2010 notebooks - more power, better battery life

With this year’s hyper-frenzied launch of Apple’s iPad, it’s easy to forget that the crop of notebook PCs launched over the past several months has hit new heights in performance, design and, in some cases, serious battery life. For business, the combination of Intel’s Core i3 and Core i5 platforms as well as the introduction of Windows 7 is working to breathe new life into the notebook -- and here are some that have caught the attention recently of the CRN Test Centre.

When on the road, the built-in 15.6-inch TFT screen natively displays 1366 x 768, but Windows 7 preferred to have it at 1600 x 900, which looked crisp, clear, bright and vivid. The LifeBook behaves as expected when opening and closing the lid. When opened, all connected screens wink to life, and when closed, the Windows desktop moves automatically to an external monitor.

A full-sized keyboard with white sculpted keys is flanked on both sides by great-sounding speakers. Testers would have liked a louder maximum volume, and for the mute key to be adjacent to the up/down volume instead of five keys further right. LifeBook E780 (with Intel Core i5)would be suitable for occasionally mobile execs"wanting to do high-end analytical or performance modelling.

We may never achieve the paperless office, but Dell has delivered a laptop that's as close to wireless as anything the CRN Test Centre has seen.

With a feature list that would have read like science fiction just two or three years ago, the wafer-thin Dell Latitude Z will appeal to well-heeled executives and device freaks alike. The Z delivers a 16-inch 1600-by-900 LCD with touch-sensitive on-screen menu system, dual-core processor with hardware virtualisation, 64-GB solid state hard drive and a "FaceAware" web cam that doubles as a document scanner. There's also an embedded Linux boot feature for battery life when accessing Outlook and the web.

If laptops were motor vehicles, the Panasonic Toughbook 31 would be a Hummer.

The Toughbook 31 also passed all of the drop tests we threw at it. The Toughbook 31 has earned a Test Centre recommendation and is well-suited for auto and HVAC repair workers, health care, emergency first-responders, construction sites, battle zones and any field environment that might prove hostile for delicate equipment.

The Toughbook 31 also passed all of the drop tests we threw at it. The Toughbook 31 has earned a Test Centre recommendation, and is well-suited for auto and HVAC repair workers, health care, emergency first-responders, construction sites, battle zones and any field environment that might prove hostile for delicate equipment.

The Toshiba Tecra A11 came to the CRN Test Centre lab with an Intel Core i7-620M, dual-core processor at 2.66GHz, 4 GB of memory and a 320-GB HDD. It was preloaded with Windows XP Professional 32-bit. Using Primate Labs' Geekbench 2 benchmarking software, the Tecra A11 scored a rating of 4,706 -- making it the highest-performing dual-core CPU system we've ever evaluated in the CRN Test Centre lab.

Performance, frankly, just felt much faster than other notebook systems. This is a terrific business notebook which, as a desktop replacement, delivers a lot of value even at prices that are above industry norms for this class.

One of the last of Acer’s Core 2 Duo-based notebooks, the T ravelmate 8471 is case and point. It’s about an inch thick, weighs about 2.04 kilos and -- get this -- running the CRN Test Centre’s battery life test, which involves shutting off all power-saving software and running a video from the hard drive continuously until the battery dies, the 8741 registered almost 6 hours of battery life. That gives it the best battery life we’ve seen in the last six months.

It’s not the highest-performing notebook, as it scored a a relatively below-average 1811 score on Primate Labs’ Geekbench 2.1 benchmarking application.

ViewSonic, the LCD and projector manufacturer, has jumped into the notebook fray this year, and the CRN Test Centre took a good look at its VNB141.

Performance was a little disappointing, with a Geekbench score of 1575, but for most productivity functions and surfing that’s good enough. (Though well shy of Core i3 and Core i5 performance capabilities.) It did provide slightly more than 3 hours of battery life running the CRN Test Centre’s standard battery life test for notebooks, which is better than average and its street price of about US$800 certainly makes it competitive with the iPad on a dollar-for-dollar functionality basis.

The VNB141 is a comfortable notebook to work with.