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Product summary
The good: Big, beautiful display; cutting-edge components, such as a subwoofer and a TV-tuner card; spacious keyboard.
The bad: Short battery life; heavy; inefficient use of case space.
The bottom line: If you want a big, portable screen for watching DVDs, get the Eurocom D470W Impressa. But steer clear if you need long battery life or a lightweight traveling companion.
Specifications: Processor: Intel Pentium 4 (2.4 GHz); RAM installed: 256 MB DDR SDRAM; Weight: 7.5 lbs; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 07/18/2003
- Released on: 06/01/2003
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 The 17-inch screen is one of the first on a Windows notebook. |
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The Eurocom D470W Impressa can hardly be called a laptop, as the giant portable won't fit the average lap. Largely due to its mammoth, 17-inch screen, the desktop replacement measures a considerable 10.8 by 15.5 by 1.4 inches, and it weighs 9.3 pounds. A system this big needs a proportionately large, 1.7-pound AC adapter to supply sufficient power, pushing the travel weight to more than 10 pounds.
Such a roomy case allows for plenty of features. The D470W Impressa's big and wide keyboard even includes a dedicated numeric pad, which is rare for a notebook. Three handy, user-programmable buttons sit in the upper-right corner above the keyboard, and a touchpad with two big mouse buttons plus a third scroll button lie underneath the board. (There's no pointing stick.)
 The keyboard is huge, with room for a numeric pad. |
 Two big mouse buttons and a scroll button sit below the touchpad. |
We applaud Eurocom's smart choice of speaker placement. Two speakers flank the sides of keyboard, and another two rest in the front-edge corners. While it would have been easy to put the speakers in the ample wrist rest, the chosen arrangement prevents your hands from muffling the sound when you're typing. All those speakers produce an especially rich sound, particularly if you add the internal subwoofer option when you buy.
Not all of Eurocom's design choices were as wise. The company paired both a cutting-edge DVD-R/-RW drive and an old floppy drive on the left edge; it should have booted the latter in favor of lighter weight. Fortunately, Eurocom plans to convert the floppy-drive space into a second internal bay that will support add-ons, such as an internal TV-tuner card. We'd also rather see convenient DVD and volume controls take the place of the included legacy ports--serial, PS/2, and parallel. Since most of today's keyboards, mice, and printers are based on newer technologies such as USB 2.0, there's little need to keep the old ports around. The Eurocom's edge space would be better spent on convenient buttons for controlling CD or DVD playback and volume.
Additional ports and slots include VGA, S-Video out, 56Kbps modem, Ethernet, and two USB 2.0 ports on the back edge; another USB 2.0 port and one Type II PC Card slot on the left edge; and IrDA, FireWire, headphone, microphone, S/PDIF audio in, and a wireless On/Off switch on the front edge.
There's no shortage of configuration options for the D470W Impressa. The system's Intel Pentium 4 desktop processor is available in speeds ranging from 2GHz to 3.06GHz. Main memory runs at 333MHz and comes in amounts ranging from 256MB to 2GB. Six hard drive choices exist at three speeds: 4,200rpm (30GB, 40GB, 60GB, and 80GB), 5,400rpm (40GB), and an extrafast 7,200rpm (60GB). Secondary optical storage drive options include DVD, DVD/CD-RW, and DVD-R/-RW. Finally, you can buy a number of cool integrated options for the D470W Impressa, including a subwoofer, a TV-tuner card, a Bluetooth card, and a six-in-one card reader that recognizes Multimedia, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, SmartMedia, and CompactFlash cards, as well as IBM's Microdrive.
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 The Eurocom's single media bay can accommodate a variety of optical drives. |
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For now, the D470W Impressa's single media bay supports only certain combinations of these add-ons. For example, you can't put both an internal TV-tuner card and subwoofer in one system because they both consume the same slot. In the coming months, Eurocom said that it will replace the internal floppy drive with a second swappable bay, letting you house more than one add-on at a time.
Eurocom doesn't give you a say in some of the system's components: the 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon graphics chip, the built-in floppy drive, and the 17-inch display with a 1,440x900 native resolution are all standard features. We're a bit surprised that the company provides only one wireless mini-PCI card option (802.11b); most cutting-edge desktop replacements also offer the faster 802.11g.
The notebook ships with the standard operating-system choices: Windows XP Home, XP Professional, and 2000. Additional software is basically nonexistent, consisting of Realtek Autodek for DVD playback and recording.
Mobile performance
The Eurocom D470W Impressa came in second place in mobile performance in our small roundup. The system scored more than 30 points behind the Alienware Area 51m, which is disappointing considering that both systems use the same processor. This is mobile performance, however, which has less to do with processor speed and more to do with the power efficiency of the architecture. Overall, the Eurocom D470W Impressa has disappointing but not terrible mobile performance.
Mobile application performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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SysMark2002 performance
The Eurocom D470W showed its highest performance in our maximum performance test. Thanks to its slightly faster 333MHz DDR SDRAM, the system came out on top in overall maximum performance. The Alienware Area 51m's DDR RAM has a speed of 266MHz.
Maximum application performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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To measure maximum notebook application performance, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's SysMark2002, an industry-standard benchmark. Using off-the-shelf applications, SysMark measures a desktop's performance using office-productivity applications (such as Microsoft Office and McAfee VirusScan) and Internet-content-creation applications (such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver).
3D graphics performance
The Eurocom D470W came in last place in our 3D performance test. This is quite surprising since it has the same graphics adapter as that of the comparison systems, as well as the fastest processor of the three. It could be that the newer ATI drivers within the Eurocom D470W had an adverse effect on its 3D performance. That said, its 3D performance is is still high and would satisfy most. It's just not world shattering.
3D graphics performance (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Find out more about how we test notebooks.
To measure 3D graphics performance, CNET Labs uses Futuremark's 3DMark2001 SE. We use 3DMark to measure desktop replacement notebook performance with the DirectX 8.1 interface at the 32-bit color setting at a resolution of 1,024x768.
System configurations:Alienware Area-51m
Windows XP Professional; 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB; IBM Travelstar 40GN 40GB 5,400rpm
Eurocom D470W Impressa
Windows XP Professional; 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB; Fujitsu MHS2030AT 30GB 4,200rpm
Fujitsu LifeBook N series
Windows XP Home; 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4; 512MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 8500 64MB; Hitachi DK23EA-60 60GB 4,200rpm
The Eurocom D470W Impressa's battery life left much to be desired. It scored dead last in our roundup, coming in at less than two hours. Much of the lackluster battery life is thanks to its power-hungry 3.06GHz processor. The Alienware Area 51m has the same processor but compensates with two batteries. The Eurocom D470W has no such advantages, and its battery life suffers as a result.
Battery life (Longer bars indicate better performance)
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To measure mobile application performance and battery life, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's MobileMark2002. MobileMark measures both application performance and battery life concurrently using a number of popular applications (Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Netscape Communicator 6.0, WinZip Computing WinZip 8.0, McAfee VirusScan 5.13, Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1, and Macromedia Flash 5.0).
Find out more about how we test notebooks.
System configurations:Alienware Area 51m
Windows XP Professional; 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB; IBM Travelstar 40GN 40GB 5,400rpm
Eurocom D470W Impressa
Windows XP Professional; 3.06GHz Intel Pentium 4; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB; Fujitsu MHS2030AT 30GB 4,200rpm
Fujitsu LifeBook N series
Windows XP Home; 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4; 512MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon 8500 64MB; Hitachi DK23EA-60 60GB 4,200rpm
Service and support often suffer a bit at the hands of smaller notebook makers who lack ample resources, and Eurocom is no exception. However, the system does include the same one-year, return-to-depot, parts-and-labor warranty as notebooks from bigger companies. It also offers the ability to extend the support via a number of options, including up to three years of onsite support for $300. But Eurocom's tech-support lines are open only Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET.
The company's support Web site is also immature. At press time, it contained only a handful of FAQs in three categories: display, power, and battery. Eurocom claims it will flesh out this offering in the coming weeks. The printed manual is not for newbies, either, since its language and topics are fairly technical.
To find out more about how this product's warranty really stacks up and what you should look for in terms of service and support, take a look at CNET's hardware warranty explainer.
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