18. Battery Test: Mobilemark 2002

As already mentioned earlier, in this test our interest was focused on the influence of the Windows power schemes on battery rundown time. Mobilemark2002 was used as a benchmark for this test.

With a rundown time of four and a half hours, the Travelmate 803LCi certainly ranks among the long-distance runners. Nevertheless, it cannot compete with the top time of six hours (with the high-performance battery fitted as standard) achieved by the IBM Thinkpad T40. The price you have to pay for performance is higher consumption.

Conclusion: The Ferrari Of The Centrinos

Acer's Travelmate 803LCi can lay claim to having the properties of a high-end system and high-end 3D performance. The combination of the 1.6-GHZ Pentium-M, 512 MB DDR-RAM and ATI's Mobility Radeon 9000 GPU with 64 MB makes this device a top performer. The Travelmate 803LCi is undoubtedly the frontrunner in terms of performance in the high-end notebook category. It scores additional marks, thanks to the on-board WLAN functionality (802.11b), the high-speed combo drive (8x/24x10x24x-DVD/CDRW combo) and the outstanding battery rundown time of four and a half hours. We regard the device's mobility as slightly restricted, on account of the large 15" display.

The Travelmate 803LCi is suitable for anyone seeking a very powerful and very well-equipped, mobile desktop replacement.