Falcon Northwest FragBook TL-2

The Falcon Northwest FragBook TL-2 is an eye-catching portable from the gaming specialists. Its most distinguishing features are a custom paint job and ATI graphics. Other companies are catching up on color options, but if you’re a hardcore gamer on the go, only a specialty system like this one will do.

At first glance, your eyes go directly to the distinctive falcon’s head logo on the front cover. Beyond that, it’s a basic box design. At 6.5 pounds and 15.5 x 11.8 x 2 inches, the FragBook TL-2 is completely manageable for occasional travel. The silver touchpad is wide and curves down at the bottom on each side, giving the system a sleek look. The buttons, on the other hand, are not sensitive enough; you have to press pretty hard to get a response. Furthermore, the paint job nearly obscures the icons that tell you what the buttons actually do. The same goes for the five blue indicator lights on the bottom front right. They seem to say, “something’s running, but we’re not going to tell you what.”

Another gripe we had with the design was the rubber feet on the bottom of the system. One fell off, causing the notebook to wobble on the table, and two of the others were on the verge of tearing off after only a few days of testing. Falcon Northwest includes the standard four USB ports, FireWire, S-Video, a VGA port, and a 3-in-1 card reader. A cool Black Ops aluminum carrying case is included with the system. The case is heavier and bulkier than most, but it’s the ultimate protection for your investment and looks professional.

The 15.4-inch WXGA display is bright and wide, and DVD playback was crisp and clear. The speakers, one on each side above the keyboard, don’t give the extra boost you’ll need for full enjoyment of movies and games. If sound is a priority for you, you’ll want to add an external pair of speakers or use headphones.

Falcon Northwest opted for the Turion 64 Mobile processor, which offers more than enough firepower for any task. Word processing and Web browsing in multiple windows produced no lag, and the MobileMark 2005 score of 264 beats both the Alienware m5500 and ABS Mayhem G4 reviewed in this issue.

You don’t normally see an ATI Radeon X700 graphics card on a sub 7-pound system, but Falcon Northwest has its sights set on mobile gamers. Its 3DMark03 score of 5,703 is quite good, but lower than the Nvidia-armed m5500 and Mayhem G4. In our F.E.A.R. test, the FragBook scored a respectable 36 frames per second on the autodetect settings and a mediocre 10 fps on the maximum settings. By comparison, these scores are not as good as the ABS Mayhem, which scored 45 fps for the autodetect and 12 fps for the maximum settings. Likewise, the Alienware Area-51 m5500 also scored better at 44 and 12 fps with the same settings.

The TL-2 provides a decent battery life of 3 hours and 7 minutes with the Wi-Fi radio turned off. Turn it on and the endurance drops down an entire hour. Average wireless throughputs of 12.2 and 7.7 at 5 and 50 feet from the access point are nothing to brag about, but we’ve seen worse.

The only included software worth mentioning is Zone Labs Internet Suite for security. Everything else was pretty standard. Falcon Northwest includes a no-frills one-year warranty with an option to upgrade to three years of coverage for a modest price. The Pixel Perfect Guarantee is unique; every notebook the company ships is guaranteed to have a perfect display. For the duration of the warranty, the company will replace the display should even one pixel go dead or get stuck on a single color.

For $2,749, the Falcon Northwest TL-2 packs in lots of power, but you have to have a very strong desire to stand out from the crowd to pay a $700 premium over the more tame-looking Mayhem G4 or m5500. If money is no object and you’re looking for a hot paint job, the FragBook TL-2 may be for you.