ABS Mayhem G4 Revolution

At roughly the same price as the Alienware Area-51 m5500, ABS’ Mayhem G4 Revolution wants in on the dual-graphics action, promising the choice between performance and battery life with the flip of a switch. With both a mid-tier Nvidia graphics chip and an integrated Intel 915 chipset, users can opt for Nvidia’s powerful graphics, optimized for gaming, or a garden-variety Intel chip that’s far less powerful but extends the battery life by 62 minutes. The G4 is a decent hybrid that works both as a regular mainstream laptop and one can get its game on when it needs to.
 
The silver-and-black exterior reflects the mainstream appeal the G4 aspires to, and while it’s not terribly original, the design works nonetheless. The G4 weighs seven pounds, which is a definite asset for a notebook that’s gaming-capable, especially since hardcore gaming notebooks often weigh nearly twice as much.

 Virtually all notebooks include only one dedicated graphics chip from Nvidia or ATI to handle CPU-intensive tasks, or a lower-profile chip integrated into the motherboard that delivers less powerful performance, but will stretch out the battery life. The G4 has both, and users can select one or the other with a converted Wireless On/Off switch on the front of the notebook.

 The only catch is that, like the Alienware m5500, the system must be completely powered-down to switch between the two modes or it will cause Windows to crash. It’s an unavoidable technical limitation, but undeniably a downer for someone who wants the freedom to hot swap between playing a game one minute and word processing the next without the hassle of rebooting.

 The Nvidia GeForce Go 6600 earned a 3DMark03 score of 6,220 score, which is more than six times as fast as the 934 that the integrated Intel 915 chipset recorded. We tested it with F.E.A.R. and logged an average frame rate of 45 frames per second with autodetect settings, which is pretty good. The Nvidia chip has enough horsepower to play any game on the market today like Battlefield 2, Doom 3, or Far Cry, but not enough to play it at the highest settings.

 The Nvidia chip holds up its end of the bargain, but the Intel Centrino combination offers an extra hour of battery life. The 2.13-GHz Intel Pentium M processor with the Sonoma 915 chipset yielded 2 hours and 57 minutes of runtime, a 62-minute increase from the 1 hour and 55 minutes of endurance with the Nvidia 6600. This is about the same difference you’ll see in the Alienware m5500, but that system runs 40 minutes longer, making the time investment of rebooting more worthwhile. On the other hand, the Alienware turned in a lower MobileMark 2005 productivity score of 213, compared to the G4’s 253.

 The 15.4-inch, WXGA display does a good job displaying DVDs. Note that ABS does not offer Windows Media Center as a configurable option (Alienware does), so users looking for the ease of built-in functions to help manage their entertainment libraries will need to buy the operating system elsewhere.

 Preinstalled software includes Ahead’s Nero Burning suite, the most respected program for people serious about burning CDs and DVDs. A 4-in-1 reader accepts SD, MMC, MS, and MS Pro memory cards for easy transfer of photos. Customer support for such a small company is limited to telephone and e-mail, but the warranty lasts the standard one year.

 The central premise of the ABS Mayhem G4, a dual graphics system that alternately delivers high-performance graphics and battery-conscious use, would be worth a little more if the battery lasted longer. However, ABS deserves credit for being among the first to implement such a bold and innovative idea in a notebook.