Acer TravelMate 506DX

At its price, the TravelMate was the cheapest notebook in the

shootout. Barring its Celeron 433 MHz processor, the other specs are similar to

the ACI Performer II. It uses the same NeoMagic display card with 2 MB VRAM and

a 12.1" HPA/TFT screen. It gave a maximum resolution of 1,024x768 with

16-bit color depth, which is the same as the ACI Performer. However, in terms of

performance it didn’t fare as well as the Performer II.

It

only managed a score of 9.83 Winmarks in Business Winstone 99. The reason for

this seems to be the 32 MB RAM. Adding 32 MB more RAM will definitely boost its

performance. The good news is that the RAM can be upgraded up to 160 MB. The

user can easily do this by simply removing one screw.

Like the ACI, this one too weighs around 5.5 kgs with the

travel bag and other accessories. It also has a built-in FDD and a CD-ROM drive,

so you don’t have to leave anything behind while on the move. It also has an

integrated 56K modem and a USB port. In addition to this, it also has two PCMCIA

slots. However, it doesn’t have an IR port.

The TravelMate gave a backup time of 2:02 hours, which was

lower than the ACI Performer II. It also took around four hours to recharge. The

notebook comes pre-installed with Win 98 SE and has a decent restore CD with an

easy-to-use browser interface. You can install specific drivers or applications

from here. The CD is also bootable, which helps in recovering from a disk crash.

This is a one-year warranty for the notebook and three months for the

batteries.