Twinhead N23PB - A Business (gasp) laptop for the traveller

I know most of you are into the more graphic intensive aspects of your laptops, but for the business traveller, it's about convenience, small form factor, and office work.

I'll be reviewing the new N23PB laptop today by Twinhead, an in-between weight notebook for the traveller, not an ultralight, but a light full-function system with built-in dvd/cdrw. This Centrino based platform has everything you would normally expect other than the gaming video card. I don't know about you, but even in business I don't want to have to hook up external drives and a docking station (or 'media base') just to spin a disc or hook up some USB peripherals.

http://usa.twinhead.com/PRO/N23PB/

The popularity of the 12" notebook has been helped by Dell's 300m, but hampered by the ultra-lights' lack of features. At around 3 lbs, Dell's solution is light but not really functional. Twinhead's N23PB, at 4 lbs, might just bridge the gap.

Review later today or tomorrow, receiving the Pearl White edition (should be interesting). Let me know if anyone is even interested in a laptop solution without ultra-gaming abilities .

I'll post pics and review tonight, will test battery life too

Pics for the N23PB

The little guy fits very well on an end table:


White pearl finish is pretty sweet looking in person:


Front, 4-in-1 reader, volume knob, mic/speakers jacks:


Left side, VGA, modem, LAN, PCMCIA, lock:


Back side, just a fan outlet (and back of battery pack)


Right side, power, DVD/CDRW, 3x USB


As others would see you:


Gray keyboard, a bit different, would've preferred black:
Keyboard is on the small side, of course, arrow keys are very small. Just a few lights and buttons, one for power and one for wireless. A few indicator lights by the power button, and a few on the front lip (which is left uncovered by the lid, actually a nice touch so you can see battery status, power, wireless even with the lid closed.


Open and running:



Camera died, will get some pics of the underside, nothing new there though.

Dimensions: front side 1" thick, back 1.1". 11.3" x 9.5". Weight shows at 4.4lbs, seemed very light to me, of course I'm used to a 10 lb laptop.

Software and performance review to come...

More pics, no stats yet though:


Next to the old HP brick


Well, it will run the Halo2 movie if not the game


Underneath, memory cover off


Battery removed


heatsink exposed


cpu exposed


Memory taken out and heat spreader removed


Ready for some music
(The sound is great on external speakers or headphones, but not so hot (or loud) on built-ins)

update:

laptop blew a gasket, used the recovery CDs, a few times, didn't work. Finally swapped out memory, that seemed to do the trick. scary.

Oh, one teeny dead blue pixel, near top center of screen. blah.

final update:

once the memory issue was solved, everything has been great. Battery life is over 4 hours, and even on DVD I didn't experience a significant drop, so I would expect a solid 4 hours. (I did the battery optimization available in the bios).

The Recovery CDs worked well (just a ghost image), and the included software was a full Nero OEM suite and powerDvd. The power brick is nice and small to match the laptop and doesn't get overly warm.

As for heat issues, the battery is located under the LCD, so that warmth doesn't reach you. However, the overall warmth of the laptop is detectable but not significant. It's pretty evenly distributed over the surface of the laptop and has never even come close to uncomfortable.

I didn't bother with Benchmarking, because the gpu is integrated and this is not a gaming system. I did put Serious Sam on to make sure it will at least run some decent shoot-em-ups, which it did. Don't expect to run anything harder than that, though.

The current crop of 12" laptops range from the superlights with no optical drive at under 3 pounds, to the integrated drives around 4 pounds. From IBM's thinkpads to Dell's 300m, the Twinhead has it's work cut out for it. But it is a solid alternative, I think, and should compete at least on price and quality of build.

no, i just sell them when i'm done playing on them, basically just get rid of them for my cost. Except the MSI, which I liked enough to keep.

listed today in for sale thread
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=36015

I've had my eye on the L610 for a while now, it looks amazing. I've contacted MSI, still waiting for it to be released in September. The design is much more boxy, by necessity, but I think the laptop will be very nice.

So far the higher-video 510C is not available in the US, and I'm afraid it never will be. It would really make the laptop a contender. But the 64mb 9600 version isn't bad at all, approaches 3000 on 3dmark03.