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Apple's Notebooks Take On the PC Competition

The Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:14:14 -0500

MacBooks have become the darlings of the computer press. They’re capturing the attention of first-time notebook buyers and even converting a growing number of long-time PC owners who are looking for that elusive “perfect” mobile computer. A report on recent notebook sales figures reflects the MacBook’s momentum.

Findings by market research firm the NDP Group show that brick-and-mortar sales of Apple notebooks experienced a 50 to 60 percent growth in the first quarter of 2008, while Windows notebook sales remained flat. In the premium notebook category—encompassing machines costing $1,000 or more—Apple now claims a whopping 64 percent market share.

But are these slick hipster notebooks worth the hype and their spendy price tags? What do you really get for the money when you throw down for a MacBook, and how do these Apple computers compare to their PC counterparts in terms of performance, features, overall usability, and price?

Maximum PC tests and reviews the MacBook Air, the standard MacBook, and the MacBook Pro against five PC models sporting similar price points and formfactors. It’s time we set the record straight.

Categorical Differences

Apple’s presence in the notebook market spans three distinct classes. Here’s how we define them and the key features we think each class demands. Click each heading to jump to the relevant page.

Ultraportable

Maximum 4 lbs. lap weight
11- to 13-inch screen
Minimum 4-hour battery life
Transflective screen surface
Real keyboard
Video output
ExpressCard slot
Optical drive (optional)

Mainstream

Affordable
Dual-core processor
160GB or more storage capacity
Maximum 7 lbs. lap weight
13- to 15-inch screen
Optical drive
Appropriate expansion slots

Professional

Dual-core processor
Discrete graphics
15-inch or larger screen
Maximum 8 lbs. lap weight
Appropriate expansion slots
Robust video-out
DVD burner

Our Testing Strategy

Evaluating a notebook is very different from evaluating a desktop PC.

A notebook PC isn’t like a desktop rig. Tricked out, water cooled, and overclocked like a mutha, your Guns of Navarone desktop rig will live a life that’s similar to your mom’s PC: sitting safely underneath your desk. And while you can freely upgrade your PC’s peripherals—its keyboard, monitor, and mouse—a notebook is everything it’s ever going to be the first day you get it. The trackpad can’t be replaced nor can the LCD screen. If the mushy keyboard annoys you, tough luck.

So our reviews of these notebooks focus on not only performance but also usability and price.

Usability

This is a crucial factor in a notebook’s success. It includes the keyboard’s feel, the placement of the trackpad, the number and variety of ports, the machine’s weight and size, the thermals, the quality of the screen, as well as the overall look and feel. It’s a lengthy list of review points, which explains why usability figures so prominently in our final assessment.

Performance

Don’t get us wrong—performance matters. Unless your activities are strictly confined to Microsoft Office and Firefox, you’re going to notice when, for example, it takes five minutes to enact a simple photo edit. To test a notebook’s performance, we look to our standard suite of desktop benchmarks, which stress video editing and encoding, photo editing, and slide-show creation. We also run two older games at moderate resolutions to see if a notebook will function as a stand-in gaming machine.

Obviously, we can’t run our benchmarks in OS X because the majority of our tests don’t offer OS X support. To truly assess how well Apple’s notebooks measure up as PCs, we dual-booted the MacBooks into Windows Vista Home Premium and ran the benchmarks in that OS—for an apples-to-apples comparison among all models. (To get a sense of the performance difference between a MacBook running OS X vs. Vista, see page 43, where we show the results of tests using apps that are native to both OSes.)

Price

The Mac has historically been at a price disadvantage to the PC, but is this still the case today? Read on and you’ll see how these x86 Macs stack up in terms of specs and price. While not quite as important as performance and usability, price will also figure into our verdicts.

Next: Ultraportable Notebooks Face Off

Individual Ultraportable Reviews

Best in Class: Ultraportable

Not too big and not too small, the ThinkPad X300 delivers the perfect balance of performance and size in a killer package.

After running the benchmarks, crunching the numbers, and spending days doing usability testing the old-fashioned way—using the laptops in real-world situations—we decided that of the three ultraportable machines tested here, the one we’d buy with our own money is the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. Even though you can buy two MacBook Airs for what this ThinkPad cost.

The decision in this category ultimately came down to survivability and usability. Both the Sony Vaio and MacBook Air seemed fragile, and we worried about their ability to withstand the wear and tear of heavy use. The ThinkPad feels sturdier than laptops twice its weight, and its SSD drive should deliver better survivability than the old-school spindles and heads in the other two machines. Unfortunately, that SSD also adds at least a grand to the X300’s price, which is a huge premium to pay if your idea of high-risk computing is balancing the machine on one knee while you veg out in front of the tube during Shark Week. Lenovo desperately needs to add a budget X300 using standard hard drives.

The ThinkPad’s screen might not shine like those of its glossy-paneled completion, but it actually makes the notebook far more versatile. When we took all three of the ultraportable models outdoors, only the X300 remained usable—turns out there’s something to be said for the screen’s dowdy anti-glare coating, which is not an option with the Air and Vaio. Add to that the X300’s comfortable keyboard and plethora of input options and you have a solid all-around offering. Sure, it could stand a few more inputs and outputs, but with three USB ports we’re satiated.

Performance is less crucial in the ultraportable category, but the ThinkPad delivered more than respectable scores in most of our benchmarks, losing to the Sony by a smaller margin than we expected, given the differences in hardware. We’re especially impressed with the X300’s Photoshop results, which show the read benefits SSD users can expect.

That said, none of these laptops is bad—if you don’t mind dealing with the abundance of crapware on the Vaio, that is. Folks shopping for a relatively inexpensive 3-pound laptop will find the MacBook Air to be a stunning value at $1,800. We’d never advocate using it as your only PC, but as a mobile option it’s pretty compelling. The Sony Vaio delivers impressive performance, but we’d expect more solid build quality for the $2,600 price.

Next: Mainstream Notebooks

Ultraportable Benchmarks

	Apple MacBook Air	Sony Vaio SZ Premium	Lenovo ThinkPad X300
Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec)	59:21	47:22	59:01
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	6:07	3:08	5:36
ProShow (min:sec)	95:11	35:44	63:25
MainConcept (min:sec)	174:11	59:52	119:36
Fear (fps)	WNR	WNR	WNR
Quake 4 (fps)	WNR	WNR	WNR
Battery Rundown (hrs:min)	2:39	3:02	3:01

Best scores are bolded.

Individual Mainstream Notebook Reviews

Best in Class: Mainstream

The MacBook wins the sprint but loses the marathon

If laptops were dogs, we’d award Acer’s TravelMate Best in Show. The MacBook may be the cute dog that’s the crowd favorite, but its refusal to obey commands cost it points. And the Asus F8Sn would be stuck in its crate in the back doing the one thing it can do right: spin in a circle.

Things would be different if we looked at just a single category. Take gaming, for example. Hands down, the F8Sn crushes the other contenders with its built-in GeForce 9500M GS videocard. The TravelMate’s discrete graphics are no match for the F8Sn’s performance, and the MacBook—well, four frames per second in a game like FEAR is downright shameful, solidifying the white laptop’s standing as a gamer’s foe.

But the F8Sn’s gaming prowess comes at a great cost. To keep the machine affordable, Asus includes a paltry 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. Thus, the other laptops in this category speed past the F8Sn in nearly every other non-gaming benchmark. And worse, the F8Sn’s mighty graphics card sucks the battery life during normal use.

While the MacBook owns the competition in a few of our encoding benchmarks, thanks to its nifty Penryn processor, the notebook falls flat on more memory-intensive tests. The single gigabyte of DDR2 RAM proves to be this laptop’s undoing once video conversion and high-definition picture processing come into play. Still, the MacBook achieves nearly three hours of battery life—a full 20 minutes more than Acer’s TravelMate.

So how does one decide a clear victor? It’s not easy. Each laptop comes with little bits and pieces that we’d like to see changed: the TravelMate’s 160GB hard drive and inclusion of Windows Vista Business, the F8Sn’s horrific processor speed and lackluster battery life, the MacBook’s lack of external connection options and poor gaming performance. But at this price point, the midrange laptop class is all about sacrifices. You’re not going to find a perfect notebook in this cohort, but you can definitely find one that includes most of the qualities you’re seeking.

In that sense, the TravelMate comes out on top by a wide margin, mostly because you don’t have to sacrifice a great deal of performance to get what you want. Its gaming prowess isn’t the best we’ve seen, but the laptop holds its own in our benchmarks without crushing the machine’s overall battery life. Its application performance rivals the MacBook’s best, and we’d much rather have the extra 40GB of hard drive space, faster Premiere and Photoshop times, and larger display—not to mention the external connection options, where the TravelMate far exceeds the MacBook’s limited offerings.

When it comes to mainstream notebooks, we’d happily take Acer’s TravelMate on the road any day of the week. But if someone gave us a MacBook, we wouldn’t complain—we can’t say the same about Asus’s F8Sn.

Next: Professional Notebooks

Mainstream Notebook Benchmarks

	Apple MacBook	Asus F8Sn	Acer TravelMate 5720
Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec)	38:43	48:38	35:59
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	5:48	4:12	3:53
ProShow (min:sec)	38:10	56:53	40:32
MainConcept (min:sec)	68:11	83:10	68:08
Fear (fps)	4	22	15
Quake 4 (fps)	10.3	79.2	29
Battery Rundown (hrs:min)	3:26	1:42	2:32

Best scores are bolded.

Individual Professional Notebook Reviews

Best in Class: Professional

Don't rub your eyes, the MacBook is the winner (!)

In many ways, Dell’s XPS M1530 is the better notebook of the two. Its screen is better by a country mile in photo rendering, it’s faster in gaming, it has built-in EVDO—something you can’t even get from Apple—and it costs $500 less for comparable hardware.

So why are we declaring the MacBook Pro the winner? We had a few issues with our XPS unit, such as unexplainably low scores in our Premiere Pro CS3 test that gave us the shivers: It took more than twice as long as our MacBook Pro to render video and was quite a bit slower in our Photoshop CS3 test.

We have no idea why. The XPS was just about as fast as the MBP in our MainConcept encoding test and faster at slide-show creation, which would typically translate to comparable scores in our two Adobe-based benchmarks.

As for the XPS’s beefy 9-cell battery, the machine pooped out after 2:45 (hrs:min) of DVD playback. The MacBook Pro, running the OS X-based DVD app, had us up past midnight waiting for the damned thing to die at 3:15—and that’s using an internal battery that doesn’t pork up the formfactor. Whether the weak rundown time was caused by the unoptimized Windows Media Center DVD player or some CPU-sapping third-party app that Dell installed on the XPS, we weren’t happy with the results.

The XPS is redeemed in port selection, with three USB ports, as well as S-Video, HDMI, and VGA, compared to the MacBook Pro’s single DVI and two USB ports. And the XPS clearly has the better screen. Although favored by professional photographers, the MBP’s screen is subpar and displays horrible banding in OS X. The XPS also bests the MBP with EVDO.

And remember, the XPS is $500 less—and that’s without taking into account the cost of a Windows license if to run your games or other applications on the MBP.

That’s what makes our pick stick in our craw so much. The XPS is better in many respects, but it has the same weaknesses as most OEM PCs. From the get-go, even though Dell’s load out is better than most others here, it’s still bogged down by third-party bloatware. And Vista drivers might be better today than they were, but something, somewhere in the XPS is dragging down battery life and performance.

That puts the admittedly overpriced MacBook Pro in the pole position. While that’s likely to piss off many PC diehards, perhaps it’s time those folks finally admit the MacBook Pro to the power-PC family.

Next: OSX: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

Professional Notebook Benchmarks

	Apple MacBook Pro	Dell XPS M1530
Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec)	30:12	65:00
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	3:44	4:08
ProShow (min:sec)	34:21	32:28
MainConcept (min:sec)	56:17	57:09
Fear (fps)	45	49
Quake 4 (fps)	83.5	103.3
Battery Rundown (hrs:min)	3:15	2:45

Best scores are bolded.

OS X: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

The biggest difference between an Apple notebook and its PC counterparts is the operating system. Sure, Apple’s adoption of the x86 architecture makes it quite possible to run Windows on an Apple machine, but here’s a crash course in the unique features Apple’s home-grown OS offers and the pitfalls of running Windows on a Mac.

OS X is a Lot Like Windows

Switching OSes is always tough, but Apple does a good job of making Windows users feel right at home. Many Windows-specific keyboard shortcuts function similarly in OS X and basic file browsing is the same.

OS X is Completely Different from Windows

In other ways, OS X is a very different beast. For example, instead of storing all the bits and pieces of your installed apps in a folder on your hard drive, everything the app needs to run is stored in a container file. To start the app, you double-click the container. It’s deceptively simple, and we like it.

Windows on a Mac is a Little Weird

Installing Windows on a MacBook is easier than installing it on many enthusiast PCs. You start the installer from inside OS X; when the Windows install completes, you run a single app that installs all necessary drivers. Unfortunately, some commonly used notebook functions, such as tap to click on the touchpad, don’t work.

OS X is Really, Really Slick

Using an operating system that’s designed for power users and newbies alike is truly glorious.

You'll Need to Rebuy All Your Applications

Replacing apps could cost you nothing—or thousands of dollars.

You'll Need Cooler Pants

When people see you toting a MacBook around, they’ll expect that you’re a little more Justin Long than John Hodgman, and your circa 1987 Lee’s don’t send that message, chief.

Performance in OS X is Pretty Darn Good

We last compared OS X and Windows performance right after Apple switched to Intel x86, and the results for OS X were ugly, thanks possibly to the emulation layer that most Mac software used. Now two and a half years later, we can say things are looking far better for OS X. Photoshop, which was a total joke in 2006 on the Intel Macs, is definitely improved. Though still slower than on Windows Vista, at least you won’t be firing cruise missiles at John Warnock and Steve Jobs.

In other applications, OS X performance is quite peppy. We used Bibble Pro to convert 233 Canon EOS 5D RAW files to JPEG. OS X outsprinted Vista. Using HandBrake to convert an episode of The Rockford Files also saw OS X in front. Not every application has been optimized for the “Mactel” machines, but it looks like the worst storm clouds are over for Apple in performance.

Back to the First Page

Benchmarks

	OSX Leopard	Windows Vista Home Premium
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	3:56	3:44
Bibble Pro (min:sec)	14:18	24:46
Handbrake VOB to iPod (min:sec)	4:26	5:41

Best scores are bolded. All tests were run on the MacBook Pro.

Dell XPS M1530

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:02:04 -0500

We wondered if Dell was making a passive-aggressive statement when it shipped us its new XPS M1530 in flamingo pink. Perhaps the boys in Austin think the MacBook Pro is a bit effete, so the pink is fitting. Or perhaps someone on the reviews team just finished watching Reservoir Dogs and was channeling Steve Buscemi’s Mr. Pink.

Whatever the reason, the XPS M1530—be it pink, blue, or brown—is a worthy contender to Apple’s vaunted MacBook Pro. Featuring Intel’s 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo T9300, 2GB of DDR2/667, a 250GB Samsung SpinPoint drive, and a GeForce 8600M GT, the XPS M1530 certainly has the specs to compete with the MBP in performance.

A notebook configured for media handling, the XPS sports an SD/Memory Stick reader, S-Video, VGA, and HDMI outputs. There are also two headphones jacks. Why? It’s simple parent math: Two kids + two headphones + one Pixar movie = two hours of rest on the plane.

And there’s no need to worry about the battery run time. Dell included a massive 9-cell battery with this XPS. It makes the notebook a bit bulkier but has the nice side effect of getting the bottom of the machine off the desk, which helps air circulate underneath it and keep the rig cooler. Dell’s glossy LED-backlit screen makes watching movies a real treat.

Other amenities include a slot-fed DVD burner—a first for Dell, we believe—a biometric fingerprint reader, and built-in EVDO.
But as we’ve said, this isn’t just about specs, it’s also about usability. In that area, the Dell is a bit lacking. It features a set of touch-sensitive buttons for volume and disc control, but then it falls back on an old-fashioned analog push button for power and the Dell Media Direct Application. We’re also not big fans of the anodized aluminum combined with the black powder-coated magnesium bottom.

We do, however, like the Wi-Fi Catcher button. Push this button on the notebook’s side and the XPS fires up an applet that searches for Wi-Fi access points. Unfortunately, once you decide you want to connect to an access point, functionality reverts to the stock Windows Vista applet instead of something more custom and usable, like the applet Lenovo includes on its notebooks.

Dell has made a conscious effort to keep the vendor trialware and bloat to a minimum on the XPS, but there’s still a crapload of icons on the desktop and Google Desktop is preloaded. As cool as the app is, Google Desktop is a major resource hog; we’d rather install it ourselves if we deem it necessary, thank you very much.

So take a beautiful screen, add Intel’s second-fastest CPU, a pretty-fast GPU, and EVDO coverage, and you’ve got the MacBook Killer, right?

Maybe. See our final analysis on page 4 of the main article.

Next: The Final Analysis - Professional Notebooks

Apple MacBook Pro

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:44:53 -0500

We’re always a little taken aback when we see Apple’s MacBook Pro in the hands of PC power users. For example, we’ve seen PC game developers typing on MBPs at industry events. And at trade shows, it isn’t uncommon to see Windows app developers sporting Apple’s pro-class portable. Are we far from the day when Bill Gates is a proud MacBook Pro convert?

Ever since Apple swallowed its pride and embraced the x86 instruction set used by every other PC, its computers have been far more compelling given their ability to run a Windows OS directly on the metal without emulation. Of course, most MBP users will probably go OS X, but having the Windows fallback for gaming and application fidelity is a comfort—no other PC vendor can currently offer that OS combo.

Wrapped in an aluminum shell, the MacBook Pro’s thinness is impressive next to other notebooks in its class. Dell’s XPS M1530 (reviewed on the next page), for example, feels downright chubby in our hands. We’ve seen other notebooks that come close to the MBP in thinness, but graphics are usually compromised to get there. For example, we had a hard time finding another notebook in the MBP’s class that sports a GeForce 8600M GT with a 512MB frame buffer. Most other superslim notebooks resort to integrated graphics—and even Dell’s loaded-for-bear XPS has just half the frame buffer.

The MBP’s CPU is also top-notch: Intel’s 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo T9300 chip. This 45nm-based Penryn CPU is just a step away from Intel’s fastest mobile CPU, the 2.6GHz C2D. A 250GB SATA drive, slot-fed DVD burner, and 2GB of DDR2/667 make up the rest of the notebook’s specs.

But specs aren’t the full story. The MBP includes some really nice extra touches, such as a backlit keyboard that’s connected to a light sensor. Apple sells the unit with either a glossy or anti-glare finish to the LCD screen. Ours came with an anti-glare 1440x900 TFT screen with LED backlighting. From what we’re told, LED backlights aren’t used in notebooks so much for power savings (most OEMs say the reduction is minimal), but rather ecological reasons. Doing away with the fluorescent tubes in the screen eliminates the last bit of mercury in a notebook PC. Our screen was quite good in high-glare environments, such as our office and outdoors, but for watching movies or playing games, the glossy screen would be preferable.

As slim, fast, and fashionable as the MBP is, we do have issues with it. First, the screen doesn’t tilt back far enough. It’s fine if you’re sitting in front of it at a desk, but working from, say, the hood of a car or a lab bench, the off-axis angle is a minor annoyance.

Second, accessing the hard drive or optical drive is not fun, unless you’re the kind of person who enjoys disassembling a notebook to do something that’s quite easy with other notebook designs. There’s also no way to add a cellular modem to the notebook and no factory option for it either.

Apple also decided to use an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the standard ExpressCard/54, to save space. Hey, Apple, there’s a reason there’s a standard, and plenty of ExpressCard/54 parts are available, so why not just support both? We’d recommend chucking the FireWire 400 port to make room since there’s no reason for both a FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 port.

In the grand scheme of things, these are fairly minor kvetches and the MacBook Pro is a surprisingly satisfying machine.

Next: Dell XPS M1530

Acer TravelMate 5720

David Murphy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:14:57 -0500

With a 15.4-inch screen, Acer’s TravelMate 5720 skirts the edge of what qualifies as a mainstream notebook. But at 7.5 lbs. of carry weight, it’s still pleasantly portable for a device that offers respectable multimedia and gaming functionality with a good-size battery.

The TravelMate didn’t ace our benchmark tests across the board, but it put up a strong showing. You won’t be able to max out next-generation games, but the rig holds its own in older titles. The laptop’s 15 frames per second in our FEAR test makes for a “playable” experience, but we shudder at the thought of playing newer titles on this machine.

On the flip side, we saw excellent performance in our application benchmarks. ProShow and MainConcept encodes sped by, both coming within minutes of faster mainstream models we’ve reviewed. For this you can thank the 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor: That’s a speedy clock for the laptop’s size, and the CPU’s 4MB of L2 cache helps the TravelMate nail these two encoding benchmarks.

Also aiding the laptop’s performance are two gigabytes of DDR2 RAM. They pushed the TravelMate to peak performance on our Premiere and Photoshop tests. On the former, encoding ran smoothly and quickly, but it was in our intensive Photoshop script that the memory proved its mettle. The Acer sailed through both tasks, pushing out times that were twice as fast as those of a comparable laptop sporting just one gig of RAM.

The TravelMate’s battery isn’t the best we’ve seen, but we appreciate its performance-to-battery-life ratio. With a two-and-a-half-hour time in our rundown test, this laptop should make it through a typical feature-length film before dying out—more, if you reduce the display to its lowest brightness setting.

We love the responsiveness of this laptop’s keyboard. Pressing the keys feels almost like using a desktop keyboard. Function-key hotkeys allow you to pull up your laptop specs and power-management settings at the touch of a button, and you can launch full applications with the laptop’s seven hotkeys.

It’s not a perfect experience, but the laptop’s screen holds its own in outdoor use. Even with the sun beating down on the TravelMate, we were able to see a decent picture with no reflections or annoyances—aside from the glare. Just don’t expect to store much on this machine. While acceptable for this class, we’d prefer a hard drive a bit bigger than 160GB.

The TravelMate’s external connection options are numerous. You get five USB ports and a single mini-FireWire out, as well as a trifecta of video output options: VGA, DVI, and S-Video. The laptop even comes with a built-in SD card reader.

We question Acer’s OS choice though. Since the TravelMate comes with Vista Business, not Home Premium, it lacks multimedia functionality like Windows Media Center and DVD Maker as well as the ability to create high-definition movies in Windows Movie Maker. In place of that, you get Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore—a program that’s rendered irrelevant by Acer’s inclusion of the NTI Shadow backup application.

Minus this lapse, the TravelMate is a strong laptop choice. It presents the best mix of gaming and application performance without suffering critical flaws in either, and its usability and battery life help sweeten the deal.

Next: The Final Word on Mainstream Notebooks

Asus F8Sn

David Murphy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:37:48 -0500

Asus has gambled the farm that the fancy graphics offering—an Nvidia 9500M GS videocard with 512MB of onboard memory—in its F8Sn notebook will be enough to eclipse the machine’s myriad shortcomings. Sadly, it isn’t.

While the notebook’s Quake 4 performance knocked our socks off, the Asus F8Sn returns frame rates that are just borderline playable in FEAR. This still puts the F8Sn ahead of the other notebooks in its class for gaming, but its lackluster 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor was no match for our other benchmarks. And the battery life on the F8Sn won’t even get you through most of today’s feature films.

The laptop comes with a bevy of connection options, including five USB ports, a mini-FireWire port, and outputs for VGA, DVI, and S-Video. But this doesn’t represent anything above and beyond the norm. We hate the layout of the laptop’s keys, as we kept inadvertently hitting a poorly placed function key in the lower-left corner instead of the usual Control key. The notebook’s crisp display works in the summer sun, but the reflection can be a bit too much to bear at times.

In the end, this notebook lacks anything that sets it apart from the other offerings. Don’t let the gaming performance fool you: The F8Sn is a poor choice for users of all shapes and sizes.

Next: Acer TravelMate 5720

Apple MacBook

David Murphy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:55:50 -0500

Apple’s little white wonder of a MacBook excels against its PC counterparts, but it’s no Gandalf. As expected, gaming is this laptop’s weakest link. And even complex multimedia tasks can cause the MacBook’s magic to wither.

Still, in most applications, the Vista-booting MacBook performed admirably. But as speedy as the MacBook’s 2.1GHz Penryn processor may be, the notebook’s fatal flaw—beyond the gameplay-breaking integrated graphics—is a paltry 1GB of DDR2 RAM. This was most evident in our Photoshop test, where the once-mighty MacBook lurched to a crawl.

The MacBook’s 13.3-inch glossy screen presents a perceptibly higher quality picture than the other laptops in its class, but not outdoors—you can’t see jack in the sunlight. We enjoyed running our fingers across the spacious keyboard, although many of the strokes we take for granted on a PC have to be relearned on Apple hardware. Bringing up a context menu isn’t a simple right-click affair but rather a three-button ordeal.

Since Apple products are often touted for their multimedia capabilities, the MacBook’s limited connection options are a disappointment. Two USB ports and a single FireWire port butt up against a mini-DVI output for external monitor connectivity—adapter not included. Perhaps Apple means multimedia watching, as the device’s Superman of a battery and easy portability are a perfect fit for an on-the-go lifestyle.

Next: Asus F8Sn

Lenovo ThinkPad X300

Will Smith — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:20:41 -0500

When you pick up a Lenovo ThinkPad X300, you pick up 3 pounds, 6 ounces of excellence. In every way that the MacBook Air is stylish and beautiful, the X300 is built to perform. No usability is sacrificed for visual appeal—inside this unassuming black chassis is a workhorse. It sounds like an oxymoron, but this is one sturdy 3-pound portable.

The ThinkPad held its own in most of our benchmarks and excelled in battery life as well as the Photoshop and Premiere tests. Overall, however, it was bested by Sony’s Vaio, which has double the memory and a 1.3GHz-faster CPU. The ThinkPad is the only rig in our roundup with a solid-state drive, but we didn’t see any huge performance gains as a result. Unlike the Air, which includes SSD as an option, it’s a non-negotiable feature of the X300. We’re not convinced that SSD is ready for mass consumption yet, but there’s something liberating about storing your data on a drive with no moving parts.

When it comes to usability, the X300 really shines. With the SSD drive, we don’t hesitate to pick up a still-running laptop, whether it’s to carry it down the hall for a meeting or to chuck it in our bag to go home. The full-size keyboard makes for the best typing experience in the ultraportable field. It’s not as comfortable as a real desktop keyboard, but it’s darn close. And while we think the touchpad on this notebook is too small, it’s augmented with an oversize pointing nub. If you use the two together, you get a good mix of fine and granular control. Best of all, in our real-world testing, we got nearly five hours of life on a single battery charge and just over three hours with our video playback test.

While the Vaio’s software bundle is at best an annoyance and at worst a liability, the X300’s adds value. Its nerd-friendly software lets you easily tie power profiles to your location, as determined by your network connection. This allows you to set access and battery conservation rules automatically when you change location. We also love the detailed battery diagnostics, which expose everything you’d ever want to know about your laptop’s battery, as well as the extremely fine control Lenovo gives you over every aspect of the X300’s power-management facilities.

A few significant flaws preclude the X300 from earning a Kick Ass award. The LED-backlit screen’s anti-glare coating is eminently practical, and we love the extra pixels the 1440x900 resolution gives us, but the display is a little meh. Colors appeared washed out, and we longed for more brightness. We also wish that the X300 was available with a more cost-effective traditional hard drive. We appreciate SSD as an option, but the small capacity and high price aren’t right for everyone. The X300 also lacks a few key connection options—expansion card slots, a media reader, any digital video outputs. While the integrated EVDO obviates one of the most common expansion card slots, we wish there was at least an ExpressCard/34 slot.

And, yes, the X300 includes an optical drive.

Next: The Final Word on Ultraportables

Sony Vaio SZ Premium

Will Smith — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:40:37 -0500

Weighing a tad more than 4 pounds, Sony’s Vaio SX is the heftiest laptop in the ultraportable category. Yet despite its larger size, the Vaio isn’t the sturdiest small-size contender. That’s too bad because this little rig packs killer performance in its sexy carbon-fiber shell—it’s the only ultraportable we tested that includes discrete graphics.

The Vaio delivered great benchmark numbers—and thanks to its GeForce 8400M GS videocard, it’s the only ultraportable that even ran our gaming benchmarks. And unlike other machines we’ve tested, killer performance didn’t impact battery life; the Vaio ran our movie playback test for more than three hours.

We’re also fond of the Vaio’s Rev A Sprint EVDO card. It perfectly complements the 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, gigabit Ethernet, and Bluetooth options. The Vaio also accommodates both PCMCIA and ExpressCard/34 cards, if you’d rather use your own WAN card.

On the other hand, the Vaio’s trackpad is too damn small, and the machine feels flimsy and poorly constructed. We suspect that its extra pound of heft is made up entirely of crapware—the Vaio ships with a ludicrous number of useless preinstalled applications. We understand the economic necessities of subsidizing inexpensive PCs with third-party crapware, but there’s no excuse for whoring out a notebook of this price. The first thing we’d do after buying this Vaio is reinstall Windows.