The battery life of the systems was tested with the help of Battery Eater Pro 2.30. The tests were run with two different brightness settings: maximum and minimum. Also, the test was run in several work modes for each of the testing participants:

• Classical mode: when the system is loaded evenly;
• Readers’ mode: emulation of book reading;
• DVD viewing: measuring the time during DVD movie playback.

Here are the results:

With the maximum screen brightness the battery life in different work modes appeared as follows:

• Acer TravelMate 3201XCi:
• Classical: 2h 05mins;
• Readers’: 3h 13mins;
• DVD Viewing: 2h 15mins.
• ASUS W1B00Na:
• Classical: 1h 58mins;
• Readers’: 3h 16mins;
• DVD Viewing: 2h 25mins.

If we reduce the screen brightness down to the minimum, we will be able to extend the battery quite tangibly. Also note that during DVD playback we do not measure the battery life for minimal brightness settings, because you will hardly enjoy watching the movie with settings like that.

So, brightness reduction ensures the following battery life increase:

• Acer TravelMate 3201XCi:
• Classical: +19mins;
• Readers’: +47mins;
• ASUS W1B00Na:
• Classical: +26mins;
• Readers’: +44mins;

The diagrams below will make it easier to compare all results against one another:

Conclusion

Having finished these tests we arrive at the conclusion that Acer TravelMate 3201XCi is a pretty comfortable and convenient solution. The model we have just introduced to you boasts pretty good performance, relatively small size and weight, nice ergonomics and functionality. At the same time if you check out the pricewatch you will see that the price-to-performance ratio also seems pretty attractive.

However, if you consider buying this notebook only for the sake of getting a more advanced graphics controller from ATI, you should not expect too much: as we have just seen, the performance gain is not that great compared with the previous graphics controller model.