Laptop - Notebook Reviews

 

The Twinhead Durabook N15R1 is designed for business, and appears to be a rugged, high performance business notebook computer that is beautifully designed, encased in extratough magnesium alloy (which is 20 times stronger than the plastic used in most laptops), and equipped with rubberized vibration protection for the hard drive and the LCD, the N15RI is ideal for those who need a system that can stay productive under a fair amount of daily abuse. Shock protection is installed around the processor, optical drive, memory, hard drive, and screen, plus a spill-resistant keyboard, touchpad, buttons, LEDs, and speakers. A lock on the optical drive even prevents the tray from opening if the eject button is accidentally pressed.

The Twinhead Durabook N15RI blew through Photoshop, Excel, and WinZip without missing a beat with a powerful 2.13-GHz Pentium M processor, 2GB of 333-MHz DDR memory, and a 5,400-rpm hard drive. MobileMark produced a very high score of 249 as proof of the Durabook’s multitasking prowess. With 100GB capacity of the Durabook’s hard drive, CPU to run as many applications as you want. The system comes preinstalled with Microsoft Works 8.0. The hard disk is complemented by a double-layer DVD burner.

The Durabook N15RI’s standard array of connections and ports include FireWire, VGA, serial, S-Video, and three USB 2.0 ports as well as headphone and microphone jacks; the one high-end addition is an S/PDIF audio jack. The Durabook’s networking connections include modem, Ethernet, and an Intel 802.11a/b/g radio; it lacks the built-in cellular radio you’d expect on a laptop designed to go beyond the safety of the office and the airplane.

Other features include: Built-in speakers, Bluetooth radio, 15.1-inch screen, and 4.5-hour battery runtime, particularly since the system only dropped two minutes when the Wi-Fi adapter was enabled. The Twinhead Durabook N15RI has one of the best Wi-Fi On/Off controls we’ve seen (a relatively large button that lights up green when the adapter is on).

Even though the $2,199 price is pretty steep, the Twinhead Durabook N15RI is a good value because it offers top-notch performance in a very durable package. Twinhead provides limited tech support hours and the standard one-year warranty is a bit light for a notebook at this price.

Pros

• Rugged design
• Lightweight for a rugged laptop
• Outstanding battery life 
• Fast performance
• Monster hard drive and a ton of RAM
• Tri-mode Wi-Fi and Gigabit

Cons

• No memory card reader
• XGA resolution 
• Weak warranty and limited tech support hours

Twinhead Durabook N15RI specs

• CPU 2.13-GHz Intel Pentium M 770
• Operating System Windows XP Professional
• RAM/Expandable to 2GB/2GB
• Hard Drive 5,400-rpm 100GB
• Optical Drive 2.4X DVD+R DL
• 4X DVD+RW
• 4X DVD-RW
• 8X DVD+R
• 8X DVD-R 8X DVD-ROM
• 16X CD-RW
• 24X CD-R
• 24X CD-ROM
• Display/Resolution 15.1-inch/XGA
• Graphics/Video Memory Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900/up to 128MB video memory shared
• Wireless Networking 802.11a/b/g
• Ports Three USB 2.0, FireWire, S-Video, VGA, serial, headphone, mic, S/PDIF out, Gigabit Ethernet, modem
• PC Card Slots One Type II
• Memory Card Slots None
• Weight 6.6 pounds
• Size 13 x 10.8 x 1.6 inches
• Service and Support One-year parts and labor/one-year toll-free
• available 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (PST)
• MobileMark 249
• 3DMark2001 3,900
• 3DMark03 888
• Battery Life (Wi-Fi On/Off) 4:34/ 4:36
• Wireless Performance (5/50 feet) 12.6 Mbps/ 6.9 Mbps

Tags:Durabook

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 27th, 2006 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Twinhead. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.