Heavy-Hitting Featherweights
Today's ultrathin notebooks don't sacrifice power and won't break your back. We review five wireless-ready contenders.Carla Thornton
Ultraportable notebooks, aka thin-and-lights, are to standard laptops what bantamweights are to sumo wrestlers. At about an inch thick when closed and weighing as little as 2.6 pounds without peripherals, ultras ride the cutting edge of portability. Of course, you have to make some compromises when using a thin-and-light notebook--most don't have built-in optical drives, and some leave off legacy ports. Today's models, however, are smaller and pack more powerful components into their slim cases than ever before, and although they're not budget fare, they've come down considerably in price.
We took a close look at five thin-and-light models from Compaq, Fujitsu, IBM, Sharp, and Toshiba. After evaluating each notebook's price, weight, battery life, and other features, we picked IBM's ThinkPad X23 as our Best Buy. For $2979, the X23 offers a 12.1-inch screen, a 30GB hard drive, and a keyboard almost as easy to type on as a full-size laptop's.
Many currently available thin-and-light notebooks come equipped with integrated 802.11b wireless (or Wi-Fi) hardware, which lets them access networks and the Net without jacking in--as long as you are near a public Internet access point. The ThinkPad, Toshiba Portégé 2000, and Fujitsu LifeBook B Series offer integrated 802.11b, with antennas and radio cards built into the case. The other models that we looked at, Compaq's Evo N200 and Sharp's PC-UM10M, require PC Card adapters that incorporate both the antenna and the receiver.
If your office is installing a wireless LAN or you happen to frequent any of the handful of airports or hotels that are equipped with wireless, then opting for 802.11b could be a smart choice. See the sidebar " Going Wireless."
The High Price Of Thinness
Ultraportables demand more than a few trade-offs. All the notebooks we evaluated for this article lack internal bays, which can accommodate an optical drive or other devices such as a second hard drive. Optical and floppy drives, usually standard with larger notebooks, are extra-cost items on most thin-and-lights. (Of the notebooks here, only the LifeBook B Series bundles a USB floppy drive.) And none in this group have parallel, serial, or PS/2 ports, or the more cutting-edge IEEE 1394 or S-Video-out ports.
Fortunately, travelers can have their ultraportable and keep their legacy features too, via extra-cost add-ons. All five notebooks here gain most missing features when you attach either a snap-on docking station equipped with an optical drive, or multiple separate peripherals and a port replicator. Choosing the all-in-one docking station can avoid the octopus effect of having several external peripherals plugged in at once. The Compaq Evo N200 and IBM ThinkPad X23 both use docking stations. The downside: Docking stations add at least a couple of pounds and another $250 to $500 in cost.
The Fujitsu LifeBook B Series, the Sharp PC-UM10M, and the Toshiba Portégé 2000 use simple port replicators, which provide the missing legacy ports, and external USB or PC Card drives. This piecemeal approach lets you pick what to buy and what to take on the road.
Who's Got The Goods?
Of our review group, the Portégé 2000 and the ThinkPad X23 came the best equipped out of the box. Besides integrated Wi-Fi hardware--in the sides of the ThinkPad's screen panel and under the Portégé's keyboard--both notebooks include a traditional ethernet connection, a modem jack, a VGA port, one PC Card slot, an infrared port, two USB 1.1 ports, and headphone and microphone jacks. The Portégé's port replicator provides two additional USB 1.1 ports for an impressive total of four. A potential downside: Neither the Portégé nor its port replicator comes with a parallel port.
The ThinkPad and the Portege also provide some unusual extras. The ThinkPad features a CompactFlash card slot, great for quick transfers of data or images from devices such as digital cameras, and the Portégé throws in a Secure Digital card slot. SD cards are less popular than CompactFlash ones, but they let you add storage and some games.
Compaq's $379 docking station, or Mobile Expansion Unit, adds a DVD-ROM drive, two extra USB 1.1 ports, and missing parallel, serial, and PS/2 ports.
Fujitsu is the only vendor in the group that makes you choose between built-in Wi-Fi and a built-in standard wired ethernet jack. You can order the LifeBook B Series with one or the other along with a 56-kbps modem, but not all three. However, it does have two PC Card slots.
The Sharp PC-UM10M comes with the fewest built-in features. To hook up an external monitor, you must plug an included adapter cable into a proprietary connection on the left side of the notebook. To add Wi-Fi, you need to get a PC Card adapter, which typically runs about $100--a little less if you shop for bargains (802.11b cards are interchangeable--you don't have to use a card sold by the notebook's vendor). The Sharp's port replicator adds missing legacy connections.
Middling Performance
Because it takes a year or longer for low-voltage versions of mobile processors to become available for thin-and-lights, CPUs in ultraportables are always a few clock cycles behind those in the latest full-size laptops. In this roundup, IBM's ThinkPad X23--equipped with an 866-MHz LV Pentium III-M, 256MB of RAM, and Windows XP Professional--came the closest to matching a full-size notebook's performance. It earned a PC WorldBench 4 score of 88, only about 12 percent behind some portables outfitted with 1.2-GHz Pentium III-M processors--currently the fastest mobile CPU.
While none of the notebooks we looked at are speedy marvels, they all handle basic tasks fairly smoothly. However, a slowdown might be perceptible with processor-intensive operations such as complex spreadsheet calculations.
Thin-and-light used to be synonymous with short-and-not-so-sweet battery life, but not anymore. The Portégé 2000 turned in an amazing 6 hours and 50 minutes of battery life--the longest we've ever recorded from any notebook, including desktop replacements. The 2000 uses two batteries--a built-in lithium polymer battery and a bundled supplementary lithium ion unit that adds a scant 0.7 pounds of weight. But there's one small hitch: It attaches to the notebook via the same port on the bottom that connects the port replicator, so you can't have both attached at once.
Room To Work
The latest ultraportables offer at least 20GB of storage, more than enough for most business travelers. The Portege 2000's hard drive is unique: The 8mm-thick drive is about 20 percent thinner than those of other ultraportables. A few, including the ThinkPad X23, are available with 30GB hard drives.
Most ultraportables now also have 12.1-inch active-matrix screens. That's small enough to fit comfortably on an airplane seat tray, yet plenty big for working with most files, though it may not be ideal for viewing large spreadsheets or graphics.
The Compaq Evo N200 and the Fujitsu LifeBook B Series have smaller, 10.4-inch screens. The Fujitsu's active-matrix LCD is also a responsive touch screen. In addition, the LifeBook B Series has an antireflective coating that Fujitsu claims makes the screen readable in any lighting situation--but we found it too dark to use in bright light outdoors.
Try typing on an ultraportable before you buy it, if at all possible. A keyboard that's too small or poorly laid out can literally cramp your style, especially if you're accustomed to touch typing.
The best ultraportable keyboard by a long shot belongs to the ThinkPad X23. This eraserhead-equipped keyboard is so comfortable, some touchpad diehards may reconsider their preference. The X23 owes its comfort to near-standard key travel and an 18.5mm pitch (the distance from the center of one key to the next), so it feels similar to a full-size ThinkPad.
It's back to the drawing board for Compaq. The most difficult unit to type on, the Evo N200 has small keys with white lettering that looks blurred at an angle.
Entertainment Blues
Unless you add headphones or external speakers, the ultraportable multimedia experience is pretty dismal. Most thin-and-lights, including all but one model in this review, sport one speaker, located on the bottom of the case. The Fujitsu B Series has built-in stereo speakers, but they give new meaning to the word tinny. Listening to music CDs without headphones can be pleasant with the ThinkPad X23 and Evo N200, but only if you add their extra-cost docking stations.
And again thanks to its docking station, the ThinkPad is the only ultraportable here that is capable of using the hot new DVD-ROM/CD-RW combination optical drive. This combo lets you watch DVD movies and burn your own discs. Also, both the ThinkPad's and the Evo N200's docking stations offer modular bays for swapping in other extra-cost devices, such as a 250MB Zip drive.
Bringing up the rear in multimedia is the Sharp PC-UM10M, whose only optical-drive option is a $279 USB 1.1 CD-ROM drive that reads at a nominal 6X-10X. (And in our experience USB 1.1 drives rarely achieve even those comparatively slow speeds.) Fujitsu also offers just a CD-ROM drive for the LifeBook B Series--a PC Card 12X-16X model for $128.
What A Traveler Wants
For businesspeople who spend more time in airports and hotel rooms than at the office, a light, well-designed laptop can make all the difference. And for early adopters, built-in wireless is an added bonus. If you can afford it, the IBM ThinkPad X23 is the perfect wireless-enabled ultraportable. Next up: Toshiba's Portege 2000. It's the thinnest, lightest ultraportable we've seen, yet it still pulls off astoundingly long battery life.
The Compaq Evo N200 is more affordable than the other models here, but try it out first: Its small keys could prove frustrating. Fujitsu's LifeBook B Series would be a good choice for business travelers whose work includes roaming wireless-networked office sites. The Sharp PC-UM10M would suit jet-setters who don't need many legacy connections.
Ultimately, ultraportable laptops aren't the right tool for everyone--especially those users who are willing to carry a little extra weight in return for a larger screen and a built-in modular bay. But for executives who need to stay in touch without slowing down, they're the perfect fit.
Carla Thornton regularly covers notebooks for PC World.
Going Wireless
Whether you're considering laying out two grand for a new 802.11b-enabled ultraportable or you've retrofitted your old notebook with a $100 wireless PC Card adapter, you probably expect to be able to answer e-mail and surf the Internet practically anywhere you happen to be. Unfortunately, it's not that simple.
Although the 802.11b (aka Wi-Fi) standard has grown in popularity for home networks, public places that use 802.11b devices are still rare. In the United States, fewer than a thousand locations offer Internet access points, the wired gateways with which Wi-Fi devices communicate via radio waves. Most commercial wireless locations are Starbucks coffee shops, which use VoiceStream's wireless services. The rest include a smattering of hotels and airports. And most airports offer wireless access only in first-class passenger lounges. (Direct your browser to www.wlana.org/public/index.htm to search for access point locations.)
Few Places To Roam
Research firm IDC reports that a relatively paltry 1.24 million access points were sold worldwide last year. About 60 percent of these were installed in the U.S., and most of those units were bought for offices, not public access, says Jason Smolek, an IDC analyst who follows enterprise networks.
Broader adoption of 802.11b will require seamless access availability across far-flung locations, regardless of provider. Although services can be reasonably priced--for instance, VoiceStream's Global Wireless by T-Mobile (formerly MobileStar) service costs $2.95 for the first 15 minutes and 20 cents for each additional minute, or $20 for 120 minutes on a prepaid card--service plans vary among providers, and they serve limited locations, so you can't be assured that your account will work wherever you travel.
At least one consortium, the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance--consisting of Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and 3Com--is working to establish a standard to help confused wireless customers. Called "WiFi Internet Service Provider roaming," or WISPr, it would regulate how companies share subscriber usage information, allowing wireless users to "roam," as cell phone users do, and to receive one bill from their primary providers.
Going The Distance
To see how wireless-ready ultraportables would fare in a typical office, we took a couple for a spin in some informal tests. We used the IBM ThinkPad X23, which has built-in wireless, and Sharp's PC-UM10M, which requires a wireless LAN PC Card adapter and a Linksys WAP11 access point. We sent files between offices and downloaded music from the Internet.
Although 802.11b allows for data transfers at speeds of up to 11 mbps, our past testing has shown that walls, floors, and other objects slow transfer rates considerably. It took us 2 minutes to copy a 4MB file over about 150 feet inside an office building. That's a transfer rate of about 0.25 mbps (still far faster than using a dial-up connection). But we lost our connection completely when we went down one floor. (There was no notable performance difference between built-in and PC Card adapters.) Although its performance and consistency can't match a wired network's, 802.11b can be useful in companies where wired ethernet is too difficult or expensive to add.
IDC's Smolek predicts that it will be several more years before all notebooks have Wi-Fi built in as ethernet is today, and perhaps longer for public wireless access to be widely available. Even then, he wonders how many people will use it.
"Do people really want to check e-mail at a coffeehouse? Or even at the airport? Some people want total access all the time, but I think this has been overblown," he says.
Heavy-Hitting Featherweights(chart)
| Rank | System | Street price (2/15/02)1 | PC WorldBench 4 performance score2 | CPU3 | Screen size (inches) | RAM (MB) | Hard drive (GB) | Pointing device | Minimum weight/maximum weight (pounds)4 | Dimensions (inches)5 | Battery life | Docking station or port replicator and type of optical drive | 802.11b connectivity | Overall design | Comments |
| 1 | Best Buy IBM ThinkPad X23 (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_prodsummary.php/masterid=552647/ut=d1016d2071b24d49/) | Expensive $2979 | Windows XP Professional Good 88 | 866-MHz LV Pentium III-M | 12.1 | 256 | 30 | Eraserhead | 3.5/6.5 | 11/9/1.3 | 3:50 | Docking station with 6X DVD-ROM and 4X/4X/24X CD-RW combination drive | Built-in antenna and receiver | Very good | Decked-out notebook has CompactFlash card slot and comfortable keyboard. Though only 3.5 pounds, it's the heaviest model in our review. |
| 2 | Toshiba Portégé 2000 (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_prodsummary.php/masterid=549790/ut=d1016d2071b24d49/) | Average $2647 | Windows XP Professional Average 60 | 750-MHz ULV Pentium III-M | 12.1 | 256 | 20 | Touchpad | 2.6/5 | 11.5/9/0.8 | 6:50 | Port replicator, external 12X-24X CD-ROM drive | Built-in antenna and receiver | Good | Silver ultraportable is the thinnest and lightest around. Bundled second battery helps it achieve the longest battery life we've seen. |
| 3 | Compaq Evo N200 (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,76871,00.asp) | Inexpensive $2178 | Windows 2000 Good 82 | 700-MHz ULV Pentium III-M | 10.4 | 192 | 20 | Touchpad | 2.8/6.8 | 9.9/8/1.1 | 2:05 | Docking station with 8X DVD-ROM drive | Via PC Card adapter6 | Average | Docking station provides fairly strong stereo speakers. Cramped keyboard has difficult-to-read white lettering. |
| 4 | Fujitsu LifeBook B Series (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_prodsummary.php/masterid=559372/) | Average $2576 | Windows XP Professional Average 76 | 700-MHz ULV Pentium III-M | 10.4 | 128 | 20 | Eraserhead | 3.3/4.4 | 9.9/8.5/1.3 | 3:20 | Port replicator, external 12X-16X CD-ROM drive | Built-in antenna and receiver | Average | Bluish-silver model has few legacy ports, but is the only laptop here with a USB floppy drive. Includes stylus to use with touch screen. |
| 5 | Sharp PC-UM10M (http://www.sharp-business.com/Products/tmplproduct.asp?fuseaction=13&sidemenuopen=11) | Average $2348 | Windows 2000 Average 78 | 600-MHz ULV Pentium III-M | 12.1 | 256 | 20 | Touchpad | 2.9/4.2 | 11.1/9.1/0.8 | 2:14 | Port replicator, external 6X-10X CD-ROM drive | Via PC Card adapter6 | Limited | Slim, silver-colored case rivals the Portégé as the thinnest available, but unit skimps on legacy connections and optical drive options. |