Aviator CX6 vs. PowerPro M 5:6

Wow...my first post. I just ordered the PowerPro today. It should be here tomorrow (paid for overnight shipping). I'll let you know what I think of it. The main things preventing me from going with the CX6 were the wait time and the screen resolution.

Did you take that battery life statement from the sales websites? It seems like the 5:6 has a larger battery yet suffers from a shorter battery life. I wonder what the deal is with that.

I would like a Bluetooth adapter in my laptop, but the 5:6 looks awfully sweet. They keyboard is an issue as well. Hmm.

Well it looks likes they're spec'ed the same except for the screen. One is a WXGA vs the SXGA+ of the other. Personally, 1280x800 isn't good enough for me so I'd go for the SXGA+. I own a widescreen. It's nice, but not the end all and be all of screens that some make it out to be.

It's a comfort zone type of deal. A lot of people seem to like the wide screen so it's bascally a preference thing.

As far as battery life is concerned, given ~ same video card (same chipset), same processor, same battery, the differences between battery life shouldn't be too big. If you read the personal testimonies out there, I think everyone from Gatewau M505X to the Compaq X100s to the Dell 8600's and even owners of the smaller rebadge labels are pulling ~ 4 hours or so on battery life with a centrino. The CX6 quotes an "up to 5 hours". Well I'll be honest, if I dim my lcd about two notches below the standard factory battery settings I'll hit 5 hours as well.

It's here! Looks-wise it's better than I thought. So far I'm just installing software on it, but I ran 3dmark2001 really quick after updating to the latest Omega drivers and got 11,121. O/C'ing the video I can get to 11,616.

White94Cobra-

Any idea what kind of touchpad it uses? Alps, Synaptics, etc?

How is the battery life, heat, and noise?

Can you use dual batteries? This was questioned in another thread.

Finally, how are the speakers?

I think that covers all my questions.

LOL.... I hope you were referring to the widescreen as the "shorty" screen, cuz the 4:3 aspect 15" LCD has more vertical height than the widescreen - and only .4 of an inch less width. Actually, the 14:3 has slightly more overall screen real estate than the 16:10 version. I just purchased a 65" HDTV and am still adjusting to the loss of screen height in relation to a 65" 4:3 tv. I agree that widescreen viewing is overhyped AND takes a while to get used to. Also, most apps and shows are adjusted to a 4:3 format (unless you are watching a DVD) and I am not fond of *stretching* the screen as it makes me feel about 8 beers down.

Congrats! Which one did you get the CX6 or the Power Pro?

I agree that 16:10 screens take some getting used to, and there isn't a lot of software support. But there are a couple of things I'd like to add.

The first thing is rather pointless, but the 15.4 inch screens do not have .4 inch more width than the 15 inch screens. Rather they have about 1 inch of more width. (13inch vs. 12 inch) Where is the extra width coming from? Well, you already pointed that out: it has less height. A simple pythagorean calculation would reveal the answer.

The second thing: scientific studies reveal that 16:9 is very close to the human field of vision. 16:10 isn't quite there but closer. Widescreen are the future simple because they are more natural than 4:3. We've gone a long way from square screens and are slowly approaching the natural aspect ratio. People should find widescreen to be more comfortable ultimately.

I emailed one of the powernotebooks.com people and they told me 3.5 to 4 hours while the cx6 has 4 to 5 hours, but you can buy two batteries for the 5:6 which would add up to 8 hours!!! You can't with the cx6 i like the look of the cx6 much better though the 5:6 is very normal looking
CX6
http://secure.hypersonic-pc.com/scri...id=Aviator_CX6
5:6
http://powernotebooks.com/configurat...8&model_id=331

i like cx6, but the screen kills the urge to get one... 1280x800 resolution? widescreen? I will pass on that...

I got the 5:6. I'm still doing some testing before I post a mini-review. Here's what I've found so far.

Looks wise it isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The color is a nice dark mid-night blue with a slight metalic sheen (my wife's words). The build quaility is excellent. It's not flimsy at all. You can hold it by one corner with the screen open and there is no flex in the chasis. The actual weight is around 6.8 lbs (measured with a Postal digital scale).

It uses a Synaptics touchpad. Seems normal enough, no difficulty switching from my old Compaq 2800T to this one. The keyboard will take a little getting used to, but it's not bad.

It can only accept one battery at a time. The CD drive is removable so it's possible someone may make a bay-battery but powernotbooks.com didn't know of one. I set it to standby after 1 hour and screen/hd off after 5 minutes and left it running all evening. We went out for about 3 hours at one point so it went into standby once. It lasted from 6pm until 11:30pm with occassional web surfing, applying Windows updates and 3 or 4 runs of 3DMark2001. It did sit idle for most of the time though.

It gets a little warm but it's not bad. I can hear the fan running if it's completely quiet in the room, and it's much more noticible when running benchmarks but not overly noisey. It does have an annoying high-pitched whine whenever the CPU is under any load. I've noticed this in many laptops though.

The LCD screen looks great, but it has a VERY narrow viewing angle. You basically have to be looking right at it or you loose some color/clarity.

Now for the problem... When I first set it up with no software except drivers and 3DMark2001SE, I was getting ~11,000 consistantly. It is clocked by default at 390 core/200 memory. I was initially able to get it to complete 3DMark as high as 450/275, but now it won't even complete it at 420/220. I did have an issue with McAfee AV causing some problems, so I'm uninstalling that to see what's up. I'll post more as I go.

Ughm, the part about the narrow viewing angle concerns me . Could you give maybe a rough estimate in terms of degrees that you can get a relatively clear view?

The viewing angle from side-to-side isn't too bad. Probably around 125-140 degrees. It's the up/down that is bad - maybe 110 degrees or so.

I just ran 3DMark 2003 for the first time. Interestingly I can run the video at a much higher o/c than with 2001. I go a 3370 with a 10% o/c.

The looks are pretty plain, but I like it this way and it's good to hear that build quality is excellent


It's a bummer that you can't get 2 batter in there, but I guess if I can get at least 4 hours of 1 battery it will be fine.


this is pretty normal for all laptops


have you ever owned notebook before? again it's common for laptop LCDs to have narrow viewing angle compare to regular LCDs

Hopefully it's just a some software bug or something...