Many vendors promised us Core 2 notebooks this month, but it was only perennial early birds Pioneer that actually managed it. The immense M57U power notebook was never going to demonstrate Core 2’s battery performance, but we suspected it would be powerful.
Our SKU sported a mid-range, T7200 processor with 4MB of cache. Combined with 2GB of PC2-5200 RAM and a 7200rpm 100GB hard disk it achieved a score of 1.21. This equalled our best ever notebook score by Dell’s XPS M1710. That score represented a culmination of the fastest pre-Core 2 technology available so we look forward to seeing what top-end Core 2 notebooks manage. Note that Dell’s XPS is now available with Core 2.
Like the XPS, the M57U sports a 7900 GTX graphics chip, albeit with 256MB of memory instead of 512MB. In our highest, 1600 x1200 tests this averaged 38.7fps in Far Cry and 35.5fps in Call of Duty 2 so you’ll not want for gaming grunt.
The 17-inch LCD has a massive 1920 x 1200 resolution so you can work with several windows open, see every detail of HD video and marvel at how good games look. It’s not brilliantly lit at the top though and viewing angles mean you have to be in exactly the right spot to get the best out of it. But it’s useable. Our main gripe is that small fonts could be indistinct if contrast was low. The glossy coating enriches colours though and games and films looked good with little lag. The speakers don’t get too loud but offer a good dynamic range, if little bass. The keyboard is crisp and comfortable and sports a number pad on the right. The trackpad can be a bit jumpy but is generally fine.
Connectivity and features are well catered for. There’s 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2, Gigabit Ethernet, a 1.3-megapixel webcam and a dual-layer DVD writer for starters. There are also four USB 2 ports, mini FireWire, an ExpressCard/54 slot, MS/SD/MMC card reader, line out and S/PDIF out.
Portability is unsurprisingly poor: it weighs 3.8kg and never got near two hours in our battery tests. However, at least a (cheap nylon) carry case is included.
Pioneer adds a digital TV tuner which works well with Windows MCE (receiver and remote included). Word Perfect Office is bundled along with CyberLink DVD Solution for all your optical disc reading and writing needs. Add to this a one year collect and return warranty and you’ve a decent power notebook. However, if you’re paying this much we’d recommend going for Dell’s XPS: power and features are similar, the screen is better, the support is better and it oozes quality.
