i've had my cl56 for about two weeks now, and i'm really liking it. it's pretty much everything i expected it to be. i want to express my thanks to everyone here who helped me find and research this laptop. here is my review, as promised:
i ordered from Discount Laptops on 8/19/04. with this laptop being backordered and a delayed shipment, the turnaround time was about 3 weeks. a bit long, but really not the fault of DL. matt (president of DL) was very helpful the entire time, and kept me constantly updated on the status via email.
1) Shipping, Package Contents, OS Setup
-----------------------------------------------------------
here is everything i received in my package (shipped by UPS):
outer box was is good shape when it arrived
after removing outer box, inner box looked untouched
small nylon carrying case snugly fits the cl56, with room for a few documents in the outer pocket. not really much padding in the case, but being free, it is a nice item.
the paper documentation included was pretty sparse (only the quick start guide), but i really couldn't think of what else was neccessary, or even applicable. the cl56 manual was included on CD.
included software:
having legit copies of nero and windvd is nice, i guess? not too big of a deal for me. the thing i was impressed by was the Drive CD, which allows you to install basically all the hardware drivers for the laptop from one disk. quite nice.
my HD came with no OS. interestingly, winXP setup noticed a win98 partition set up on the drive-- i'm not sure quite why this was on there. i actually tried booting up with this partition, but it looked like the guts of the OS had been removed--> no boot. maybe this drive was burn-tested? DL doesn't say that they do burn-in, but it looks like someone was messing with it before i got to it, i'm thinking for test purposes. anyway, i blew all that away when i formatted for NTFS. winXP install proceeded without a hitch, everything worked perfectly the first time through.
2) Initial Impressions
-----------------------------------------------------------
i had never seen this laptop before in person but viewed it countless times in pictures on the web. here are a few of the physical observations i feel can't be conveyed through pictures:
a. the chassis is really solid. i mean, really solid-- the palmrests have zero give when i push down with a lot of force. this is impressive is because of how thin this laptop is. having measured it with a ruler, it is ~1.25'' thick without the rubber "feet" on the bottom. sitting on a flat table with the feet, it is about 1.5'' high.
b. the keyboard is quite good if you are a touch typist. i rarely miss keystrokes. key response is fast, and the sound is damped-- no loud "clackity" noises when typing quickly in a quiet room. the only slight annoyance i initially noticed going from my Logitech Elite to the cl56 was the key travel; they don't move very far. i don't find this to be an issue for typing ~75 wpm at all, however, and the travel is comparable to most of the laptop kbs currently on the market.
c. this machine is near-silent most of the time. it amazes me. even when the fan comes on -- which is rarely under normal usage -- the sound is not bad at all. it really puts my desktop screamer to shame. the only problem i have is with the CD drive (made by compal), which is a little noisy. fortunately i don't use that much, since i get basically all my files through wireless / USB nowadays.
3) Impressions After Extended Use
-----------------------------------------------------------
a. probably most important to me when i was researching my purchase was the battery life of this laptop. i needed to be able to get through a 3-4 hour lab session on a single battery, where i would be constantly using the laptop for programming FPGAs / coding in VHDL. the cl56 really surpassed my expectations here (i was thinking i'd get about 4 hours max). one big point i want to make is that i am NOT using speedswitchxp; all the numbers below are just with regular windows Max Battery power management.
--with 3/10 bars LCD brightness, i got around 4.5 hrs straight out of the box using the wireless and a few office apps. i can definitively say now that "battery conditioning" on the li-ions is a myth.
--having used the computer quite a bit for surfing / chatting, i get about 1.25 hours for every 25% of charge. awesome. suffice to say my friends were impressed. there was one funny cirumstance where a lab TA came over and said "hey you're gonna want to plug that in somewhere," to which i was able to happily reply, "nah... i can't find a free socket, but it doesn't matter anyway."
--under heavier loads / higher brightness, i find i can get the 1.25 hrs number for every 33% charge. i usually will crank up the CPU speed when i need a compilation to go through fast, and turn it back down when i go back to coding.
-- DVD test, full brightness: 2h 45 min. decent, but i think this will improve if i lower the brightness a bit.
b. second most important thing to me was the screen. i was kind of worried with all the doubters who champion widescreen around here, but i can now safely say this screen is perfectly fine for a single user.
--i really barely notice the "limited" viewing angles when the computer is on my lap / in bed / in front of me on a desk. i do notice the viewing angles a lot more when trying to show someone the screen who sitting at an extreme angle next to me or standing above me, but i since i don't do this much it's not a big deal.
--screen clarity is great, i can work comfortably on even 2-3 bars of brightness. i should mention that i work mostly indoors. in direct sunlight, the screen fades quite a bit and is more difficult to make out. it's not unreadable, but it becomes slightly annoying when trying to focus on low contrast images, etc.
--1400x1050 is pretty much the perfect res for me. i can barely use 1600x1200 on my 19'' CRT nowadays (vision is going on me =/), and sxga+ is a really appreciable level of detail. here is a screenshot that exemplifies how much desktop space i have with a few different windows open:
4) Performance / Benchmarking
-----------------------------------------------------------
for my work, this computer is excellent. my hardware designs compile quickly and efficiently; I would say at full clockspeed (1.7 Ghz) the P-M functions on the order of a P4 3.0 Ghz.
for gaming, so far I have tried out Warcraft3 which ran awesome at the highest detail settings. I even tried using an external monitor to push 1600x1200, it still ran great. sometime soon I am going to try out Doom3 and post my FPS, but i anticipate the next game i will need to run well is WoW.
i haven't yet messed with overclocking the mr9700. haven't tried the catalyst drivers either. here are my stock 3dmark benchmarks with the normal drivers that came on CD:
2800 seems a little low, but i'm not too worried about it. the CPU score looks decent. the architecture with the stock clocks runs everything i currently need fine, and i have a feeling i'll be upgrading my desktop to the new 6600 thats coming out soon anyway.
5) Odds and Ends
-----------------------------------------------------------
wireless worked great on the first try. 150 kps.
the brushed aluminum is
i think it contributes to how solid the laptop feels.
the color of the laptop is really interesting; in low lighting its really not blue, but almost black-ish. here is my setup, as you can see it nearly matches my logitech elite. i really like the looks.
the arrow keys are kind of small and there is a little bit of wobbly-ness to them. plus, the pgup and pgdn keys are right on top of them. i don't have exceptionally large fingers, but occasionally when i scroll up / down in a document i will accidently hit the pgup/pgdn.
the touchpad is one of the best i've used. real responsive, and the scroll works in almost Everything. for some weird reason the other laptop synaptics i had would not scroll in some instances where this one does. the mouse buttons are really good also, i can easily doubleclick (NOT the case on many i've used before).
the bottom of the laptop gets a bit warm after continuous use, but it is not uncomfortable. the palmrests generate even less heat, but it is noticable after a while.
no dead pixels
Misc Pictures:
-----------------------------------------------------------
well, you're probably sick of reading by now, heh. if anyone has a request for a specific picture or impression, let me know and i will do my best to accomodate.
i ordered from Discount Laptops on 8/19/04. with this laptop being backordered and a delayed shipment, the turnaround time was about 3 weeks. a bit long, but really not the fault of DL. matt (president of DL) was very helpful the entire time, and kept me constantly updated on the status via email.
1) Shipping, Package Contents, OS Setup
-----------------------------------------------------------
here is everything i received in my package (shipped by UPS):
outer box was is good shape when it arrived
after removing outer box, inner box looked untouched
small nylon carrying case snugly fits the cl56, with room for a few documents in the outer pocket. not really much padding in the case, but being free, it is a nice item.
the paper documentation included was pretty sparse (only the quick start guide), but i really couldn't think of what else was neccessary, or even applicable. the cl56 manual was included on CD.
included software:
having legit copies of nero and windvd is nice, i guess? not too big of a deal for me. the thing i was impressed by was the Drive CD, which allows you to install basically all the hardware drivers for the laptop from one disk. quite nice.
my HD came with no OS. interestingly, winXP setup noticed a win98 partition set up on the drive-- i'm not sure quite why this was on there. i actually tried booting up with this partition, but it looked like the guts of the OS had been removed--> no boot. maybe this drive was burn-tested? DL doesn't say that they do burn-in, but it looks like someone was messing with it before i got to it, i'm thinking for test purposes. anyway, i blew all that away when i formatted for NTFS. winXP install proceeded without a hitch, everything worked perfectly the first time through.
2) Initial Impressions
-----------------------------------------------------------
i had never seen this laptop before in person but viewed it countless times in pictures on the web. here are a few of the physical observations i feel can't be conveyed through pictures:
a. the chassis is really solid. i mean, really solid-- the palmrests have zero give when i push down with a lot of force. this is impressive is because of how thin this laptop is. having measured it with a ruler, it is ~1.25'' thick without the rubber "feet" on the bottom. sitting on a flat table with the feet, it is about 1.5'' high.
b. the keyboard is quite good if you are a touch typist. i rarely miss keystrokes. key response is fast, and the sound is damped-- no loud "clackity" noises when typing quickly in a quiet room. the only slight annoyance i initially noticed going from my Logitech Elite to the cl56 was the key travel; they don't move very far. i don't find this to be an issue for typing ~75 wpm at all, however, and the travel is comparable to most of the laptop kbs currently on the market.
c. this machine is near-silent most of the time. it amazes me. even when the fan comes on -- which is rarely under normal usage -- the sound is not bad at all. it really puts my desktop screamer to shame. the only problem i have is with the CD drive (made by compal), which is a little noisy. fortunately i don't use that much, since i get basically all my files through wireless / USB nowadays.
3) Impressions After Extended Use
-----------------------------------------------------------
a. probably most important to me when i was researching my purchase was the battery life of this laptop. i needed to be able to get through a 3-4 hour lab session on a single battery, where i would be constantly using the laptop for programming FPGAs / coding in VHDL. the cl56 really surpassed my expectations here (i was thinking i'd get about 4 hours max). one big point i want to make is that i am NOT using speedswitchxp; all the numbers below are just with regular windows Max Battery power management.
--with 3/10 bars LCD brightness, i got around 4.5 hrs straight out of the box using the wireless and a few office apps. i can definitively say now that "battery conditioning" on the li-ions is a myth.
--having used the computer quite a bit for surfing / chatting, i get about 1.25 hours for every 25% of charge. awesome. suffice to say my friends were impressed. there was one funny cirumstance where a lab TA came over and said "hey you're gonna want to plug that in somewhere," to which i was able to happily reply, "nah... i can't find a free socket, but it doesn't matter anyway."
--under heavier loads / higher brightness, i find i can get the 1.25 hrs number for every 33% charge. i usually will crank up the CPU speed when i need a compilation to go through fast, and turn it back down when i go back to coding.
-- DVD test, full brightness: 2h 45 min. decent, but i think this will improve if i lower the brightness a bit.
b. second most important thing to me was the screen. i was kind of worried with all the doubters who champion widescreen around here, but i can now safely say this screen is perfectly fine for a single user.
--i really barely notice the "limited" viewing angles when the computer is on my lap / in bed / in front of me on a desk. i do notice the viewing angles a lot more when trying to show someone the screen who sitting at an extreme angle next to me or standing above me, but i since i don't do this much it's not a big deal.
--screen clarity is great, i can work comfortably on even 2-3 bars of brightness. i should mention that i work mostly indoors. in direct sunlight, the screen fades quite a bit and is more difficult to make out. it's not unreadable, but it becomes slightly annoying when trying to focus on low contrast images, etc.
--1400x1050 is pretty much the perfect res for me. i can barely use 1600x1200 on my 19'' CRT nowadays (vision is going on me =/), and sxga+ is a really appreciable level of detail. here is a screenshot that exemplifies how much desktop space i have with a few different windows open:
4) Performance / Benchmarking
-----------------------------------------------------------
for my work, this computer is excellent. my hardware designs compile quickly and efficiently; I would say at full clockspeed (1.7 Ghz) the P-M functions on the order of a P4 3.0 Ghz.
for gaming, so far I have tried out Warcraft3 which ran awesome at the highest detail settings. I even tried using an external monitor to push 1600x1200, it still ran great. sometime soon I am going to try out Doom3 and post my FPS, but i anticipate the next game i will need to run well is WoW.
i haven't yet messed with overclocking the mr9700. haven't tried the catalyst drivers either. here are my stock 3dmark benchmarks with the normal drivers that came on CD:
2800 seems a little low, but i'm not too worried about it. the CPU score looks decent. the architecture with the stock clocks runs everything i currently need fine, and i have a feeling i'll be upgrading my desktop to the new 6600 thats coming out soon anyway.
5) Odds and Ends
-----------------------------------------------------------
wireless worked great on the first try. 150 kps.
the brushed aluminum is
i think it contributes to how solid the laptop feels.the color of the laptop is really interesting; in low lighting its really not blue, but almost black-ish. here is my setup, as you can see it nearly matches my logitech elite. i really like the looks.
the arrow keys are kind of small and there is a little bit of wobbly-ness to them. plus, the pgup and pgdn keys are right on top of them. i don't have exceptionally large fingers, but occasionally when i scroll up / down in a document i will accidently hit the pgup/pgdn.
the touchpad is one of the best i've used. real responsive, and the scroll works in almost Everything. for some weird reason the other laptop synaptics i had would not scroll in some instances where this one does. the mouse buttons are really good also, i can easily doubleclick (NOT the case on many i've used before).
the bottom of the laptop gets a bit warm after continuous use, but it is not uncomfortable. the palmrests generate even less heat, but it is noticable after a while.
no dead pixels
Misc Pictures:
-----------------------------------------------------------
well, you're probably sick of reading by now, heh. if anyone has a request for a specific picture or impression, let me know and i will do my best to accomodate.
