Old School Ultraportables: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Daniel Long | Aug 1, 2008 10:21 AM

Can’t decide between an Eee and a Wind? A Mini note or an Aspire One? Believe it or not, there’s a bunch of old school smaller laptops that may do the job for less money. We took a look at 7 old school ultraportables.

Old School Ultraportables Roudup: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Some of these models may appear a little clunky or by today’s standards, but each were chosen on the basis they fulfil at least two of these specifications:

- 12” (or smaller) screen
- Priced on the 2nd hand market (eBay) at $699 or less.
- Decent processor and memory specs (that would compare with the Eee PC 701 at least)

Old School Laptop Checklist

- Check the weight
Don’t expect all these models to be extremely light – some weigh as much as 2.2 kilos, and that was considered to be fairly luxurious compared to the heavier bulky ‘brick’ models from the 15.4” range (or larger). Some of them, including the Lenovos and the IBMs weigh little more than the Eee PCs and still make great little workhorses.

- Check your battery charge
Most sellers on EBay specifically mention the state of the battery and it’s important to ask them if they don’t. Usually they will specify if the battery can hold a full charge. Some won’t even be able to do this as they age. The best way to ensure no battery hijinks, is to consider purchasing an extra brand new battery.

There are plenty of sellers on EBay offering spare batteries for older models at less than $40 in most cases.

- CPU differences
Most of the old school ultraportables we listed utilised the Intel Celeron or Pentium M CPU. These days you’ll find current ultraportables powered by a battery efficient (but less powerful) Intel Atom or Via chipset.

Ironically, today’s ultraportables are still not as powerful as some of the best old school models in raw performance (i.e. – a 1.6 GHz Pentium M is still better at most calculations than an Intel Atom, based on this performance table bench test.

- Non standard specs
Obviously, some eBay sellers are keen to soup up their old school notebooks by inserting more RAM or a bigger HDD to increase interest. Furthermore, different models released in different countries can carry wildly different specs from another released elsewhere.

- It’s okay to feel used
It’s okay to feel used, even if that means buying a pre-loved model. Most of the old school models out there are refurbished or used units. You’d be very lucky to find a brand new unit less than 2 years old.

Furthermore, they still make good investments for students or business people hoping to run XP office, DivX movies and music. Check for screen damage and always ask questions if you’re unsure about anything.

In the tradition of the great westerns, we ranked each of the eight notebooks we selected, according to their best (Hit) and weakest features (Miss).

Three catagories – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly show off the best and worst of old school ultraportables in general (the list is numbered in no particular order).

Let the Old School ultraportable duelling begin!

------------The GOOD--------------

1) DELL Lattitude D400

Hit: 12” screen, 1.6 GHz Pentium M 1.6GHz processor, 1 GB Memory, WIFI, XGA Display (1024 x 768 Resolution) 64MB Intel 855GM Video Adapter

Miss: External CD Drive, 20GB Hard Drive. No DVD/RW.

Price: $212.50 on eBay

Verdict: This is one sweet notebook. It’s fast, it has decent memory and it still holds up by today’s standards. Those prices on eBay make it a dirt cheap alternative to the higher priced Eee PC range. A decent buy.

2)Lenovo 3000 V100 - top pick

Hit: 12” screen, Centrino Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 100GB HD, DVDRW+DL , WIFI, BlueTooth, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, Finger Print Security.

Miss: Extremely hard to find on EBay Australia or similar local auction sites.

Price: $699 (Buy it now) on eBay USA.

Verdict: Probably the slickest and highest spec ultraportable in our old school roundup. It’s the newest in our list and wouldn’t have made the cut, were it not for its surprisingly good price ($699), which puts in firmly in touch with the MSI Wind and Eee PC 1000H. That makes it's phenomenally good value and one of our top picks.
3) Toshiba Portege A200

Hit: Intel Pentium M 725 1.6GHz Processor (with Centrino technology), 1GB RAM, 60GB Hard Drive, WIFI, DVD reader/CD writer. Excellent price ($425 buy it now – local seller).

Miss: 2.0Kg (a little bulky), no DVD burner.

Price: $425 (Buy it now) on Ebay Australia.

Verdict: A great unit at a great price – this was one of the best reviewed laptops in its day and still holds up.

4) Toshiba Portege 4010

Hit: 12.1” screen, Pentium M 933Mhz processor, 80GB 5400rpm HDD, WiFi, long battery life (3 hours +)

Miss: 512mb RAM. No DVD drive/RW.

Price: $256 on eBay Australia.

Verdict: While not as spec classy as the Protege A200, the 4010 is still a really good old school ultraportable if you can go without DVD access (Eee PC users will be used to this).

The RAM is a bit light, but you might consider boosting it by another 512MB, giving you an honest, hardworking ultraportable for less than $300.

5)IBM Thinkpad X40

Hit: 12.1” screen, Pentium M 1.2Ghz (Centrino Technology), 1.24kg weight, Ultra long battery life (4 hours +), huge range of accessories still available online.

Miss: 512Mb Ram – (but can be upgraded), external CD Drive, no DVD.

Price: $120(at current auction prices) on eBay Australia.

Verdict: The IBM 'X' thinkpad range are standout ultraportables and still represent some of the best value ultraportables on the market. The X40 in particular weighs very little and can easily go toe to toe with an Eee or even a wind.

The HDD may be a little lacking (as well as the RAM), and you can’t expect a DVD player, but this is still one serious contender for best old school ultraportable. Some of the more recent models (X41, X60) will cost a little more, but provide even better specs for your money.

---------- The BAD --------------

6) SONY VAIO PCG-SR33

Hit: 10.4” screen, 3 hour ( 6 cell) battery life.

Miss: Celeron 600Mhz procesor, 128MB of RAM, Windows ME. 2.4 kilo weight.
Price: $310 (Buy it now) on eBay Australia.

Verdict: It’s certainly old school (by specs alone) and in its day would have been a real screamer. But since then, technology has advanced a tad and the party’s well and truly over for the PCG-SR33.

A 600Mhz processor isn’t anything flash, neither is 128MB of RAM which will suffer trying to run many of today’s programs. A 10" screen and 6 cell battery is welcome, but that's about the best thing we can say about this once well respected ultraportable.

----- The UGLY -----------------

7) Apple iBook G3 SE

Hit: Ummm...

Miss: 366 MHz, 64 MB RAM , 6GB HDD, awful design, heavy, poor battery life.

Price: Less than $100 supposably – that’s if you can find it anywhere for sale.

Verdict: Released in 2000, it used an under- powered 366Hz processor . Given the nickname 'Clamshell', it was creepily shaped like a toilet seat, which earned it a fair number of detractors.

Toilet jokes aside, the G3 ibook earns our old school ultraportable ugly award just to remind us all, that things can really get this bad when designers go wild.