re built for maximum performance, cost from $3395 to about $7400, and weigh in at just under 7 pounds to almost 9 pounds.
These notebooks use 75- to 133-MHz Pentium CPUs for snappy performance, and the vendors have squeezed in as much functionality as they can (e.g., you can swap CD-ROM and floppy drives). All but one have infrared ports for data transfer. For pointing devices, touchpads and eraserheads are in.
All the notebooks we tested include active-matrix color displays, and half of them have SVGA displays (800- by 600-pixel resolution). The systems have between 10.1 and 12.1 inches of screen real estate. This provides an even wider viewing area at the higher SVGA resolution. Some of the notebooks have 2 MB of video memory and a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus or VL-Bus for faster video performance.
Most of the systems include as standard or offer as an option hardware assistance for full-mot
ion (30 frames per second), full-screen video playback. You can plug in external monitors on all the notebooks, and IBM's ThinkPad 760CD and Zenith Data Systems' Z-Note GT have NTSC/PAL cards so that you can wow an audience by attaching a wide-screen TV.
With all this computing force and these power-draining features, road warriors have to be concerned with battery life. All the portables use nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) and lithium-ion batteries, which provide longer battery life than the once-prevalent nicad battery packs. On average, the notebooks last 2:10:31 in our Thumper 2 battery run-down tests.
The market has become so segmented that--even though there are only 13 machines--we divided them into three categories: best overall, best desktop replacement, and best low-cost system. The low-cost systems (under $5000) offer the best price/performance. A notebook in the desktop-replacement category indicates that it has enough functionality for you to take it to your office and continue working
without a hitch.
To pick the best systems, we ran performance tests under Windows 95 with such commonly used applications as Word, Excel, and FoxPro that measure how fast the portables are in real-world scenarios. Because multimedia applications can be incredibly resource-hungry, we also ran our low-level InterMark benchmarks that stress system components such as the notebook's graphics and storage-subsystem components. These benchmarks report performance and indicate the CPU utilization for each. Finally, our testers check how easy the systems are to use for the nontechnical traveling salesperson, and we give each notebook a features score.
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
We selected the best notebooks by evaluating their performance, screen quality, battery life, features, and ease of use.
Ease of Use:
A subjective assessment of the keyboard layout and feel, the pointing device, status lights, and other considerations.
Overall Score:
A combination of the weighted scores for performance, screen quality, features, battery life, and usability.
Price as Tested:
See the Roll Call on pages 166 to 167 (not available on-line) for features included at this price.
Battery Life:
This is based on BYTE's Thumper 2 battery run-down tests.
Screen Quality:
This rates the display's crispness, intensity and color range, and range of viewing angles.
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13 Notebooks With Video Muscle
