Laptop Era Dawns

Wide-Aspect LCDs: Displays Get Big, Really Big

To find out, we test-drove Toshiba's Satellite P25-S507 and Hypersonic PC Systems' Sonic Aviator ZX7. (VoodooPC, the only other vendor shipping such a notebook at press time, could not provide its Envy M:700 model by our deadline.)

There's no denying it: 17-inch screens are eye-popping. Resembling mini LCD TVs, they display brilliant graphics and are easy to read, even at their native resolution of 1440 by 900 pixels.

Though none of these systems are ideal for road warriors, these first Windows notebooks are much heavier and thicker than Apple's trendsetter. While just as attractive as the 1-inch-tall, 6.8-pound Powerbook, the P25 and ZX7 measure 1.8 and 1.7 inches tall and weigh 9.8 and 9.1 pounds, respectively.

However, the Powerbook starts at a heart-stopping $3299. For $2099, you can get a P25-S507 with a 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 chip, 512MB of RAM, 32MB NVidia GeForce FX Go5200 graphics, a DVD-R/RW drive, wireless 802.11a/b connectivity, a 60GB hard drive, an SD memory card slot, and Windows XP Home. Buying the $2699 P25-S607 model gets you 64MB of graphics RAM, a DVD Multi drive (which also burns DVD-RAM discs), and XP Media Center Edition.

The P25's modest set of audio buttons and separate volume wheel do a good job of controlling the fairly loud stereo sound, but we missed the bass-thumping subwoofer found on other Satellites.

Whereas the P25 aims to be your all-in-one multimedia center, the Sonic Aviator ZX7 offers standard functions along with a leading-edge LCD and unrelated extras. Among its advantages are a superior keyboard--which feels steadier than the P25's and includes a separate numeric keypad--and richer sound, thanks to a subwoofer.

However, the ZX7 has no audio controls or XP MCE upgrade option. A fixed floppy drive eliminates the two-optical-drive option, making the unit a bit clunky for burning discs. The closed design extends to the RAM and hard drive, which are tricky to remove.

The ZX7 also features a small Web camera built in to the lid (the camera wasn't working on our unit). That, along with Bluetooth connectivity, an open memory slot, and a slightly faster CPU and graphics card than the P25's, brings the ZX7's price to $2890.

For all their stunning size, 17-inch LCDs, like those of most notebooks, are not perfect multimedia displays. To make games fill the screen, we had to lower the resolution to 1024 by 768, and we could not get rid of the familiar black border in DVD movies at all. Good news, though: System prices are already dropping.

By the time you read this, HP should be shipping the Pavilion ZD7000, a 9.3-pound unit with 128MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a 2.4-GHz P4, and a 17-inch LCD for only $1799.