11. Dongles

The physical design of the unit is solid. With the magnesium case there is very little flex to the unit. We appreciated PaceBlade's clear attention to detail in the inclusion of external cables for both the video and USB.

Cables or dongles to use when you need VGA out or an additional USB port.

Benchmarks

In testing the PaceBook, we chose to run a minimal amount of benchmarks in order to better understand its performance limitations. Because we did not currently have another Transmeta system against which to test the PaceBook, we chose to just present these numbers for reference use only. We think it is important to note that, while the Transmeta processor is fully capable of running any X86 applications, because of its dynamic Code Morphing technology it is not, perhaps, the best suited unit for handling the most demanding applications.

It is important to fully understand that the Transmeta processor's target audience is those who are running more common office and Internet style applications. While there are those who feel that perhaps the Transmeta processor does not fully deliver on its promise of performance, we think that for the targeted applications, the Transmeta processor does deliver on its promise of lower power consumption and longer battery life. This said, we believe that any attempt to benchmark the PaceBook against a standard AMD or Intel processor would be futile because it would not be a true 'apples to apples' comparison.

These benchmarks were run on the PaceBook under Windows XP Home, using the provided 256 MB memory and Fujitsu 20 GB hard drive.

MobileMark 2002
Performance Rating - 43
Average Response Time - 4.54s
Battery Life Rating - 132 minutes

SYSmark 2002
Internet Content Creation - 41
Office Productivity - 35
SYSmark 2002 Rating - 38

BWS Battery Mark 1.0
2 hours 20 minutes

DVD Playback
1 hour 40 minutes