Every year in the fall there are two truths: the Yankees make their run for another World Series title and the Test Lab ramps up for our annual ultra portable notebook roundup. The Yankees are trying for their 5th Championship in the last nine years but IBM is building a dynasty of its own, having taken top honors in our roundup the last two years. This year, five contenders take the field to duke it out for the Ultra Portable Notebook Championship.

Last year, notebooks got faster and smaller. This year, ultra portables gain a boost in battery life with no loss in power or size. Our old standard of a minimum of three hours battery life goes out the door as virtually all our notebooks hit four hours with one notable exception. For ultra portables, performance is a factor but not a major key.

Qualifications
Gone are the days when sub-4 lb. notebooks did the trick, to qualify for this roundup, the notebooks all must weigh less than 3.5 lbs.
The notebooks in our roundup all included the following:

• 512 MB of memory (Sony TR5A comes with 1GB)
• 4,200 RPM hard drive
• USB 2.0 ports
• Integrated 802.11b/g wireless
• Modem/Ethernet
• VGA out

Judgment Day
While portability is what makes ultra portable notebooks what they are, none of that matters without ergonomics and battery life (three hours is the standard). With ultra portable notebooks, we know there is a trade off of performance for size. With the exception of the Sharp (a weak Radeon Mobility 16MB), the rest of the notebooks all have Intel’s integrated video adaptor and thus we only concerned ourselves with business-application performance. Gaming of any kind is a waste of time on these notebooks.

We judged our contenders with the following our 5 criteria:

• Ergonomics
• Battery Life
• Portability
• Performance
• Value

Performance and Battery Life (MobileMark 2002)
To test overall system performance and battery life, we like MobileMark 2002 for its use of common application, such as Microsoft Office and Photoshop.

Sony Vaio TR series LAB PICK

With an integrated DVD burner (DVD-RW support only), 1.0 GB of RAM and a built-in webcam, the $3,000 TR5AP is the Bentley of ultra portables, owning the highest as-tested price in our roundup. Integrated just above the display on a 180 degree swivel, the cool webcam can zoom, focus and take both video and still pictures.

With nearly four hours of battery life, the TR5AP continues the trend of increased battery life for ultra portables, blowing away the Lab standard of three hours. Removing one stick of 512MB to make it a fair comparison, the TR5AP MobileMark score was unspectacular but only short of performance leader, Fujitsu, by 14 percent.

At slightly over 3 lbs, the metallic gray and white TR5AP pops with “wow” factor, turning heads wherever you go. Sony isn’t just flash over substance. The TR series keyboard challenges the IBM X40 for great ergonomics with comfortably sized keys for an ultra portable, although the key travel on the Sony is a bit brisk and doesn’t “feel as good” as the IBM, but that’s just my preference.

As with most Sony products, the downside is always the price. If I was The Donald, I would probably buy Sony all the time just for their great looking and innovative products. However, I’m just The Lawson so value is important. As tested, the $3,000 price tag is hard to swallow, but if you take out the DVD burner, forgo the gig of RAM for 512MB and downgrade the chip to a Pentium M 1.0 GHz to even the playing field with our other contenders, the TR5AP is just a suped up TR3AP2 at a reasonable $2100.

Expectedly, there is only support for Sony Memory Stick.

Side note: Sony’s new T-series notebooks, starting at $2100, will be available this month, effectively replacing the TR-series in Sony’s ultra-portable category. The T-series will not have a built-in webcam.

Pro: DVD burner; integrated webcam; great keyboard; great looks; great battery life; XBrite widescreen display
Con: Expensive (as tested); Memory Stick support only

Verdict: The Sony TR-series notebooks do it all. With decent performance and battery life, Sony wins out with its cool features and look. Sony wins the 2004 Ultra Portable Championship.

Fujitsu P7000 series

We’ve always loved Fujitsu for integrating everything into a single device, eliminating the need for docking stations or port replicators. The latest Fujitsu P7010 stays the course sporting a built-in combo drive, both VGA and S-video out, a FireWire port, and reader slots (Memory Stick, SD and Compact Flash) all in a 3.3 lb package with a great widescreen 10.6” display. The P7010 adds flexibility with a swappable module, allowing replacement of the optical drive with an extra battery.

With over four hours of battery life, the P7010 rocks the house with the highest MobileMark score. Our test unit comes with a 60 GB hard drive and a price of $2100 -- you get great bang for the buck.

The main complaint of the Fujitsu notebook in our last roundup was the smallish keyboard. In the P7010, Fujitsu improves the layout by sizing up most of the keys. However, the most common keys used (comma, period and ‘?’) are half-sized keys. My hands aren’t huge, so I didn’t have too much trouble with the small keys -- but someone with large mitts will definitely have a hard time trying to type in URLs while web surfing, pressing the ‘?’ key instead of the period.

Pro: Best performance; great battery life; features galore; great value
Con: Commonly used keys too small

Verdict: The P7010 has everything I need: great features, performance, battery life and most importantly an integrated optical drive. The swappable module adds great flexibility and the widescreen display is great too. Although not a major issue for my small hands, increasing the size of those punctuation keys will make the P7010 a contender for the crown.

IBM ThinkPad X-series

With the biggest screen (12.1” screen) and thin size, the IBM ThinkPad X40 is a solid notebook for the businessman on the go. The standard four-cell battery offers a decent three-plus hours of battery life, but the must-have eight-cell battery doubles the battery juice and only increases the notebook by half a pound. However, the biggest selling point of the X40 is its amazingly comfortable full-size keyboard and solid construction.

On the downside, the IBM does not have an integrated optical drive. You either need an external USB drive or purchase the optional $199 UltraBase dock which lets you add a optical drive and two more USB 2.0 ports. The expandability of the X40 is great but can get expensive. There is no support for FireWire.

Pro: Biggest screen; Best ergonomics; Great battery life w/ 8 cell battery
Con: Needs dock for optical drive; no FireWire

Verdict: While still a very solid business ultra portable notebook, IBM narrowly misses out on a three-peat. Even with its durability and great ergonomics, the lack of an integrated optical drive and FireWire support did them in.

JVC Mobile Mini Note PC (MP-XV841US)

We haven’t seen many JVC notebooks here in the lab so I was excited to get my hands on the new JVC Mobile Mini Note PC. With an integrated combo burner drive, it offers great performance and tremendous battery life (over 5 hours). There is even integrated support for FireWire but a port replicator is needed for VGA out support.

With all its features, it is for not as the JVC is just too small to use. The terrible ergonomics start with the hobbit-sized keyboard and a much too small 8.9” screen, Adding to this is a strange battery design that attaches to the back of the notebook like some strange appendage of the Elephant Man, throwing the weight distribution off making it awkward to carry around, not to mention ugly.

Already possessing the most expensive starting price of $2,400, our as-tested unit (additional 256MB RAM) rang in at a whopping $2,700.

Pro: Great battery life; Great Performance
Con: child-size keyboard; tiny screen; expensive; strange (ugly) battery design; no integrated VGA-out

Verdict: Performance and battery life isn’t everything for ultra portable notebooks. Everything was too small other than the price. In the end, the munchkin experience of using the JVC spelled the demise of the Mobile Mini Note PC.

Sharp Actius MM series

At just 0.62 thick at its thinnest part, the Sharp Actius MM20P is the thinnest and lightest (2 lbs) in our batch. Despite its exceptional smallness, the keyboard is remarkably comfortable with my only complaint being the irregular backward L formation of the direction keys. The Starting at $1499, the Sharp is the least expensive of the field.

The Sharp comes with a clever desktop docking station. Connecting via USB, the cradle recharges the notebook’s battery and turns its 20GB hard disk into an external hard drive accessible from your desktop computer.

For its thin body, the Actius sacrifices a lot with the need to use easy-to-lose dongles for everything (VGA-out and modem) except one single USB 2.0 port and Ethernet. With a Transmeta Efficeon processor, the Actius expectedly comes in dead last in performance as well as battery life (around 2.5 hours). Storage may be an issue with only a 20 GB hard drive.

Adding only 0.6 lb, an extended optional battery triples battery life. For an optical drive, you need to purchase an optional USB external burner. There is no support for FireWire.
 
Pro: Thin and light; Keyboard is great for the size of the notebook; desktop cradle
Con: weak CPU; poor battery life; needs dongles for everything

Verdict: With the need of dongles for many functions and the lack of an integrated optical drive, the sleek and light Actius sacrifices too much in performance and battery life to make the Sharp Actius a viable option.

Specification Chart

Click here to see the contenders' specs side by side.

Final Word

In the end, Sony takes home the prize for doing everything encased in a sexy wrapper with no major downside. The price may be a factor for some but the TR series is customizable so sacrificing some of the more expensive extras (DVD burner and extra RAM) will give surprisingly good value, especially for Sony. The big caveat here is Sony’s decision to replace the entire TR series with the new T-series. Availability of the TR series notebooks may be a concern, but if you can find it, the TR series notebook is a definite buy.