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Review: Packard Bell Imax Mini NVIDIA ION nettop PC. A little bundle of joy?

by Tarinder Sandhu on 21 July 2009, 14:16 3.2

Tags: Packard Bell Imax Mini, Packard Bell (TPE:2353), NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qas33

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Comparison system setup and notes

System Packard Bell Imax Mini ASUS Seashell 1005HA(M) HP Pavilion dv2-1030ea ASUS U20A
Processor Intel Atom 230 (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 cache, single-core) Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 cache, single-core) AMD Athlon Neo NV-40 (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 cache, single-core) Intel Pentium SU2700 (1.30GHz, 2MB L2 cache, single-core)
Motherboard PB MCP79 ASUS (i945GSE+ICH7M) HP 690E ASUS GS45
Memory 2GB DDR2 1GB DDR2 2GB DDR2 3GB DDR2
Memory timings and speed 5-5-5-15-2T @ 800MHz 4-4-4-12-2T @ 533MHz 5-5-5-15-2T @ 639.4MHz 6-6-6-18-2T @ 800MHz
Graphics card(s) NVIDIA ION (GeForce 9400M) Intel GMA 950 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 512MB (550MHz core, 1,000MHz mem) Intel X4500MHD
Screen size and native res N/A 10in - 1,024x600 12.1in - 1,280x800 12.1in - 1,280x800
WiFi 802.11b/g/n 802.11b/g/n Broadcom 802.11b/g Intel WiFi 5100 802.11a/b/g/n
Disk drive(s) Hitachi 160GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache Hitachi 160GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache Western Digital 320GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache Hitachi 320GB, 5,400RPM, 8MB cache
Optical drive(s) None None External DVD-ReWriter 8x DVD ReWriter
Graphics driver Intel 6.14.10.4906 Intel 6.14.10.4906 CATALYST 9.1 Intel 7.15.10.1666
Battery (as tested) N/A 48WHr 55WHr 47WHr
Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 Windows HP Home Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, 32-bit  Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, 32-bit 
Weight 741g 1,293g 1,668g (without optical) 1,822g
Current price (as tested) £299 £309 £569 £799

 

Benchmarks 7-zip (7z4.65, 32-bit) compression of 205MB worth of photos
HEXUS.PiFast - calculation to 10m places
CINEBENCH - multi-CPU render
VLC 0.9.9 playback of Terminator Salvation 480p, 720p, and 1080p.mov
MPC-HC playback of Terminator Salvation 1080p.mov
Quake 4 v1.30 - 1,024x600 
Battery test -Terminator Salvation 480p movie (VLC or MPC-HC) looping

Notes

We're comparing the performance of the nettop PB Imax Mini to a recently-reviewed ASUS U20A netbook and a further couple ultraportable notebooks from AMD and Intel. The Atom N230 is practically identical to the N270, save for a higher TDP - 4W vs. 2.5W - and provision for 64-bit extensions. Both feature Hyper-Threading.

In terms of benchmarks, 7-zip is a compression program that's dual-threaded for optimum performance. We're compressing 58 photos into one file and measuring the time taken to do so.

HEXUS.PiFast tests single-core performance and CINEBENCH stresses as many cores as are available.

The video-playback tests take in three resolutions of the Terminator Salvation trailer, as found here. We use VLC player to play a one-minute section - from minutes one to two - on the 480p, 720p, and 108p clips. An average CPU utilisation is then derived from the Resource Monitor. The 1080p test is re-run if the laptop supports GPU-based acceleration via MPC-HC.

A nod towards gaming, venerable Quake 4 is fired up and run at 1,024x600 - the base resolution common to most netbooks.

The above tests are run on mains power with the nettop(s)/laptop(s) set to high-performance mode.