Gateway and Acer Netbooks: Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!
by Vivek Gowri on April 28, 2010 2:22 AM ESTBattery Life
Pine Trail was a huge boon for battery life in netbooks, with 8 hours being the minimum for runtime on a netbook with a 6-cell battery. Both of the netbooks here have 6-cell 5600 mAh batteries and offer great battery life as expected. Under web-browsing and other processing-light tasks, you can expect 8 hours of runtime, slightly longer than the 1001P (which has a slightly smaller battery). The absolute maximum battery life under ideal conditions is around 11 hours, and HD video battery life is somewhere between 5 and 7 hours, depending on the type of video being played.
Battery life is in line with other similar laptops, though it's interesting that the Acer/Gateway "62Wh" batteries are only able to equal the ASUS 1001P "48Wh" battery. We don't know if the ASUS laptops are truly more energy efficient (probably) or if Acer is just a bit more lenient in battery capacity ratings. It doesn't really matter much either way, as you get whatever battery the manufacturer provides, but it is interesting to see the difference in relative battery life considering all other areas are essentially the same. The different HDD and LCD panel likely account for the small battery life advantage of the Acer 532h over the Gateway LT2120u.
The 6-cell battery sticks out of the bottom of the systems by roughly a half inch, which seems to be an increasingly popular way of doing extended batteries (the ThinkPad Edge has the battery protruding from the bottom as well). I'm not a fan of this type of battery, since it adds thickness, but some people prefer batteries like this for the incline it gives the keyboard.
Another oddity is the bundled AC adapter included with both systems. Unlike most laptops, the adapter is a wall wart instead of in a power brick. While this keeps the cord itself clean, it’s a cumbersome way to make a power adapter. You end up occupying adjacent outlets on power strips or wall sockets at times. I’d much rather see a long cord with a small power brick in the middle like the AS1410 or Eee 1001P.
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Lonyo - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Is there any news on what Pinetrail can be used for?Are there going to be 11.6" / 1366x768 Pinetrail netbooks? Or indeed any 1280x720 10" netbooks with Pinetrail.
All these 1024x600 screens are not particularly enticing, and it's higher resolutions which really give some appeal (plus 11.6" chassis mean a bigger keyboard, which is nice if you actually want to be productive, same for a higher resolution screen).
DanNeely - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Anandtech did a preview of a lenovo S10-3 with a 10" 1280x720 screen a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it's not available yet, nor is the 10" 1366x768 EEE 1005PR.Vivek (AnandTech) - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
There are a few 10"ers out there with 1366x768 screens. The Dell Mini 10 and HP Mini 210 have it as an option (combined with the Broadcom HD chip). All of the forthcoming Ion 2 netbooks have wxga screens as well, as does the Asus Eee 1201 update.jabber - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Yes okay okay they are netbooks but at least give us a little more screen depth!CSMR - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Very good review.But I disagree that higher brightness is better.
In specific situations (outdoors in bright light) it can be useful, but normally LCDs are too bright and you can measure benefits to users from reducing brightness. See the Eizo guide to eye fatigue:
http://www.eizo.com/global/products/flexscan/vdt/G...
strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Sure, but a bright screen can always be turned down, while a dim screen is dim no matter what. Given that these are netbooks and not DTRs there is a decent chance they will be used outside, and a 120 nit screen might well be unusable there. Plus color accuracy is already bad here, so any drop from dropping screen brightness isn't a big deal.strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
The labels in the relative battery life chart are all messed up. The number labeled HP Mini 311 should be the ASUS 1005PE, the one labeled Gateway 5409u should be labeled HP Mini 311, the one labeled Dell 11z should be the Gateway 5409u, the one labeled ASUS 1201N should be the Dell 11z, and the one labeled ASUS 1005PE should be the ASUS 1201N.Qubix1 - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Relative Battery Life chart needs a look:HP Mini 311 = 5.47 m/Whr (9.48)
Asus 1001P = 9.48 m/Whr (9.42)
Acer AO532h = 7.75 m/Whr (7.75)
Gateway LT2120u = 7.48m/Whr (7.48)
Acer 1810T = 7.47 m/Whr (7.45)
Asus 1201N = 3.92 m/Whr (7.15)
Dell Inspirion 11z = 7.11 m/Whr (6.89)
Gateway EC5409u = 6.90 m/Whr (5.47)
Asus 1005PE = 9.37 m/Whr (3.95)
JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Sorry... I updated the spreadsheet to list the battery capacity, and then copied/pasted the labels. I thought all of my tables were in the same order, but the relative chart was jumbled and so I screwed up the labels on most of the laptops. The chart is now correct.jaydee - Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - link
Could we PLEASE see a review of an AMD-based netbook? Like the ASUS Eee PC 1201T-MU10? Should be better cpu, better graphics, bigger lcd, less battery life at a tad higher price. Anandtech even had a giveaway of a Lenovo x100e with the AMD MV-40 processor, but no review. How do these cpu's compare?!?!?Thanks!