Testbed and Methods

Before running our tests, we had Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (with DirectX 9.0) preinstalled. We also disabled network and power-saving services, turned off the audio subsystem and shut down antivirus software.

We ran our tests in two modes by changing the power consumption options. The first mode implies that the system is powered from the wall outlet; in the second mode the notebook worked from its own battery.

Benchmarks:

1. Tests for measuring the minimal battery life time (Battery Eater Pro 2.1, MobileMark 2002);
2. Tests of office and multimedia applications performance (Business Winstone 2001 1.0.2, Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2002 1.0, WinBench 99), synthetic tests (SiSoftware Sandra 2004, PCMark 2004 1.1.0.0, Battery Eater Pro 2.1, MobileMark 2002);
3. Tests of gaming performance (3DMark 2001 SE Pro).

Performance

Our tests of the battery life time produced the following results:

The table suggests that the notebook can last on its own battery for a little more than two hours. That’s a poor result for a mobile computer that’s intended for “field environment”.

Synthetic tests and Business Winstone 2001 with Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2002 tests serve to determine the computer performance in ordinary office and multimedia applications. The table below shows what the Acer C111TCi scored in these tests:

Our tests would be incomplete if we didn’t compare the results of the Acer with those of another notebook, ASUS S200N, which boasts similar configuration (see our article called ASUS S5200NE: a White Notebook Always on the Run). The major difference between Acer C111TCi and ASUS S200N is the chipsets they are based on (i855GM in the ASUS and i855GME in the Acer), different RAM frequencies (266MHz against 333MHz) and amounts of onboard memory (256MB against 512MB). The results are shown in the diagrams below.

SiSoftware Sandra gave out similar performance ratings for the processor and file system tests for the two notebooks (the numbers fitted in the measurement error range), while the memory performance differed because of the different memory frequencies.