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Although hot-rod Pentium II notebooks get all the attention these days, older Pentium MMX laptops are holding their own, thanks to falling prices, solid performance ratings, and outstanding battery life. These factors helped the Compaq Armada 4220T and Micron GoBook 266--both powered by PMMX-266 processors--land on this month's power chart.
Among the nine new notebooks tested this month, the $1499 Fujitsu PC LifeBook 280Dx, a good starter laptop, jumps onto the budget chart. So does the Enpower ENP-801. It's the first notebook we've tested from Enpower, which has been assembling and selling computers for five years. The ENP-801 boasts a fast yet affordable AMD K6-266 processor.
External DVD Drives
Thinking about adding DVD to your old notebook? Now you can, but for a price that might make you wince. EXP Computer's $699 DVD Traveler Plus, the first external DVD-ROM kit for notebooks we've seen, consists of a small second-generation Toshiba DVD-ROM drive and two PC Cards. One card connects the notebook to the drive; the other, made by Margi Systems, handles MPEG-2 decoding. Your notebook must have at least a P-133 CPU and a Zoom Video PC Card slot. In our tests, the type of video controller in the notebook also affected DVD playback.
We tested a prerelease version of the kit on a Compaq Armada 1700, a MAG Verity 233VLT, and a Hewlett-Packard OmniBook 2100. After a glitch-free installation, we tested the DVD drive using Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia; Multicom's Great Chefs, Great Cities; and the film Con Air. The sound on all of them was great, especially when we attached external speakers. But picture quality was another story.
The images on the Armada 1700 and Verity 233VLT, which use a Chips & Technology 65555 graphics adapter, had jagged edges and lacked fine detail. The video on the OmniBook, which uses a NeoMagic MagicGraph128XD graphics chip set, was sharp and detailed.
DVD Traveler Plus
$699 list
EXP Computer
800/397-6922
("http://www.expnet.com" TARGET = "_blank") www.expnet.com
Power Notebooks
BEST BUY 1. Dell Latitude CPi D266XT
The Dell Latitude CPi D266XT, one of the best-designed notebooks we've seen, remains the laptop of choice on the power chart for the second consecutive month, thanks to its hot performance and top-notch features.
You'll like the notebook's sleek, charcoal-gray look....