It's big, portable and laughs in the face of hardcore number crunching.
Ignore the generic chassis for a minute. Inside the unassuming silver case is Intel's new Core2 Duo processor, which has only just begun showing up in the hands of resellers, where they are being promptly devoured by ravenous desktop performance junkies. It's the T7200 model, which runs at 2GHz per core.
We’re putting it through its paces at the moment, and you can read more about it in PC Authority issue 108. In the meantime, rest assured that the rest of the hardware does the processor justice. There's an Nvidia Geforce Go 7900 GTX, 2GB of RAM, 100GB 7200RPM hard drive and a 17" monitor with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200. All the usual laptop features are included, like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a PC card slot and card reader. Some unusual laptop features are included too: there’s a serial port, a TV tuner and IR.
From the outset if feels solid, but there are a few places where you can tell cost cutting has been going on. The speakers are tinny and part of the Wi-Fi antenna is poking out the top of the TFT bezel. It's not all bad news though; the hinge on the monitor is extremely solid.
It's small enough that you won't need a pair of roadies to wheel it around in a road case behind you, unlike some of the vaguely portable 20” monsters we’ve seen. The upside of sticking with a 17” footprint is that laptops at this end of the performance scale don't make you feel like you're forced to skimp on the things you get in a normal desktop. There’s a generous keyboard and number-pad, which aren’t the best we’ve seen but which are by no means unwelcome additions.
It's still early days for Core2 Duo in laptops, especially considering this is the first one that’s come through our labs. Given the short timeframe between the Core2 Duo’s desktop release and seeing it hit the road, we’re looking forward to how this -- and the influx of other Core2 Duo laptops we’re expecting some time soon -- fares under our benchmark suite.