2. Aesthetic Mayhem?

The Mayhem G1 we received earlier this year was a vibrant red, but that color is not available for the G3. "Would you like that in metallic silver or metallic silver?" It seems that this is the only color you can order for your laptop. While the color of the unit may be rather mundane, the important thing is that the system is solidly constructed.

Front. Audio out, audio in, and the microphone in.

While the G3 has all the features you would normally look for in a laptop, the reference model we received did not have all of the possible bells and whistles. ABS sent us a unit with most of the typical options, but like most other system builders, they leave the choice of options up to the consumer.

A close-up of the three audio jacks.

Parallel port, VGA out, infrared, USB 2.0 port, and the S-Video out.

The unit comes standard with three USB 2.0 ports, a 56K modem, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller, a IEEE 1394 Firewire port, and a Flash memory reader that accepts SD (Secure Digital), MMC (Multimedia Cards), and MS (Memory Stick). The G3 has a PCMCIA slot for an expansion card, a parallel port, S-Video Out, and VGA Out. For audio it has Audio In, Audio Out, and Microphone In ports, and also has a microphone in the display housing.

Here you can see the RJ-11 and RJ-45 jacks, the flash reader, PCMCIA slot, FireWire and 2 USB 2.0 ports.

On this side are the optical drive and the battery.

As you can see, there are many features included in the base price. However, when shopping for a car, you can't just judge the car by the way it looks or how many cup holders it has. (Well, we hope you don't do it like that!) There are only two ways to see if it is a good buy or not. You can do the research yourself and take it out for a test drive. Or, you can have a knowledgeable friend pull it apart and put it through its paces. When it comes to PCs, we are your "knowledgeable friends" - so let's take a look and see what the G3 can really do.