by Scott Tammel

Getting Started 

Out of the box the 6805 is loaded with 512 MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM, Windows XP Home, and a lot of extra junk that most of you wouldn’t need.  So being the sensible person I am, I loaded Windows XP Pro, bumped memory up to 768MB, and started fresh.  As soon as XP Pro was loaded and things were up and running, you could really see how powerful the machine is.  Start up time is great, and from the moment the unit was running, I just wanted to play.

Layout is standard, and the keyboard is of a very nice size.

Taking a look at the laptop itself it has a nice, sleek, black exterior highlighted with silver.  The unit itself also has blue LEDs that highlight the power button and several other spots.  A 15.4” widescreen display tops everything off.  One nice thing about the laptop is that it does include a 4 pin Firewire adapter so for those who are looking to hook up something like a DV camera so the user will not need an additional card.  There is also a “Media Reader” where I was able to throw in a Sony Memory Stick and it was able to read photos I had taken just fine.  On the front of the laptop, there is also very easy access to the harddrive.  Simply one screw and you can swap out harddrives, which seems to be a really nice feature for those who may need a lot of space or multiple operating systems.

The keyboard and touchpad are all pretty standard.  The keyboard is built well and has an average feel, but if you plan on doing heavy typing, obviously an external keyboard is best.  The touchpad has a side bar that would be the equivalent to a mouse scroll wheel where you can run your finger down or up it to scroll up and down the screen.  This is a nice option though I found it a bit touchy at times.

The back features from left to right: power cable, mic in, headphones out, modem, RJ-45, VGA-Out, 2 x USB ports, and the S-Video out.

There will be no examination of the Broadcom Wireless card built into the laptop.  Josh has already reviewed multiple D Link routers and used the same laptop model in testing.  You can find more about the performance of the Broadcom wireless here.

Gaming 

One thing that definitely piqued my interest in the 6805 is that with the Mobility 9600 otherwise known as the “M10” has full hardware based DX9 support.  Couple this with a Mobile Athlon 64 and you are looking at a very good gaming capable laptop for a price that is significantly lower than many tailor made laptops geared specifically for gaming.   

Though I could easily go very in depth as why I’m doing what I do, the bottom line is synthetic and real world benchmarks are going to be used.  The argument of what is synthetic cheats, and what ever else is out there can be made, but I’m simply including the 3DMark03 in this as a reference point to be used in quick comparison with other systems of similar caliber for those who still use any Futuremark product.  Tests were done in standard 1024x768 with AA and AF disabled as well as 2xAA and 4xAF just for fun. 

Next: Aquamark and more results

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