by Ilya Gavrichenkov
07/06/2005 | 10:27 AM
The product mix on the computer market tends to change incessantly. The times when the do-it-yourself market offered just various parts for the user to assemble into the end system are long gone. The hot topic of the current day is barebone systems. A barebone is a half-assembled platform that consists of a case with a power supply, a mainboard preinstalled into the system case, and a cooling system. Barebones are usually design in a non-standard way and cannot be assembled out of widely available hardware parts.
<%BANNER[article]%>The popularity of barebones is mostly due to the rise of the class of home computers that are employed as an entertainment center. Such computers must fit well into the interior of the living room, so the standard cases aren’t desirable for them. Barebones, on their part, have a much smaller size, are quieter at work, and resemble typical household appliances. The purchaser of such a platform only has to equip it with a central processor, memory, hard drive and additional input/output devices depending on his/her own needs.
Most barebone systems come from mainboards manufacturers, but other companies have been recently trying to take up this business, too. For example, this article is evidence of the imminent “barebonization” of the notebook market. The device we’re about to discuss is actually nothing else but a barebone system for assembling a notebook.
There’s actually nothing strange in the arrival of mobile barebones. Mobile computers at large have grown into an ever more popular category of PCs and the current year is going to be a breakthrough in this respect. The share of notebooks in the total PC sales is already about 30% and this number is expected to rise much higher very soon. According to market analysts, notebooks sales are going to grow by 26.5% this year, the predicted sales growth of ordinary desktop PCs being only 4.6%. The demand on portable computers is going to grow by 10.2% over the previous year, too.
Notebooks owe their increasing popularity to several facts. Among them are the reduction of prices and the expansion of wireless networks which make mobile computers a far more useful device. As a result, more users are now abandoning desktop systems in favor of notebooks. A popularity peak of mobile solutions is expected to fall on the beginning of the next year. In such conditions the mobile solutions market should become a priority for hardware manufacturers, giving an opportunity to increase the market influence and profits.
End-users, especially PC enthusiasts, would prefer to assemble their notebooks by their own hands, of course. This way they would save some money and get a system designed specifically for their own needs – well, and the very process would be enjoyable. Considering all these things, it is quite logical for unfinished mobile platforms to appear.
So, the system to be reviewed today is a mobile barebone. It is a regular notebook but without such components as central processor, memory, hard and optical drives. The manufacturer implies the user can purchase these things him/herself to have a ready-to-work mobile computer. By the way, besides selling as barebone systems, such under-completed mobile computers are bought by some system integrators who fill them up and then sell under their own trade names.
The mobile platform OpenBook (BareBook) 1559-JL from AOpen can also be met in two incarnations: as a barebone system to build a notebook out of (and priced at about $680) or as a ready-made solution under a third-party brand.
First, we want to discuss the configuration of the OpenBook 15590JL since it largely determines the consumer qualities of the product. So, the AOpen OpenBook 1559-JL is a two-spindle high-performance notebook. The configuration is up to that targeting: the barebone has the most advanced mobile chipset from Intel inside. The i915PM is a notebook analog of the desktop i915P chipset and supports such hot technologies as dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM and PCI Express bus. Unlike the i925GM, this chipset doesn’t have an integrated graphics core and is intended for working with an external graphics card attached via PCI Express x16.
The OpenBook 1559-JL comes with a preinstalled graphics card of the MXM format. It is NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600 with 128 megabytes of onboard memory.
This is a rather high-performing solution by today’s standards. It is comparable to ordinary mid-range graphics cards. Like “desktop” GeForce 6600 cards, the GeForce Go 6600 has 8 pixel and 3 vertex pipelines, a 128-bit memory interface, and resides on the PCI Express x16 bus. The frequencies of the card installed in the OpenBook 1559-JL are 300MHz core and 600MHz memory. Thus, the performance of the GeForce Go 6600 is similar to that of ordinary GeForce 6600 graphics cards, but the mobile version has a lower memory clock rate. The GeForce Go 6600, however, boasts low heat dissipation, no more than 18 watts. Besides that, the unique feature of the mobile solution is PowerMizer technology which can reduce the power consumption of the graphics card if its processing capacity is not fully used. And still, the GeForce Go 6600 requires active cooling: there’s a copper cooler with a heat pipe for that purpose in the OpenBook 1559-JL.
We should also note that besides supporting DirectX 9.0 and Shader Model 3.0, the GeForce Go 6600 processor features PureVideo technology that unloads the CPU when decoding DVD video.
Overall, the graphics subsystem of the OpenBook 1559-JL is quite powerful, delivering the performance of desktop midrange graphics subsystems. Of course, a computer with such a graphics card should have a powerful central processor, too. The OpenBook 1559-JL supports any Socket 479 processor, including the latest Pentium M models with the 533MHz FSB.
The chipset and processor indicate that we deal with Intel’s new Centrino platform (also known as Sonoma), but there should also be a WLAN adapter. The OpenBook 1559-JL really has a dual-range Intel Pro/Wireless 2915ABG WLAN module that supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g standards.
Talking about the new Sonoma platform, the chipset is completed with a new South Bridge, ICH6-M. Besides other things, this South Bridge supports two Serial ATA ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, and Intel High Definition Audio. The most interesting feature of this Bridge is, however, the new standard of expansion cards for notebooks, Express Card. The Express Card bus is a combination of PCI Express x1 and USB and is going to replace CardBus in medium-range outlook. Express Card slots will be placed outside the notebook’s case for connecting various peripheral devices.
The OpenBook 1559-JL also has a Gigabit Ethernet controller, an analog modem, a FireWire controller, and a card-reader. The formal specification of the barebone looks as follows:
To transform the OpenBook 1559-JL into a full-fledged mobile computer, you need to install a central processor, memory, and hard and optical drives.
Although the OpenBook 1559-JL platform is supposed to be assembled by the end user, its design doesn’t actually differ from the typical design of any notebook of that class. It means the assembly will take more effort than with desktop barebones. On the other hand, there is still nothing very difficult in assembling a notebook, just the process may be somewhat unusual for a desktop user.
The installation of the hard disk drive and the optical drive can hardly provoke any questions: these components are mounted into their respective cells and fastened with screws.
The reviewed system, unlike many modern notebooks, accommodates a 2.5” hard disk drive with the Serial ATA interface.
The installation of the processor and memory is a more complicated process. The processor is under the keyboard in the OpenBook 1559-JL, so you need to remove the keyboard in order to install or replace this component. First, you should take off the panel behind the keyboard, under the LCD screen. The panel is fastened at the bottom of the notebook with four screws and latches. Having removed this panel, you can easily lift the keyboard out and access the processor as well as the single miniPCI slot of the system which is occupied by an Intel Pro/Wireless 2915ABG WLAN adapter.
The processor’s cooling system includes a heat pipe and a fan. The speed of the fan is varied depending on the CPU temperature. To tell you the truth, this fan is idle most of the time – it’s when SpeedStep technology steps the CPU frequency down to 800MHz and the CPU’s heat dissipation goes down to 9 watts only.
You should meet no problems installing memory. There’s a special cover at the bottom of the case that conceals the SO-DIMM DDR2 SDRAM slots and the graphics card.
Note that being based on the i915PM chipset, this mobile computer supports dual-channel DDR2-533 SDRAM. So you may want to put two identical modules into the available memory slots to achieve the highest possible memory performance.
The OpenBook 1559-JL looks like a regular, full-size notebook, so its design solutions should be discussed just like those of “normal” notebooks. The only sign telling this is not a brand but a user-assembled computer is the lack of a label with the manufacturer’s brand on the top panel.
The top panel of the OpenBook has a dark-silver color with decorative light-silver inserts on the sides. The inserts are shaped like wavy stripes, about 3.5cm wide. The bottom of the case is colored dark-gray. Opening the lid, you can see that the area between the keyboard and the touchpad is light-gray, too, and the screen bezel is the same color. The overall appearance of the system is elegant and yet simple.
There is a rectangular Power On/Off button on the top panel, near the left hinge of the screen. Also under the screen and above the keyboard is an LCD indicator and buttons to control Audio DJ technology (this notebook can serve as a CD player even without booting the OS up). Unfortunately, Audio DJ technology only allows playing Audio CDs, which limits its usability somewhat. Moreover, talking about sound, the speakers located on the sides of the Audio DJ panel are of poor quality. They reproduce only high frequencies and thus are only good for reproducing the standard Windows sounds. These speakers are inappropriate for listening to music or watching movies.
The built-in microphone is located under the touchpad buttons. Unlike the speakers, the microphone works quite well, having a good sensitivity.
To the left of the notebook’s keyboard, there are five instant-launch buttons that you can assign to start your Internet browser, e-mail client, and other frequently used applications. These buttons have the same shape as the Power On/Off button. You can configure them using a special utility supplied with the notebook.
The system status indicators are placed quite conveniently: one group is located at the bottom of the screen bezel (these indicators are designed as highlighted symbols). The other group copies some of the first group indicators on the notebook’s lid. The point is that the indicators are visible irrespective of the position of the lid. The first group of indicators includes: digital keyboard mode, Caps Lock, battery charge, HDD activity, power, standby, WLAN. The group on the notebook’s lid consists of WLAN, power and standby indicators.
The full-size keyboard of the OpenBook is made of black plastic. Its size makes it easy to use: the buttons are the right size and feel. The functional keys and the cursor keys have a smaller size. The keyboard’s layout is typical for a notebook. The location of PgUp/Home and PgDn/End keys isn’t quite proper – they are on both sides of the Up Arrow button in the block of cursor-controlling keys. The numeric pad and two Windows keys are available – they are placed like on the ordinary “desktop” keyboards. The base of the keyboard crackles a little as you’re punching the keys, and the keys may seem fragile and ready to break under a pressure. It is not quite so: the keyboard went without problems through the pressures and deformations when we removed and reinstalled it back.
We found a few faults with the touchpad employed in this notebook model. First, it has only two standard buttons (instead of the mouse’s left and right ones), without a scroll button. Second, these buttons are not quite handy. Although the buttons are rather large, only the part near the center of the touchpad can be pressed. It means you have to spend some time finding touch-sensitive areas on the buttons.
The OpenBook 1559-JL is equipped with a 15” LCD screen with 1400x1050 resolution. The backlight intensity is regulated by means of the functional keys. The screen brightness may also automatically vary depending on the power source (the power grid or the battery). You can control this auto-brightness feature through the BIOS Setup program. Unfortunately, the manufacturer does not equip the OpenBook 1559-JL with any special utilities for controlling the power-saving modes from the OS.
The lid latch and the optical drive are located on the notebook’s front panel. The drive’s Eject button is sunk rather too deep into the case, so it’s not quite handy to use it – sometimes you can’t press it right and the drive’s tray does not move out. The emergency extraction hole and the indicator of the optical drive are located next to the button.
On the notebook’s left panel there are expansion slots and a card-reader. Here, we have a PCMCIA slot and a new Express Card slot compatible with Express Card|54 as well as Express Card|34. The dimensions of the OpenBook didn’t allow accommodating a full-fledged card-reader, so the installed reader supports only Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro and XD formats. Besides the slots for flash and expansion cards, there is an analog volume control for the integrated audio subsystem on the left panel. Using this wheel, you can control the volume without opening the notebook’s lid.
A Kensington lock and vent holes of the CPU cooling system can be found on the right panel.
The following things are located on the rear panel of the OpenBook 1559-JL:
By the way, thanks to the installed GeForce Go 6600 graphics card, the OpenBook 1559-JL fully supports dual-monitor configurations which may be a serious advantage for a number of applications.
Unfortunately, the functionality of this barebone is not fully satisfactory. The OpenBook 1559-JL does not have an IrDA port and is equipped with only three USB 2.0 ports. Both these things limit the functionality somewhat, possibly causing inconvenience to the user.
We stuffed the OpenBook 1559-JL with up-to-date components to check its performance. We did so to fully reveal the advantages of the Sonoma platform which is the foundation of this computer. So, the standard configuration of this barebone was completed with the following hardware parts:
We installed Windows XP Professional SP2 on the notebook.
The results of our running various performance benchmarks are listed in the following table:
You can see that the performance level of the OpenBook 1559-JL is very high. This notebook, equipped with a modern processor and memory subsystem, can well challenge mainstream desktop systems. In fact, the performance of the reviewed platform is closer to the desktop replacement rather than to the full-size notebook class. This is all thanks to the new Intel Centrino (Sonoma) platform which ensures a very high performance of mobile systems.
We also see that senior Pentium M models can work at the speed of the Pentium 4 which is currently the highest-performing Intel processor for desktops.
Besides speed, there is another parameter important for any mobile computer – the time it can work on its own battery. We measured this, too, using Battery Eater Pro 2.50. We performed our tests at the default settings. That is, all the power-saving technologies were turned on.
Working modes | Time, h:min |
Classical | 1:26 |
Readers’ | 2:38 |
DVD viewing | 2:22 |
As you see, the high performance of the OpenBook 1559-JL has its downside, too. The battery life time of this notebook is smaller than with many other machines of this class based on the Intel Centrino platform. We can identify the cause quite accurately – there is an external and rather fast graphics card NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600 in this OpenBook, which is an additional consumer of power. The power consumption of this graphics card is close to that of modern mobile processors, so the battery is depleted sooner than when mobiles chipsets with an integrated graphics core are in use.
On the other hand, the NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600 has advanced means to control its power consumption, particularly PowerMizer 5.0. By adjusting the parameters of this technology through the driver you can achieve a reduction in the consumption of the graphics subsystem, although sacrificing in its speed.
Summing up the results of the tests we should acknowledge the viability of the mobile barebone concept. The AOpen OpenBook 1559-JL can be easily completed to a full-fledged notebook. In fact, you cannot tell an assembled OpenBook from a regular notebook. So, users can now shape up a notebook for their specific needs and applications.
The AOpen OpenBook 1559-JL, being a particular realization of the concept, can become a foundation for a full-size mobile computer with a large screen and a high-performance graphics subsystem. This computer can be used for more than just office applications. It is fast enough for running games as well as digital content processing applications. This wide applicability results in a limited battery life time, however.
As for disadvantages, the OpenBook isn’t the best solution in terms of mobility, having a weight of about 3kg and a relatively small time of autonomous operation. The number of USB 2.0 ports is insufficient, infrared and Bluetooth interfaces are missing. The quality of the built-in audio subsystem is rather low, and the Audio DJ technology is practically useless.
The AOpen OpenBook 1559-JL gave us some insights into the latest Intel Centrino (Sonoma) platform that combines new i915 family chipsets with new Dothan-core Pentium M processors with a 533MHz bus. We can see now that a number of technologies emerging in the desktop PC field will be coming to the mobile sector, too. Unfortunately, there are as yet no evident advantages over the previous version of Intel’s mobile platform. The results of our tests suggest that external graphics solutions with the PCI Express x16 interface are fast but consume too much power. DDR2 memory can’t show its advantages, neither. The faster system bus and the dual-channel memory controller ensure a certain performance growth, but it hardly matters for mobile computers. In fact, the only big plus of the Sonoma platform is that processors on the Dothan core have a higher frequency than their predecessors.
So, if you want some breakthroughs, you have to wait for the next platform, currently known under its codename Napa. It will include a dual-core 65nm mobile Yonah processor, a Calistoga chipset with a new-generation graphics core, and a new-generation wireless networking module Golan. As for today, you shouldn’t limit your choice with the Sonoma alone. Mobile platforms of the previous generation have not become any worse after the release of the Sonoma – they are still quite fast and can work quite long autonomously even by today’s standards.
