15. Benchmark Tests

To rate battery life and computer performance we used three test suites: BAPCo MobileMark 2005, SYSmark 2004 SE, and FutureMark PCMark05.

Battery Life Times: 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 at which the battery is fully charged and the power supply is disconnected, to the point 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 this 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, whose value is set at 100 points.

The following diagrams show the MobileMark 2005 test results for the ThinkPad Z60m, as well as the four other notebooks we used to provide a basis for comparison. You will find a discussion of these results, along with our conclusions, immediately following them.