Digit 2005-04 - Clevernotions.com

labs
Dell Latitude D610
format 14-inch conventional
price £799 plus VAT
company Dell, www.dell.com/uk
contact Dell, 0870 152 4699
digit rating ★★★ ★★
Quite why Dell sent us the Latitude D610 for our feature
on laptops for creatives, I’m not sure. However, it
provides an excellent lesson on why we require the
specs that we do – and why our laptops cost so much
more than those dinky units the sales guys are running
around with. The D610 would be ideal for the travelling
businessman or woman, but it’s not for the creative
professional at all.
As you’d expect, the D610 comes last in all of our
tests – even losing out to the 15-inch Powerbook in
our 3D tests. The results also seem better than they
really are, as the 1,024-x-768-pixel screen has almost
a third less pixels for the graphics system to deal with
than a 1,200-x-800 screen such as that found on the
PowerBook or Vaio FS195XP. It’s pretty lame, though
that’s hardly surprising considering the basic processor
and lack of a separate graphics chip.
The 14.1-inch screen has its advantages – it’s much
easier to use in cramped conditions such as on a plane
– but the D610’s only slightly lighter than the 15-inch
PowerBook, and the resolution is too low for most
major creative applications.
To keep the price down to less than £800, Dell has
skimped on the hard drive – which is only 40GB in size
– and the optical DVD/CD-RW combo drive. These could
be improved using the online build-to-order site, as you
could spec the machine up to a 2GHz (Pentium M 760),
2GB RAM, ATI X300 graphics chip, a 1,280-x-1,024
screen, 80GB hard drive, and a a/b/g wireless card
for a whopping £2,094 plus VAT – and you’d still be
better off with a 15- or 17-inch Sony.
to use in cramped environments, such as while flying cattle class.
IBM was first to introduce drop protection for the notebook hard drive,
using motion sensors to shut it down before it hits the floor. From the
original ‘Active Protection System’, we now have other systems such as
Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor.
Power tools
The new PowerBooks are the first to support Bluetooth 2.0, which is
designed to be three times as fast as the Bluetooth 1.0/1.2 found on all
other devices. However, this is less about speed than saving battery life –
anyone trying to print photos via Bluetooth will appreciate the speed jump.
Open Bluetooth connections eat battery power, and transferring data in a
104 d
Evesham Voyager XT HP NW8000
format 15-inch conventional
price £976.85 plus VAT
company Evesham, www.evesham.com
contact Evesham, 0870 160 9700
digit rating ★
The Voyager XT is the definitive average creative laptop.
Its specifications look pretty good on paper and it’s
available at a very good price. However, there’s nothing
to make you rush out and buy it.
The overall styling of the Voyager XT is very
corporate, but it’s much more powerful than the sales
force-focused Latitude D610 (left). The 1.8GHz Pentium
M 745 processor is powerful, but relies on a 400MHz
frontside bus. The standard 512MB RAM is DDR RAM,
not the faster DDR2 memory found on other new models.
The modern prevalence of widescreen displays may be in
part an affectation for style points, but it’s semi-practical
too, so the Voyager XT misses the bus here, too.
Certain physical components aren’t good quality
either. The keyboard and trackpad are as comfortable
and responsive as you’d expect from a standard laptop,
not what you require from a high-end creative laptop set
against models from Apple and Sony. The keyboard was
very squidgy, almost reminiscent of an old ZX Spectrum.
Below the trackpad is a scrollpad, which is a nice
thought but not high-enough quality to be truly useful.
The ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 gives the Voyager
XT more 3D power than any other Pentium M-based
laptop – only beaten by the huge 17-inch desktop
replacements from AJP and Alienware. The Voyager
XT’s connectivity options are basic, only offering
10/100Mbps ethernet networking – most other
laptops in this group test offer Gigabit, and b/g
wireless networking. There’s no Bluetooth and only
two USB 2.0 ports. The DVD-RAM drive is unusual,
but slow as it’s DVD recording is limited to 2x speed.
format 15-inch conventional
price £2,399 plus VAT
company HP, www.hp.com/uk
contact HP, 0870 241 1485
digit rating ★★★★
★★★★ ★
The NW8000 is the most reasonably-sized mobile
workstation models in this round-up – but smaller
and lighter models have since appeared from Dell and
IBM. The NW8000 is still a worthy machine though,
if hampered by an outdated graphics chip and less
than up-to-date technology.
At 2.9kg, the NW8000 is as light as the Evesham
Voyager or the 15-inch Sony model. The case design
isn’t bad, and it certainly feels more robust than the
cases of either of those two models. Look inside it,
though, and the NW8000’s weaknesses appear.
The 2GHz Pentium M chip is powerful – but the
400MHz frontside bus lets it down. This is because the
NW8000 is essentially based on pre-Sonoma technology.
The NW8000’s screen is great, but it’s been usurped
by the X-black-type screens becoming more widespread.
The NW8000’s screen is still better than most offerings,
though.
More importantly, the ATI Mobility FireGL T2
graphics chip that makes the NW8000 a mobile
workstation is getting on a bit. With a new range of
Mobility FireGL chips on the way – the V5000, the V7800
and the V9000 – that boast more power and PCI Express
connectivity, the poor old T2 looks very lame indeed.
The NW8000 did comparatively well in our tests
– but certainly not well enough to justify the price being
even £450 more than the well-beaten MJ-12M 7700.
As Digit went to press, HP has announced an
upgraded version of the NW8000 that adds the Mobility
FireGL V5000 graphics chip. We’d recommend you wait
for this NW8240 instead.
third of the time will save you much juice. Unfortunately, there aren’t any
Bluetooth 2.0-compatible devices available yet.
Other useful devices that are becoming more widespread include duallayer
DVD burners, which allow 8.5GB to be burned to a single disc –
though media prices are still prohibitively expensive at around £6 plus VAT
per disc unless you order in bulk online. More laptops are including media
card ports, which is great if you are always losing your USB card reader –
though an SD card slot isn’t much use if your camera uses Memory Sticks.
A laptop may not be your primary machine, especially with a deadline
hanging around your neck – but when it’s time to kick back, chill out and
be creative, a laptop in the garden with a beer on a summer’s day is just
what you need.