X-bit labs

14" Widescreen: Most Optimal Solution? 10 Contemporary Notebooks Roundup (page 16)

Category: Mobile

by Vasily Melnik

[ 06/07/2006 | 10:56 PM ]

A little below the arrow keys there is a fingerprint scanner:

Implemented in compliance with the Trusted Platform Module technology, this scanner is supposed to ensure a higher level of security than other notebooks offer.

Additional buttons with a Power-On key are designed in a new way:

The buttons are square rather than round because round buttons just wouldn’t match the new design. I should acknowledge that LG’s designers do earn their wages – the design of the Power-On button is different but you can anyway see right away that it’s LG.

A copy of the logotype that you can see on the lid is placed under the screen.

The only manufacturing flaw I could spot was about the grid the microphone hides under.

It looks as if they forgot to finish it off with a file. That’s not a serious defect, of course, rather a minor flaw of first demo models, yet I think the LW series should be free even from such small imperfections.

As for the display, it has average parameters, sufficient for office use. The main advantage of this display is the extremely high native resolution of 1440x900. The T1 is capable of displaying more useful information that its opponents, but having good eyesight is strongly recommended for working with a picture displayed at such a high resolution on such a small screen!

You won’t like the bottom view if you like to upgrade your notebook manually:

The user is not given free access to the components. You have to take the notebook apart to get to the hard drive or memory stick. The vent opening is placed improperly, just like in the LW series notebooks: it’s going to be uncomfortable to have this notebook on your laps.

LG produced a new battery for the new series:

The size, weight and voltage parameters are the same as those of the company’s older batteries, but its capacity is higher at 5.2Ah instead of 4.8Ah. This may not seem a great increase, but the battery has remained the same size, which is an obvious achievement. For potential owners of LG’s LW and other series notebooks this also means that batteries in all the series may be replaced with new, higher-capacity ones in the future.

The power adapter of the T1 is the same as the adapter included with the LW series:

This is not a surprise as components unification is a chief means of minimizing production cost.

As a result, we’ve got a very interesting notebook with excellent size/weight characteristics, very good configuration, and impressive exterior design. There’s a lot of winning features about this model: a very high display resolution, minimum weight in its category, good battery, rather fast but low-consumption processor, and a new hardware platform. The notebook lacks integrated graphics, but this is not important, considering its target audience. If the T1 has reached the shops before you make up your mind to buy a widescreen 14” notebook, don’t miss it – it is certainly worthy of a look!