he Mint 5200 matches the ChemBook in our low-level InterMark benchmarks and races through the InterMark suite faster than the NP52P133.
These three portables are strikingly similar in their internal architecture and chassis design. They accompany their powerful 3.3-V Pentiums with 256 KB of level 2 cache memory, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) local-bus architecture, and video memory to speed up graphics redraws and video clips. They have integrated CD-ROM and floppy drives, so you don't have to keep swapping them in and out as with some other notebooks.
Notebook manufacturers are shifting away from the once-ubiquitous trackball to touchpads and eraserheads fashioned after IBM's groundbreaking Trackpoint arrow controller. In fact, this is our first hands-on testing of portable systems th
at don't have a trackball. Eight of the notebooks have touchpads located in the middle of the wrist rests; the rest have eraserheads between the
G
,
H
, and
B
z keys. Some testers find the eraserheads more intuitive at first, but others feel more comfortable with the touchpads after continued use.
Next in the Pentium pecking order are the 120-MHz Gateway 2000 Solo 5120 ($5399) and the Twinhead SlimNote 8120TV ($5495). They both put up strong performance numbers, but the SlimNote really shines with the second-best
overall performance
and came out on top as the best
desktop replacement
.
The top performer among the 75- to 100-MHz notebooks is Toshiba's 90-MHz Satellite Pro 410CDT ($5078), which does well in the CD-ROM portion of the InterMark stress tests (it has a quad-speed CD-ROM drive). This notebook has a lithium-ion battery that provides the most life in the Thumper 2 battery run-down tests (4:29). Its one drawback is a r
elatively small 777-MB hard drive compared to other notebooks, which have 1 GB or higher. (At the time of this writing, Toshiba introduced the Tecra 700, a 120-MHz notebook with a 1.13-GB hard drive. See next month's issue for details.)
While performance rules in our evaluation, IBM's ThinkPad 760CD ($7384) and Zenith's Z-Note GT ($6198) have the most features (see the Roll Call on pages 166 to 167) that we think are necessary for a multimedia notebook. They have NTSC/PAL video-out cards, which lets you plug in a wide-screen TV for large group presentations, and hardware-assisted MPEG playback for quality full-screen video. These two also have the largest displays (12.1 and 11.3 inches, respectively) and a three-year warranty. With its lithium-ion battery, the ThinkPad 760CD powers on for a good 3 hours and 37 minutes.
The Micro International Mint 5200 is tops in our screen-quality evaluation. It has a 10.4-inch active-matrix color LCD with 2 MB of video memory. If you plug in an external displa
y, it supports resolutions of 1280 by 1024 pixels. The Mint 5200 showed the best raw-color quality on its VGA display (640 by 480 pixels), but the notebooks from AMS, Chem USA, Compaq, Gateway 2000, IBM, Toshiba, Twinhead, and Zenith have higher-resolution SVGA displays (800 by 600 pixels). We had to set all the notebooks' resolutions at 640 by 480 pixels and 256 colors for testing so they would all be on a level playing field. The ChemBook NB 5400 (tied with NEC's Versa 4050C for the widest viewing angle), Micro Express NP52P133, and AMS PowerCD 8500 also have strong screen-quality scores.
The Hyperdata MediaGo CD P-100 ($3395) is the least expensive of the notebooks we tested. It may not be as fast or feature-rich as the other systems, but take heed: It costs less and has a faster CPU, a bigger display, and more memory than most of the notebooks we reviewed in our last notebook roundup (see
"30 No-Compromise Notebooks,"
April 1995 BYTE).
Performance 30%
Features 20%
Usability 20%
Screen 20%
Battery 10%
Performance 45%
Features 20%
Usability 20%
Screen 10%
Battery 5%
The Best in Portable Power Multimedia Notebooks
