16. Test Candidates Compared And Contrasted

To measure battery life and computer performance we use three test suites: BAPCo MobileMark 2005 and System 2004 SE, and Futuremark PCMark05.

Battery Life: MobileMark 2005

The MobileMark 2005 benchmarks test the behavior of a mobile computer running solely on battery power. There are four separate battery life tests: Office Productivity, Read and Search, DVD Playback, and Wireless Web Browsing. Every test uses real applications and runs from the time that the battery is fully charged and the power supply is disconnected from the test machine, to when the battery is fully discharged. Test results are written to a log file every 10 seconds. In addition, MobileMark 2005 constantly keeps tabs on two performance values during execution of the Office Productivity test: it calculates an overall performance value and an average response time for the completion of all activities that occur during the test. The overall performance value builds upon the average response time measured, but is expressed in relation to a standard reference system outfitted with average components (the value of which is set at 100 points.)

The following diagrams show the MobileMark 2005 test results for the LG LW60 Express, as well as those for three other notebooks (to provide a basis for comparison). You will find a discussion of these results, along with our conclusions, immediately following those diagrams.