Our Windows Media Encoder (WME) test (which comprises converting a video file) took 10 minutes and 14 seconds, only about a minute slower than the average time and a whopping 11 minutes faster than the HP Pavilion dv2-1030us’s time. Multitasking while running the WME test (we do this by running a full BitDefender scan simultaneously with the WME test) added only two minutes to the UL30A-A1’s WME score. The HP Pavilion dv2-1030us needed an additional 6 minutes to complete the multitasking benchmark.
The keyboard is nice and wide and features all the right buttons in all the right places. One odd feature is that the function keys at the top of the keyboard are designed a little differently from those on pretty much every other laptop I’ve ever used. Instead of hitting F11 to change your browser to full screen mode, for instance, you have to hit Fn+F11. To adjust the screen brightness you simply hit F4 or F5 without hitting the Fn key.
The IC uses an internal power management unit to produce a 2.2Vrms audio-output signal for voltages from 3.0V to 5.5V, eliminating the need for a separate high-voltage power supply to drive the Line-Out output. Similar devices typically require four external capacitors for the charge pumps but ST’s high-frequency design integrates these on-chip, thereby saving board space and bill-of-materials costs. In addition, the ability to generate negative and positive voltages allows the audio signal to be referenced to ground, which saves the need for a decoupling capacitor in the audio-signal line.
Wal-Mart surveyed customers to see what kinds of tradeoffs in performance they were willing to make for a discount machine, said Mr. Nzigamasabo. For example, he said, students were willing to give up battery life, but not a CD drive.
Wal-Mart passed on its findings to PC companies and later reached deals with Dell for a sub-$400 laptop, and Toshiba Corp. and Acer for sub-$350 laptops. H-P beat those vendors with its $298 machine.
Hewlett-Packard is sending mixed signals on what exactly it plans to do with the Voodoo PC brand it acquired three years ago.
After purchasing the gaming and PC enthusiast brand in 2006, HP in 2008 began using the Voodoo name beyond powerful gaming PCs. It painted the name Voodoo and VoodooDNA on high-end HP notebooks and desktops, and talked up their premium engineering and design. They used the analogy that if the HP brand were a Smart Car and Compaq were a Chrysler, Voodoo would be their Maybach.
The battery life on most gaming laptops is pretty bad. Alienware has managed to avoid this issue for the most part by adding a discrete video card to the motherboard. What this means is that when you unplug the power from the machine, it automatically disables the dual Nvidia cards and switches you to the onboard video. This results in a significant hit to performance, but it also adds about an hour and a half to two hours worth of battery time.
The bad thing is, if this happens on accident while you’re in-game, your framerate will drop to almost a standstill. You also have to be cautious not to accidentally hit the button on the touch strip that does the same thing. I spoke with Alienware, and they said that currently, there isn’t any way to disable that particular button.
Performance isn’t too shabby in the Pavilion Slimline s5160f either. The system uses an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor and 6GB of DDR3 memory. While this is a fairly low end quad core model from Intel, it does extremely well with the multitasking and multimedia applications. It would have been nice to see a higher model, but with its under $900 price, it isn’t surprising.