Killer Notebooks Assassin

Author:  Rafael Rios Date:  2007.01.29 Topic:  Notebooks Provider:  Killer Notebooks Manufacturer:  Killer Notebooks

Weight:

The Assassin Notebook configured for TechWareLabs weighed in at 11 lbs., and combined with the weight of the AC adapter that weighs 1.8 lbs. we have a total combined weight of 12.8 lbs. This is actually very light considering this notebook comes with dual video cards and dual hard drives, not to mention its staggering 20 inch display.

Storage:

The Assassin we received came with dual Seagate hard drives setup in Raid-0 striping, not your normal OEM hard drives normally supplied by notebook makers, but rather the same type of retail hard drives you can buy normally from your local retailer. These drives come with 3 to 5 year warranty periods making them the best choice should you be able to choose what hard drives you can get with your next notebook.

Battery Life:

Most desktop replacement or high-end laptops generally do not last very long when subjected to load while on battery power. The Assassin falls into this category. During our testing, the power consumption while on battery power while either viewing videos, playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, LockOn: Flaming Cliffs and Battlefield 2142 was limited from approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour maximum. Like our previous battery tests for laptops, we allowed the battery to cool and then recharge, we timed the Assassin while we only browsed the internet occasionally during this test and found that the battery power lasted approximately for 2 hours. Like other test laptops, the frame rates in games will differ greatly if playing on AC power versus on battery power because of processor throttle-back to permit greater battery life. Most laptops are engineered to throttle-back the processor and subsystem when they do not detect AC power so this is normal for a laptop system to do. The processor in the Assassin, the AMD TL-60 Turion X2 64 throttled back from 2.0 Ghz to 803 Mhz while in its battery-save mode.

Display:

The 1680 x 1050 resolution on the large 20" super-clear display was very impressive and glossy. There were some reflective issues due to the glossiness of the display but other than being the current trend in laptops, the glossy high visibility displays greatly enhance the color and images seen. DVD movies and games look far better on a glossy display, than on displays with a matte finish. The Assassin Notebook has a WSXGA+ (16:10) LCD display with 290-nits brightness , which is viewable even in direct sunlight. Here at TechWareLabs we highly recommend getting the higher end resolution displays since current video cards can fully take advantage of the vast resolutions they have to offer.