LIFESTYLE ULTRA-PORTABLES - Acer TravelMate, Dell Latitude X1, Fujitsu LifeBook LBP7010 and LBS6240, MSI MegaBook S260 and S270, Samsung Note PC Q30, and the Sony VAIO VGN-S46GP/S

Ultra-portable notebooks are designed to minimize size and weight, while at the same time trying to keep the features and computing power of their larger siblings. These included the Acer TravelMate, Dell Latitude X1, Fujitsu LifeBook LBP7010 and LBS6240, MSI MegaBook S260 and S270, Samsung Note PC Q30, and the Sony VAIO VGN-S46GP/S. These notebooks are easier to carry around and are largely aimed towards frequent travelers. It is these laptops that make a style statement.

Features

The Processor

Most notebooks in this category were based on Intel Centrino technology, which means they sported Intel Pentium M processors, included Intel 855 boards, and had Intel 802.11b+g Wi-Fi, all of which are certified as low-energy consuming parts by Intel-hence the Centrino certification. One exception was the MSI MegaBook S270, which had an AMD Sempron 3000+, and was based on the ATI Radeon Xpress 200P chipset.

The RAM

While most of the laptops had 512 MB, the MSIs had just 256 MB. The Acer TravelMate, Dell Latitude X1, Fujitsu LBS6240 and the Sony VAIO all came equipped with DDR2 memory, while the rest came with DDR memory; this made a difference in the memory bandwidth benchmarks and in applications affected by RAM.

The Display

Almost all these laptops featured a 12.1-inch display. The Sony VAIO and the Fujitsu LBS6240 each featured a 13.3-inch screen, and the -Fujitsu LBP7010 featured the tiniest of displays at 10.6 inches. The widescreen aspect ratio was common, with the exception of Fujitsu LBS6240 whose display had a regular 4:3 aspect ratio.

In native display resolutions too, the LBS6240 lagged behind at 1024 x 768, where the others supported either 1280 x 768 or 1280 x 800. It is worth noting that the Sony VAI0 had the best display with very wide viewing angles.

Ports and connectivity

Four of the laptops here had three USB ports each, while the remaining four had two each. Every laptop had a FireWire port for high-speed video capture from supported devices. The serial and parallel ports are now obsolete. The Acer laptop and Fujitsu's LBS6240 had the port replicator option to add more Ports.

Infrared connectivity was available only in two of the eight laptops-the Acer TravelMate 3002WTCi and Fujitsu LBS6240-whereas Bluetooth was available on the Acer TravelMate, Dell Latitude X1, MSI MegaBook S260 and S270 and the Sony VAIO.

All the laptops were WiFi-conformant with the b+g high-speed standard. As far as LAN is concerned, only the Acer, Dell and Fujitsu LBS6240 had Gigabit Ethernet, while the rest had the slower 10/100. A 56 Kbps modem was standard on all laptops. A PCMCIA Type 11 slot was available on all the machines except the Dell Latitude X1 and Samsung Q30 Plus.

Multimedia

Needless to mention, a microphone-in and headphone-out were available on all the notebooks. A D-Sub connector was also available on all except the Fujitsu LBS6240, probably due to its larger 13.3-inch display which, along with that of the Sony VIAO, was the largest in this category. The Fujitsu LBP7010 was the only laptop with an S-Video Out and a TV-out.

Multimedia and memory card reading capability was available at least in some capacity on most of laptops.

The Dell supported only two formats: SD and CF. Acer supported SD, MS, MS Pro and MMC, whereas the Fujitsu LBP7010 supported the SD, MS, MS Pro and CF formats. Sony VAIO was the only laptop that supported the Memory Stick Duo standard.

Other features

The Fujitsu laptops boasted the highest-capacity hard drives-80 GB. MSI's laptops had the lowest- capacity hard drives of 40 GB.

All laptops had 4200 rpm hard drives, except for the Sony VAI0, which had a faster, 5400 rpm, 60 GB hard drive.

Most of the laptops had integrated graphics solutions based on either the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 or the Intel GMA 900. Though these are OK for off-ice work, they are just plain bad as far as even moderate gaming is concerned.

The MSI MegaBook S270 had ATi Xpress 200p integrated graphics but this was throttled down due to the lesser amount of RAM; it therefore did not do well in the gaming tests. The Sony VAIO shone here with the nVidia GeForce Go 6200 32MB PCI-Express graphics. It blazed ahead of the competition in the gaming tests.

An integrated optical drive, too, was featured in most of the laptops. The only laptops with an external drive were the Acer, Dell and Samsung’s Note PC Q30 plus. Although the Fujitsu LBP7010 was the smallest laptop, the optical drive was integrated into the unit. While most came with a combo drive, the Samsung Q30 Plus had a DVD+RW drive,the Sony VAIO even provided a dual-layer DVD-Writer.

Some laptops like the Fujitsu even featured fingerprint recognition. An external button to turn Wi-Fi off and on was also available in many of the laptops.

Usability

The Acer TravelMate 3002WrCi, Dell Latitude X1, Fujitsu LifeBook LBP7010 and Samsung Note PC Q30 Plus sported the sleekest form factors. The Fujitsu LBP7010 is still the winner in this aspect due to the fact that it has an integrated optical drive where the others have external drives.

The Dell Latitude and the Samsung Q30 Plus weighed the lowest at 1.14 kg each without the external drive. But when the carry weight was noted, the Fujitsu LBP7010 again weighed the lowest at 1.85 kg.

Ergonomics

The 'accessibility of ports' rating for all the laptops was almost the same because all the vendors have taken care to place the ports in an uncluttered manner.

In the keyboard feel and touchpad sensitivity ratings, both Fujitsu laptops along with the Sony VAIO surged ahead of the rest, but the others were not far behind either. In overall ergonomics, the bigger laptops-namely the Fujitsu LBS6240 and the Sony VAIO-scored the highest. The smaller laptops could not score high because of the crammed keyboard and touchpad.

In the speaker quality test, too, the Fujitsu LBS6240 and Sony VAIO scored quite high.

Package Contents

Windows XP Professional SP2 came preinstalled on all the laptops except the MSI S270, which had Windows XP Home Edition with SP2. Similarly, a driver and recovery CD or DVD of some sort accompanied each laptop.

The Fujitsu laptops came with Norman Virus Control CDs, while the Sony VAIO, Acer and Samsung came with Norton Antivirus 2005.

DVD-players such as PowerDVD and `WinDVD came with almost all laptops, while Sony, MSI and Fujitsu gave additional multimedia software like PowerProducer and Adobe Premiere.

The Fujitsu and the MSI were the only laptops that came with a carry case. A couple of other accessories, such as a screen wiping cloth, were provided by Fujitsu.

The Acer, Dell and Samsung laptops also came with an extra battery pack.

Performance

ZD-Bench Business Winstone 2004

In the ZD-Bench Business Winstone 2004 test, the Sony VAIO topped the charts with a score of 20.5, which is a healthy score for any laptop.

Close behind was the Fujitsu LBS6240 with 19.1 and the Acer TravelMate with 19. The MSI MegaBook S260 scored the lowest at 13.3.

In the video encoding test too, the scores were not too different. Sony VAIO logged the lowest time of 183 seconds, followed by Acer at 184 seconds. The Samsung Q30 Plus was last, taking a whopping 454 seconds to encode our video!

SiSoft Sandra 2005

In the SiSoft Sandra 2005 CPU and memory benchmarks, once again, Sony VAIO and Acer were neck-and-neck, while the MSI S270 scored the lowest.

In the file system benchmark, Dell's Latitude and Samsung's k3O Plus scored the lowest. The other laptops - e all on par with each other.

Game test

In the game test, as was expected, the Sony VAIO, with the PCI-Express GeForce 6200 Go, rocketed ahead. In Call of Duty at 1024 x 768, the VAIO scored 101.7 fps, where none of the other laptops could breach the 30 fps limit.

Similarly, in Far Cry, the VAIO scored 57.15 fps at 1024 x 768, while the others could not even score 15 fps!

PCMark 04

In the PCMark 04 test, too, the Sony VAIO and Acer TravelMate scored 3,188 and 3,090 respectively, and stayed way ahead of the others.

DisplayMate

DisplayMate tests the quality of the LCD display. After all the testing, we concluded that the Sony VAI0 had a very good display. Not only did it pass the DisplayMate Test in style, the viewing angle was wide as well: movies were viewable even at 160 degrees without discoloration.

Battery Life

The Fujitsu LBP7010 had a battery life of three hours and 45 minutes-more than enough for any movie out there. The Acer TravelMate clocked three hours and 22 minutes. The MSI Megabook S270 came in last, with the battery lasting just an hour and 15 minutes!

Wi-Fi Test

The NetCPS score of the MSI S270 was the highest at 2.16, while the Fujitsu LBS6240 scored 2.1 to come in second. The MSI Megabook S260 was the last in this test with a score of 1.89. To copy the 100 MB of assorted files over a wireless network, Samsung's Q30 Plus took 44,5 seconds, which was the fastest. The Sony VAIC) was the slowest, taking 54 seconds to copy the files.

Flaunt Value

'Flaunt value' is a parameter we included in the laptop comparison test this time, because the laptops we included are specifically meant for the lifestyle segment of the market.

The Sony VAIO was in a class of its own in this segment, be it for the excellent design and looks or the form factor or the great specs. It was the only laptop to feature the powerful nVidia GeForce 6200 card, which helped it ace the gaming tests with the others miles behind.

It also had the best and the largest LCD display in this segment. And unlike most laptops, it's comfortable to use for extended periods of time. But the real surprise was some of the peripherals. There was a dual-layer DVD burner incorporated into a unit as small as this! With its superior design, looks, built quality, features and specifications as well as brand value, the Sony VAI0 scored the highest flaunt value rating of 7.95.

Close behind was the Fujitsu LBS6240, with a rating of 7.14. Good looks and solid build quality contributed towards the rating. Moreover, it was the most complete package, and included such features as fingerprint recognition.

The fingerprint sensor can be programmed as a scroll button for vertical scrolling using the provided software. Ergonomically, too, this laptop was good.

The fact that it also featured a 13.3-inch LCD display which, along with that of the Sony VAIO, was the largest in this category, helped it no end!

The Fujitsu LBP7010 sported the smallest form factor and also some nifty features. With features like fingerprint recognition and an integrated optical drive, coupled with its build quality and design, this was one excellent laptop.

To top it all, it had an 80 GB hard drive. The LBP7010 also featured an SD, MS, MS Pro and CF card reader, which even its larger sibling did not. The Fujitsu brand also helped when it came to the flaunt value of this laptop.

We gave the Dell Latitude X1 the same flaunt value rating as the Fujitsu LBP7010. The X1 had better build quality and seemed more rugged. It came with an extra battery pack as well.

Conclusion

The Fujitsu laptops were the most expensive of the lot. The LBP7010 cost is $2700 whereas the LBS6240 costs $2400. The Acer costs $2000, has better features, and performs better than the Fujitsu LBS6240, whereas the latter scored higher in usability package contents and flaunt value. It was a close call, and the margin was too slim to declare either of these a winner. A tie was called for, and the Digit 'Best Buy Silver' was awarded jointly to the Acer TravelMate 3002WTCi and the Fujitsu Lifebook LBS6240.

The Sony VAIO VGN-S46GP/S costs $2300, which is moderate for a lifestyle laptop with the kind of features it includes. It scored well in almost every segment, and even has the highest flaunt value rating.

Review of Lifestyle 19" laptops