrist rest; a separate wrist rest will allow for a more comfortable typing position.
Preinstalled software includes Puma Technologies' ExpensePro; Verbex Voice Systems' Listen for Windows and Listen for Command Editor, which allow you to use voice commands; OAG FlightDisk travel planning and information application; and the askSam database. The PowerBrick P90 also has Moon Valley Software's Icon Hear-iT, which gives you animated icons and lets you associate sounds with them. Also bundled with the PowerBrick is Trio Information Systems, fax software and CompuServe, as well as drivers and utilities diskettes for VGA and audio. The system manages its PCMCIA slots with Phoenix Technologies' PhoenixCard Manager software.
The PowerBrick scored well on our Wintune benchmarks, and did particularly well on the application tests, coming in second only to the MidWest Micro machine. Ergo also offers an excellent four-year warranty, the best of all the notebooks in the review, in addition to 24-hour, seven-days-a-week toll-free technical support.
A solid performer, the PowerBrick is loaded with software and comes with a built-in fax modem so you can use the PCMCIA slots for other cards. You wouldn't be sorry if you invested your money in this system.
Rock solid and familiar: That's the best way to describe the Austin Business Audio Notebook. The unit is virtually identical in appearance to the Ergo PowerBrick, except that the Austin does not have a built-in modem.
The Austin Business Audio Notebook offers sharp performance with a list price under $4,000. It is powered by the standard 3.3-volt desktop Pentium chip. An IPC Technologies representative said the company has no plans to incorporate the VRT-enhanced Pentium chip in its notebook line. Even though it has the desktop chip, which tends to run hotter than the low-voltage chip, the Austin Business Audio Notebook did not feel noticeably warm when it was running.
Preloaded software includes MS-DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Microsoft Office 4.3, the Microsoft Windows Sound System and a variety of audio applications, including Cylogic's Voice User. The review unit shipped with 16MB of RAM (expandable to 40MB), a 780MB hard drive (upgradable to 1.35GB), 256KB of level 2 cache, a 10.2-inch active-matrix display and a 16-bit sound system. It measures 2 by 11.1 by 8.58 inches and weighs 6.8 pounds.
The Austin Business Audio Notebook sports a full-sized keyboard and a 16mm trackball located in front of the keyboard. The keyboard's action is soft and somewhat mushy. Because the keys are fairly quiet when you're typing, there's not much response for fleet-fingered typists. The trackball, on the other hand, is responsive, well-designed and useful.
Compared with the Austin Vista DX4/100MHz notebook (reviewed in the First Impressions section of this issue), the Austin Business Audio Notebook has smaller keys on the keypad and does not have a wrist rest. Though these may seem like small issues, you increase the chances of repetitive stress injuries when typing without a wrist rest, and cramped keys are, well, cramped.
Like the Ergo PowerBrick, the Austin's parallel, serial, external SVGA and keyboard ports are situated atypically upside down and located on the unit's back behind a flip-down door. Speaker-out, microphone-in and line-in connectors are also behind the door, along with the built-in speaker's volume control.
The Austin notebook offered respectable performance numbers, coming in third in several of our benchmark tests. The system clocked 96.1MIPS during the Wintune CPU tests. It also came in third in many application tests.
A model of consistency, the Austin also placed third during the battery rundown with a time of 102.33 minutes. During the Cybex battery rundown test, the notebook ran out of power after 91.67 minutes, placing it third ahead of the MidWest Micro and DTK Computer notebooks.
The Austin Business Audio Notebook is a trouper. If you want a notebook that will blow you away with performance and great features, we advise you to look elsewhere. But if you need a sound, reliable and hard-working notebook--at a decent price--the Austin Business Audio Notebook deserves strong consideration.
MidWest Micro delivers a premium machine in the P5-90 SoundBook Plus by combining workhorse performance with an ergonomic design. Advanced technology like the synchronous-burst cache and PCI local-bus architecture, and features like the fantastic 10.4-inch, active-matrix screen and 16-bit sound, round out this desktop disguised as a notebook.
This portable's power became particularly evident during our benchmark testing. It placed first in every category except the Wintune floating-point test, where it finished a close second to the Dell. Nevertheless, the SoundBook achieved substantially better scores than the second-place finisher in nearly every other test.
The system arrived with 16MB of RAM, 256KB of synchronous-burst level 2 cache, a 720MB IDE hard drive, PCI local bus graphics and hard disk controller, a PCMCIA slot for two Type II or one Type III card, and an Infotel Type II PCMCIA 14.4Kbps fax modem. Upgrade the RAM, up to 40MB, with 4-, 8- or 16MB memory cards. The active-matrix display provided sharp images with excellent color saturation and a large viewing angle.
Below the power button on the SoundBook Plus' back-right side is a serial infrared module for wireless communication. Wireless connectivity among notebooks, desktops and peripherals is convenient, and becoming more prevalent every day. Nevertheless, the SoundBook Plus was the only unit reviewed to include infrared capabilities.
This notebook is equipped with an external microphone and speaker jacks, an I/O connector for a docking station, a combination PS/2 mouse and external keyboard port, and serial, parallel and external SVGA ports. You can set the parallel port, which is also found on the unit's back, to work in either unidirectional, bidirectional or enhanced mode, in the BIOS.
The notebook uses SystemSoft's card and socket software for the PCMCIA slots located on the left side. Preinstalled software includes Microsoft Works, Lotus Organizer 2.0, Microsoft Golf and Smith Micro Software's QuickLink II fax and telecommunications package. Diskettes are included for Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and DOS 6.22, as well as for the aforementioned products. Support diskettes are also included with drivers and utilities for sound, video, pointing device and hard disk.
The SoundBook Plus is solidly built with a hard plastic casing. The machine measures 1.9 by 8.5 by 11 inches and weighs 6.8 pounds.
The large, ergonomically designed keyboard is set off toward the back of the system by a well-placed, comfortable wrist rest. The heart of the keyboard--the alphabetic and numeric keys and the spacebar--stands out because the keys are a lighter shade of gray than the surrounding keys and case. The keyboard emulates all the capability of a full-size 101/10-key model.
You activate expanded functionality with the Fn key, located on the keyboard's lower left-hand side. These other functions include brightness, contrast and volume controls, and a button to toggle between the LCD and external CRT displays. The computer uses an integrated "trackpoint" between the G, H and B keys. It's a good pointer, if a little stiff, for those partial to this type of device.
Centered between the notebook's keyboard and screen is the System Window, which uses icons to indicate the status of several operating functions. These icons tell you when the Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys are engaged, if the hard and floppy drives are accessed, if a PCMCIA card is in use, the battery level and whether the AC adapter is plugged in.
The SoundBook Plus uses the standard desktop Pentium chip, rather than the VRT-enhanced chip developed specifically for notebooks. The cooling system is not as effective as those of the Ergo, Austin and DTK: Because of the heat it generates, this is one portable computer you won't want to keep on your lap very long. Another negative point is its rather short battery life (it lasted only 80 minutes in our battery rundown test, and 57 minutes in our PowerMacro test; the best score was about two hours on both tests). You might want to invest in one or two additional nickel metal hydride batteries, which sell for $120 apiece. To replace the battery, just pull the clearly marked latch forward on the system's left-front side.
Our testing showed that the SoundBook Plus is the best notebook in the roundup in terms of raw speed. Uncompromising performance on the benchmarks makes this clear. A few drawbacks make the notebook less than perfect: The short battery life is probably the result of the heat the machine generates. If you don't plan on traveling too far from an outlet and have room to place it anywhere but your lap, it's definitely worth its weight in power.
BY: John Gartner, Technical Director
The latest version of the 90MHz Pentium processor for mobile computers is like the newest sports cars--it's faster, smaller and more energy-efficient. Intel has boosted the chip's intelligence, enabling the processor to draw substantially less power than other Pentium versions. The company has also implemented a new manufacturing process that allows for a greatly reduced footprint.
Intel's Voltage Reduction Technology (VRT) is part of the new chip's Pentium Processor Mobile Advantage series of innovations.
Also included are the smaller footprint, smart power-down technologies and SL-enhancement, which is Intel's well-established power-handling technology that has been available in chips intended for notebook computer use. VRT-enhanced chips contain a lower-power inner core that operates at 2.9 volts, while the processor talks to other devices (memory, peripheral chips) at 3.3 volts. (The standard desktop chip operates at 3.3 volts both internally and externally.) The low-voltage core gets its power directly from the power supply. Intel designated some of the supply pins as low-voltage pins, some as high. That way, the chip does not use up valuable silicon real estate with internal voltage-conversion circuitry (the Pentium processor has more than 70 supply pins).
Intel's smart power-down technology shuts down the internal cache (level 1 cache) and floating-point modules if they are not being used. If a floating-point operation is about to occur, the on-chip logic powers up the FPU, executes the instruction and then powers it down. Similarly, if data requested is not contained in the cache, the cache unit is powered down until it's needed. Depending on the application, Intel estimates that VRT-enabled chips can reduce power consumption by up to 30 percent, with no performance loss. The 75MHz and 90MHz VRT Pentiums require approximately the same amount of power.
System manufacturers can buy Pentium processors in either a standard, ceramic flat pack or a new Tape Carrier Package (TCP). The latter consists of the silicon die soldered to gold-plated copper contacts on a thin piece of plastic film, which looks something like movie film. The gold-plated copper on one side is etched to leave circuit traces and leads for system-board connections. The mounted chip is cut from the film and soldered to the system board. This variation of surface mounting requires 40 percent less board space than the standard ceramic packaging and weighs less than one gram. Notebook manufacturers can design smaller systems or add other components to the motherboard.
Only one of the five notebooks reviewed, the Dell Latitude, included the VRT-enhanced chip. The VRT chip, in either package, costs $50 more than an ordinary Pentium, in 1,000-piece quantities, so systems incorporating it will likely carry a price premium. According to industry watchers, by year's end most notebooks will use Pentium CPUs, and entry-level products will run about $2,000. 120MHz models should be available by then as well, and next year we'll see systems with CPU-based audio, multimedia and modem functions using Native Signal Processing (NSP).
This is far from the last refinement for notebook processors. CPUs will continue to get smaller, faster and more energy-efficient for the foreseeable future.
Sweatin' to the oldies has nothing on our test-preparation scheme.
BY: James A. Miller
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Wintune Scores
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Application Scores
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Battery Scores
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Smaller, Smarter Pentiums
Our first step in ensuring a fair notebook-computer comparison was to define common specifications. For this roundup, we required a 90MHz Pentium processor, 16MB of RAM, a 500MB or larger hard disk and an active-matrix screen. These premium components account for our systems' high prices, but make for a top-notch laptop system.
We balanced the system software configurations to make them as similar as possible. After backing up the hard drive's contents to a separate subdirectory, we determined whether the unit was running DOS 6.2x and Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and upgraded if necessary. We set the Windows video resolution to 640x480 pixels with 256 colors. Next, we removed any load and run lines from the WIN.INI, emptied the Startup group and disabled the notebooks' wallpaper, screen savers, nonstandard desktop color schemes, power-management settings and PCMCIA software.
Outside of Windows, we optimized the BIOS settings for best performance. For example, we made certain that the internal cache was enabled. Also, we checked out the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files to make sure that SmartDrive was in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and that it had no flag such as /x, which enables write-behind caching and slows the disk I/O dramatically.
Once all the notebooks were configured, we installed the necessary applications for testing--WINDOWS Magazine Wintune benchmarks, Microsoft Word 6.0.a, Excel 5.0, PowerPoint 4.0, Fractal Painter 3.0 and Sonera's Technologies (800-932-6323; 908-747-6886) DisplayMate. We also installed our own WinLab-developed test software: the application macros, a battery rundown batch file and the PowerMacro battery test.
Then we set the Windows virtual-memory swap file to zero, scanned and defragmented the hard disk, and reset the swap file to 8,192KB and cache to 4,096KB. We enabled 32-bit disk and file access on those systems that supported them. Lastly, we adjusted settings until Wintune gave us the thumbs-up for optimal system performance.
We ran each benchmark test three times and averaged the results. Wintune determined the effectiveness of a system's CPU, floating-point unit, and video and disk subsystems. The Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Fractal Painter macros tested each system's application performance. DisplayMate helped us measure screen quality.
The battery rundown batch file performs continuous hard-disk access, a worst-case battery-life scenario. We disabled power-management features to drain the battery as quickly as possible. This test determines the lower limit of battery life, but doesn't measure how the system will function on the road. That's what the PowerMacro, which simulates intermittent human PC manipulation in the Windows environment, is designed to do. We ran the PowerMacro with power management enabled.
PowerMacro uses four components: a custom interface (the WINterface), a host PC, a modified keyboard and an AutoBoot Commander from Cybex (205-430-4000, fax 205-430-4030). The AutoBoot Commander allowed us to connect all the notebooks to a single keyboard and monitor. The host PC operated the WINterface, which simulated human keyboard input, while the AutoBoot Commander simulcast the keystrokes to the notebooks.
Thus, we were able to test power-management capabilities while all the units were running the same tasks simultaneously: The PowerMacro started up Windows, typed a letter in Word, paused for a little while, opened Excel, ran a long graphical spreadsheet macro, imported the spreadsheet data into Word and completed the letter, saving the letter a couple of times throughout the session. The host then let the systems go into sleep mode (as if you left them unattended at your desk) to test how efficiently they entered and maintained sleep mode. Finally, the host woke up the machines, exited Windows and continuously repeated the whole process until the batteries' energy was completely depleted.
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Dell is not a company with a wait-and-see attitude: The Dell Latitude XPi P90T takes advantage of the latest CPU and battery technologies. The Latitude earns a WINDOWS Magazine Recommended seal for its first-rate ergonomics, excellent software and extremely long battery life. The keyboard rivals that of any full-sized desktop, and the trackball configuration is the best reviewed. The large, active-matrix screen is one of the best we've seen as well. Although you'll have to sacrifice a little performance, the Latitude's smart lithium ion battery provides many hours of computing time.
MidWest Micro's entry, the P5-90 SoundBook Plus, posed keen competition. The notebook's display and keyboard are particularly good, matched only by the Latitude in this review. Although it's not as solid as the Latitude across the board--there are some substantial drawbacks, such as short battery life and the heat the unit generates--the SoundBook's breakneck performance put it over the top and secured our Recommended seal. The SoundBook Plus scored highest in seven out of eight performance tests, beating out the competition by a substantial margin in most cases.
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