We’ve looked at other reviews of Sony’s VAIO X ultraportable, but while they’ve waxed lyrical over the notebook’s styling we’ve yet to see the hard performance stats that the X’s frequent-flyer target audience will demand. Thankfully LaptopMag’s review covers not just processor benchmarking but battery testing, pitting Sony’s claims of “a full day’s use” against a harsh, stopwatch-toting reality.
Having long been the preserve of expensive ultraportables or performance intensive media processing and gaming machines, SSDs are beginning to trickle down the price ladder. There’s still more GB for your dollar in a traditional platter-based hard-drive, but switching to solid state is cheaper than ever. On the SlashGear test bench today we’ve got Corsair’s 64GB P64 CMFSSD-64GBG2D SSD.
A page of CrystalMark benchmark results may not be the most interesting image to lead with, but when you’re showing the overclock results of pushing Sony’s VAIO P not-a-netbook from its stock 1.86GHz up to 2.3GHz, then we’ll take notice. EeeUser Forum member Cerano was responsible for the modifications, and in fact got his VAIO P cranked up to 2.4GHz (though he didn’t benchmark it at that speed).
It’s been a few months since HP launched their Z400, Z600 and Z800 workstations, and we’ve finally got the company’s mid-range Z600 on the SlashGear test bench. A dual-processor monster that HP envisage being used in midrange CAD, financial modelling and even high-end DCC, the Z600 would also make for a storming video editing workstation; HP also claim it’s environmentally friendly. That’s the theory, anyway: can the Z600 really deliver performance in a home or small-office friendly way?
Windows Mobile 6.5 may not be provoking all that much interest compared to rival platforms, but one device which is certainly perking up attention is the HTC Leo, aka the HTC HD2. Tipped to arrive in October, the 4.3-inch flagship smartphone’s prize is its 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; now one beta tester has released some benchmarking for the handset, and it’s looking to be a real stormer. The HD2 ousted HTC’s Touch HD in 3D graphics performance by around 300-percent.
You might remember Samsung’s 24 SSD RAID test-rig from back in March, which could hit peak sequential read speeds of 2.12GB/s and rip a DVD in under a second. The guys over at Tom’s Hardware, however, decided they could do better, and so armed with sixteen Intel X25-E SSDs and two Adaptec 5805 PCI Express RAID cards they created a huge rival RAID that managed to surpass Samsung’s.
Anticipation for Viliv’s next UMPC, the S7, is increasing, and considering the Korean company has become the poster-child for the much-misunderstood segment that’s no real surprise. After being spotted in the wild last week, now Lazion have managed to pin an S7 down for some battery testing.
MacBook Pro confusion this weekend, as some owners of the new unibody 13- and 15-inch notebooks are reporting that their machines are apparently limited to 1.5Gb/s SATA connections rather than the faster 3.0Gb/s SATA-II. Full details are unclear, but it seems that Apple have either switched to SATA hardware or used firmware for the newest MacBook Pros that limits hard-drive connections to the slower speed.
As well as throwing WiMAX into select VAIO P models, Sony is also giving the Japanese version of their “don’t call it a netbook” a processor boost. Intel’s Atom Z550 - at 2.0GHz the fastest of the Z-range – is now an option, and going from the preliminary benchmarks it’s clear that this new iteration is the best VAIO P to date.
Full benchmarks after the cut
Benchmarking Windows 7’s performance with various hard-drives and SSDs may not sound like much fun, but when you consider how many people will end up using the new OS once it officially launches you can at least see its uses. HotHardware have been testing out Windows 7 and contrasting it with Vista’s performance, and the good news is that the new platform bests its predecessor, particularly when it comes to SSDs.
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Hey, Premium Notebooks or Netbooks, Get the Basics Right!
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