17. Benchmarks And Settings

For comparison purposes we have also listed the performance measurements taken from the two notebooks analyzed in the DIY notebook testing project in order to show the applications with which performance of mobile PCs with integrated graphics is entirely sufficient. The Uniwill223II00 and the Dell Latitude D610 both employ Intel chipsets with integrated graphics, namely the AGP chipset 855GME and the PCIe successor, the 915GM.

In addition to these purely performance-oriented benchmarks, we also measured battery life and charging times, of course. Three different scenarios were used for battery analysis: on a fully-charged battery we ran an office application, a game and finally a DVD video in a continuous loop until the battery was dead. Additionally we observed how long it took for the battery to recharge again under operating conditions. In this process we let an office application run in a continuous loop until a proprietary tool indicated battery charging was complete. For our final measurement, we ran the demo version of a game in a continuous loop to simulate battery charging under maximum load conditions until the screen went dark. To ensure comparability among the notebooks we turned the display brightness for all machines up to a fixed level approximating 110cd/m².

Gaming

As indicated by the results found below, Acer's 8103WLMi is also suited for gaming. While you can play 3-D games with the other two notebooks, of course, they are lacking in certain areas when it comes to this application. Looking at the example of the Dell Inspiron 6000d shows that the Mobility Radeon X300 is clearly inferior to its older but faster-clocked brother, the MR X600, which is used in the Gateway M460XLb, despite sharing the same core. Notebooks with integrated graphics definitely come up short with 3D games.