The first Dothan notebook to roll off the rank, we were interested to see exactly how much real-world gain Intel is offering in its revised Centrino platform. Putting many of our budget notebooks to shame, it also out-performed the Toshiba’s Mobile Pentium 4 3.06GHz processor, an impressive feat to say the least. Returning a massive 3628 marks under PCMark04, this notebook is portable and packs a mighty punch. Looking under the hood we couldn’t help but be amazed by the calibre of included hardware. Boasting the latest Dothan 1.8GHz Pentium M processor based on the 90-nanometer process, it remains fairly cool even under heavy workload. Also included is ATI’s flagship mobile graphics, the RADEON Mobility 9700, which comes backed by a dedicated 128MB of video memory -- no shared memory graphics here. Plenty of thought has gone into the layout of the chassis, with front-mounted controls for Bluetooth, a 4-in-1 multi-format removable memory card reader, and an on/off switch for easy wireless module enabling or disabling to conserve battery life. Acer rounds out the unit with a multi-format DVD burner. Dothan represents more of a performance upgrade than a mobility revamp, sacrificing a little battery life for up to 10 percent gains in everyday usage performance. The left side of the unit is home to four USB ports, single PCMCIA slot and four-pin FireWire connection for easy DV cam access, and a security card socket. Alleviating the security risks of a lost business notebook, the TravelMate 800 features a smart card security system, with a contact smart card required to boot the machine. Showing plenty of promise for Dothan as a successor to last year’s Banias CPU, if you’re already a mobile user and you’re looking for more power, Dothan provides that extra boost at negligible power loss. Ultra portable users after more battery life may want to look elsewhere.