X-bit labs

14" Widescreen: Most Optimal Solution? 10 Contemporary Notebooks Roundup (page 34)

Category: Mobile

by Vasily Melnik

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

The results of the Photoshop CS are indicative of the overall performance of the CPU, platform and hard drive:

The well-balanced LW40 is almost as fast as the two notebooks on the new platform. Other notebooks are slower. The two slowest models shouldn’t be used to run such applications at all – they are only capable of performing office tasks like processing text and spreadsheets, browsing the Web, etc.

The next test shows what you can expect from these notebooks in gaming applications:

I performed this test using the maximum display resolution of each notebook, except for the LG T1 (I used 1280x800 with it because 1440x900 would have been too much for its integrated graphics core). The Acer TravelMate 3222WXMi is the best and can cope with modern games if you don’t use the highest graphics quality settings. Among other notebooks, only models with the X600 are interesting. The Samsung X11 is second after the TravelMate 3222WXMi but I doubt it’s going to be that fast in real games.

I also published the results of the CPU subtest to show you that 3DMark03 favors the Centrino Core Duo platform. This is indicated by the Samsung X11’s results. This platform is the most promising one when it comes to games, considering that all the leading game developers have confirmed support for dual-core processors in their upcoming products.

And now, the results of the most important test:

I put the results the notebooks achieved in Reader’s mode and under maximum load into one diagram because the difference between the two is indicative of how well the manufacturer set up the power-saving parameters. The Sony VGN-FJ1SR looks best here as it yields you its full computing power under max load but is very economical in Reader’s mode. Besides the Sony, there are two more leaders: LG’s T1 with a high-capacity battery and an L series Core Duo processor which features low power consumption, and ASUS W3H00V. The latter proved to be a bit of a cheater, though. Even under max load with the portable/laptop power management scheme selected this notebook never increased its CPU frequency higher than 1.3GHz.