topten

In my quest to test all of the latest high-capacity consumer solid-state disk (SSD) drives, I came upon OCZ Technology's Apex SATA II SSD Inspiron 500m laptop battery and was impressed not so much with its performance -- though you will see a boost when using it -- as with its price.

OCZ describes the Apex laptop SSD series drive as a "midrange offering for system builders and mainstream computer users." It's available in 60GB, 120GB and 250GB capacities. I tested the 2.5-in., 120GB version, since drives of that capacity and larger tend to be faster when writing data than 60GB models.

You can buy the 120GB version -- the one I tested -- for US$295 at Newegg.com and the 250GB model for $675. For those of you who are bad at math, that's between $2.46 and $2.70 a gigabyte, which is pretty good for SSD. For comparison purposes, the 256GB Samsung SATA II SSD that I recently reviewed has a retail price of $500.

Using a Dell Latitude D830 312-0305 laptop battery with a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor running Windows XP Professional SP2, I connected the drive using an adapter in my laptop's optical drive bay. I then tested it using ATTO Technology's ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.34, and Simpli Software's HD Tach v3.0.4 benchmarking utilities. While I was able to successfully test both read and write performance with the ATTO app, HD Tach had problems properly measuring write performance. So, I only have read performance measurements from that utility.

ATTO indicated the OCZ drive had a 233MB/sec. average read speed and a 153MB/sec. average write speed -- not far from OCZ's claims of 230MB/sec. read and 160MB/sec. write speeds.

Next, I tested the drive using HD Tach. Normally, the results are similar to those reported by ATTO; in this case, they were way off. I tested and retested and got virtually the same 312-0306 laptop battery results every time. The average read time was around 156MB/sec., the burst speed was around 230MB/sec. and random access time was an excellent 2 milliseconds. CPU utilization was a respectable 7%.
Boot time for Windows XP was excellent: From a cold start, it took just 22 seconds; with a restart, it took 25 seconds. (Normal boot time with a 7,200-rpm laptop drive is 70 seconds.) And for Mac users, the same drive boots Mac OS X 10.5.6 on a late model MacBook in 23 seconds from start-up chime to desktop.

When comparing 2.5-in. consumer SSDs, I consider Intel's fast X25-M SSD to be the gold standard. The 80GB X25-M has so far beaten the competition when it comes to performance because its more sophisticated, 10-channel architecture and F5136 laptop battery firmware that takes advantage of Native Command Queuing (NCQ). That allows the controller to prefetch data in order to access it more quickly from inactive NAND flash chips. (It's analogous to having a grocery list before going to shop.) The drawback to the X25-M is its much higher price -- $595 retail, $365 on sites such as Pricegrabber.com -- despite the comparatively lower 80GB capacity.

Like Intel, OCZ's SSD is based on multilayer cell NAND flash memory, which means it packs two or more bits per cell vs. the more efficient, but lower-capacity, single-layer cell Inspiron 710m laptop battery memory, which only lays down one bit per cell.

I also compared SSDs with one of the fastest hard disk drives going: Western Digital's 10,000-rpm Velociraptor, which has a 250.2MB/sec. burst speed and 105.6MB/sec. average read through HD Tach.

Like most SSDs, OCZ's drive is lightweight. It weighs just 2.7 ounces, and the factory-stated meantime between failure is 1.5 million hours. OCZs Apex comes with a two-year warranty.

Overall, the drive is a pretty good performer at a very Inspiron 700m laptop battery attractive price. If you're not looking to break I/O barriers, but still want the many benefits of SSD -- such as improved read/write performance, lower power consumption and greater durability -- this drive is a solid choice.

Battery life is a key aspect of a laptop, especially to travelers who don't have easy access to a laptop battery power outlet. To test the new MacBook and MacBook Pro for battery life, we performed a battery-drain test by watching a movie clip ripped from a DVD to the laptop's hard drive. We played the movie at full screen, with the screen brightness set to maximum to simulate the low lighting of an airplane cabin. If the movie finished and the battery still had power, we played the movie again, until the 6Y270 battery drained.

The new 2.4GHz and 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo MacBooks have comparable battery capacities, each lasting a little over 2 hours, 30 minutes. That's plenty long for most movies, though if you're watching "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"you might miss the end. However, these results indicate that the new MacBook has about 22 to 24 minutes shorter battery life than the old white plastic 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook, which finished our test at 2 hours, 57 312-0068 minutes.

Since the two new MacBook Pro models each have a pair of graphics cards, we ran the battery life test using each one, resulting two battery life scores for each MacBook Pro. At the MacBook unveiling last week, Steve Jobs boasted that with the MacBook Pro's Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics card enabled you could achieve up to 5 hours of battery life, and 4 hours with the GeForce 9600M (the same graphics subsystem in the new MacBook). We're guessing that he didn't expect users to replicate those times while playing DVDs. Instead, those projected times likely are the results of tests that were not as demanding on the Latitude D610 computer, like word-processing or Web browsing.
While watching a movie, you can expect battery life of roughly half of those projected times. Using the 9600M GT graphics card, the 2.53GHz MacBook Pro lasted 2 hours, 12 minutes, while the 2.4GHz MacBook Pro lasted 2 hours, 18 minutes. You'll barely be able to watch an entire movie in that amount of time. That said, you really don't need the better performance of the 9600M GT while watching a movie.

Movies run just as smooth on the 9400M, and you'll get longer Latitude D600 battery life. Unfortunately, when using the 9400M, the battery life for either MacBook Pro model did not improve significantly. The 2.53GHz MacBook Pro gained 17 minutes, while the 2.4GHz MacBook Pro lasted 13 minutes longer. Interestingly, the 9400M times between the MacBook Pro models and the MacBooks are similar.

Comparing the MacBook Pro's 9400M battery life with the previous MacBook Pro, and the older MacBook Pro comes out ahead by 15 percent--the older MacBook Pro's battery lasted close to 3 hours.

While the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros do not have the battery capacity that many users demand for a long distance travel, they still should get your through most feature length movies. These tests are only one kind of Latitude D520 battery test and do not in any way indicate the expected battery life for while doing everyday tasks, like email, Web browsing, writing text, etc.

Laptops are closing the price gap on less-powerful Latitude D620 netbooks, with retailers delivering fully equipped systems for under US$300 as part of promotional offers.

Wal-Mart will start offering limited quantities of a fully loaded Compaq laptop for $298 starting July 26, according to an entry on Wal-Mart's Checkoutblog site.

The laptop being offered is a Compaq Presario CQ60-419WM from Hewlett-Packard, which is powered by Advanced Micro Devices' Sempron SI-42 processor running at 2.1GHz. The laptop comes with Windows Vista and includes a 15.6-inch screen, 3GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and Nvidia's GeForce 8200M integrated graphics. It also includes a DVD-RW drive, according to RC107 specifications provided by HP.

For such a low price, the laptop is packed with features and could run out of stock quickly. "We expect this one will be quite popular," wrote a Wal-Mart official going by the name of Ryan in the blog entry. Wal-Mart didn't clarify whether the offering would be in-store or online, and the retailer didn't immediately return requests for comment.

The offer follows a Y9943 move earlier this week by Best Buy to offer an Acer laptop with a 15.6-inch screen for $299. The offer was later pulled after Best Buy ran out of stock, according to a report in CNET. The laptop was powered by a single-core AMD Athlon 64 running at 2.0GHz and ran Windows Vista. The laptop also included 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.

By comparison, the cheapest netbook on Wal-Mart's online store is available for $238 and is less powerful than the Compaq laptop. The Asus Eee PC900HD includes an 8.9-inch screen Inspiron 640m and runs on an Intel Atom N270 at 1.6GHz. It includes 512MB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive and comes with Windows XP.

Mainstream laptop prices have dipped under the $300 mark just a few times, including in 2007, when Toshiba offered a laptop for $299. Most of the mainstream laptops listed on Wal-Mart's site today are priced over $350.

Wal-Mart also plans to add a "very cool Acer laptop" with an eight-hour Inspiron 630m battery life over the next few days, according to the company. It also plans to add a HP netbook.