Specifications

PC MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 www.pcmag.com
42
FIRST LOOKS
BY BILL HOWARD
U
ltraportable note-
books—those weigh-
ing between 3 and 4
pounds—make up a small but
growing part of the portable
landscape, especially among ex-
ecutives who always carry ma-
chines with them. Our favorite
such machine to date is the
IBM
ThinkPad X31 (“Notebooks,
Notebooks, Notebooks,” May
27), which packs a 12.1-inch
screen, a full-size keyboard, and
good battery life into a 3.6-
pound package.
Now Dell and
HP have
released ultraportables for the
corporate market, and both
machines have the
X31 squarely
in their sights. Our conclusion:
While both newcomers are
strong contenders, neither quite
dethrones the 5-star
X31.
DELL LATITUDE X300
The 3-pound Dell Latitude X300
provides almost everything you
could want in an ultraportable
notebook. The only drawbacks
are smallish typing keys and a
standard battery.
The
X300 offers several ways
to configure for the road. For
back-and-forth commuting, the
standard battery keeps weight
down but delivers only 2 hours
20 minutes of life. We would opt
for the $129 extended battery,
which adds half a pound to the
weight but delivers a more satis-
fying 5:50 of runtime. That puts
the
X300 in the same league as
the class-leading
IBM ThinkPad
X31 with its extended battery.
Dell’s $199 MediaBase can house
a second battery as well as the
included optical drive.
In case the fonts are too small
on the crisp 12.1-inch screen,
Dell’s QuickSet utility handles
Dell, HP Take On the IBM X31
Adminstrator
management suite and Image-
Watch tools for deploying a com-
mon operating system and appli-
cations across Dell systems.
Dell Latitude X300
With 1.2-GHz Pentium M, 640MB
RAM, 40GB hard drive, external
DVD/CD-RW drive, 12.1-inch display,
802.11b/g wireless, Microsoft Win-
dows XP Professional, $2,136 direct.
Dell Inc., 800-917-3355,
www.dell.com.
llllm
HP COMPAQ BUSINESS
NOTEBOOK NC4000
The HP/Compaq collaboration
is bearing fruit: The new
HP
Compaq Business Notebook
nc4000 is a well-designed 3.7-
pound ultraportable that’s a
good choice if you want manage-
ability and consistency across a
corporate line.
The compact case measures
1.1 by 11.0 by 9.2 inches (
HWD)
and is essentially the same size
as the
IBM ThinkPad X31. Like
the
X31 and the Dell Latitude
X300, the nc4000 has a 12.1-inch
screen. Also like the
X31, it has
full-size keys.
Fleet buyers will welcome the
choice of two optional port
replicators that work across
much of the Compaq-now-
HP
line—and a Microsoft Win-
dows system image common
across other models as well.
This compatibility is no mean
feat, given that the integrated
system chipset (the
ATI IGP
350M) in this Pentium M–pow-
ered unit is unique in the
HP
corporate line.
For wireless connectivity,
there are Atheros 802.11a/b/g
and 802.11b/g mini-
PCI internal
NICs. Our test machine had
the former, along with an inter-
nal Bluetooth card, reasonably
priced at $50. It also came with
an external
DVD-ROM drive.
You can also opt for the 1-pound
undermount slice. For I/O,
there’s one FireWire and two
USB 2.0 ports, an SD card slot,
and a single
PC Card slot.
As we mentioned, system
performance was on a par with
that of the
X300. At 2:52, battery
life was better than the
X300’s,
although the larger battery also
means a heavier system to carry
around.
HP offers a second bat-
tery that clips under the unit; it
adds half a pound but effectively
doubles the runtime.
Wireless performance was
good, though with some anom-
alies. With 802.11b, speed was
fine at distances even out to 160
feet, where the nc4000 out-
paced the Dell entry. But at
close distances (60 feet or less)
with 802.11g, throughput was
relatively low; 802.11g perfor-
mance was strong at our farther
test points. Newly minted
802.11g drivers may be the ex-
planation.
HP Compaq Business Notebook
nc4000
With 1.6-GHz Pentium M, 256MB RAM,
60GB hard drive, 12.1 inch LCD, ATI
Radeon 350M graphics, external DVD-
ROM drive, 802.11a/b/g wireless,
Bluetooth, Microsoft Windows XP
Professional, $2,027 direct. Hewlett-
Packard Co., 800-888-0262, www.hp
.com/go/notebooks.
llllm
font scaling beyond what Win-
dows
XP offers. The key pitch is
18 mm, which is 95 percent the
size of standard desktop key
spacing. That’s good for an
ultraportable this small, al-
though
IBM and HP were able to
cram 19-mm keyboards into just
slightly larger machines.
The 1.2-
GHz Pentium M ma-
chine’s Winstone performance
was good. Given the margin of
error on our tests, we can say
the speed was on a par with that
of the 1.6-
GHz HP Compaq Busi-
ness Notebook nc4000. The
X300’s extra RAM (640MB ver-
sus 256
MB) no doubt helped
here.
Our test unit came with the
built-in Broadcom 802.11b/g
wireless solution. (An Intel
802.11b card is available for users
who want a Centrino solution,
though you’d be spending the
same money and giving up
802.11g connectivity.) Wireless
performance was good, and the
X300 was still receiving a signal
at 160 feet from our access point.
For corporate users, Dell
offers its OpenManage Client
High scores are best.
Bold type denotes first place.
Processor
DDR
SDRAM
Business
Winstone
2002
Dell Latitude X300 Pentium M (1.2 GHz) 640MB 24.6
HP Compaq Business
Notebook nc4000
Pentium M (1.6 GHz) 256MB 24.2
Multimedia
Content
Creation
Winstone 2003
Business
Winstone
BatteryMark
2003
(hr:min)
10 feet
802.11b
30.8 2:20 6.2
29.4 2:52 5.5
802.11g
60 feet
802.11b 802.11g
18.3 5.9 13.2
6.8 5.6 8.0
802.11b 802.11g 802.11b
4.4 4.9 1.9
3.8 7.4 2.7
802.11g
2.1
2.3
Wireless throughput (Mbps)
ULTRAPORTABLE PERFORMANCE
120 feet
160 feet
HP’s nc4000
Dell’s X300