As of late, the Pentium-M mobile processor and Centrino technology have really begun to proliferate themselves into the marketplace in large numbers. Sales for both the slim/lightweight and desktop replacement notebooks have, for the large part, been successful as functions of multi-tasking and space-saving, respectively. However, this still leaves the matter of the ultraportable market. Previous mobile systems in this market have been met with mixed success because the limitations of weight and size have forced designers to compromise performance that even slim mobile systems could offer. Pentium-M and Centrino technology brings Intel to the forefront again with a tangible solution to bridge the limitations of weight and size with that of performance. Granted, a Centrino based system will not perform at the same level of their thin and light counterparts, but it is one step up the ladder.

Intel has already made a strong campaign to emphasize the benefits of Centrino technology on two main fronts: extended battery life and wireless connectivity. These two traits make Centrino an excellent choice around which to design an ultraportable system. Tablet PCs are intrinsically thought of as ultraportable, as they need to be light enough to be carried around long durations and versatile enough to perform general office functions on the go. They already have the benefit of wireless, but designers have had to scale back to lower voltage hungry processors, such as the Transmeta Crusoe. This has led to the lack of performance, even in simple functions like running animated Windows XP screens or watching visualizations in Windows Media Player. Even the few tablet PCs that used the low voltage Pentium III-M lagged a bit in performance. While this give-and-take scenario is understood, the market has been waiting for ultraportable mobile units, such as the tablet PC, to come to a point where performance, battery life, and form (dimensions and weight) reach an epicenter. Therefore, a Centrino based tablet PC will have the benefit of battery life and form, the likes of its predecessors, but will come with the additional benefit of performance.

So far, there are two main companies featuring convertible tablet PCs: Toshiba and Acer. Remember that convertible tablet PCs are crosses between a slim/lightweight notebook and a slate tablet PC, and previous models from either company have been based on a low voltage Pentium III-M in order to accommodate the functionality of a notebook. However, Acer is the first to the plate with a Centrino based tablet PC, which is supposed to bring some performance edge into the traditional tablet PC. Let’s take a look to see if Centrino is adding the performance kick into tablet PCs.

Tablet PCs — Where are we now?

The cost and technology speed bumps of tablet PCs, among other mobile systems, have really held them back from the mainstream market. They are meant to be marketed toward the masses as an everyday away from the desk solution. Tablet PCs are not supposed to replace a dedicated computer, whether it is to be a notebook or a desktop. Rather, it is to enhance productivity in addition to one. The most lightweight and ultraportable notebooks still are not designed to be used while walking around the office. They still require the user to sit down and type away commands, like any desktop.

The cost factor is certainly one to bring into mind, as perhaps the biggest barriers to their large proliferation. Considering that they are intended to compliment a dedicated computer, it brings the whole price tag to almost 2 computers; the tablet being one and the dedicated computer being the other. Most people don’t have the cash to shell out for a tablet PC after buying a notebook or a desktop. If a current tablet PC only costed $1000 or under, we most definitely would see more of them. Due to their purpose as almost an accessory, their purchase is a secondary thought for most. And for this reason, a future price drop will obviously increase the popularity of tablet PCs.

The second factor is the technology speed bumps that tablet PCs have been facing. Everything that a tablet PC is designed around is still focused on mobility and everything encompassing that term: heat dissipation, power consumption, power management, etc. This focus still must bear in mind the minimum acceptable performance that consumers will tolerate. If a system is not capable of running a Windows Media Player visualization or screensaver smoothly, most would consider that below minimum. After all, this is still the era where a user seeks a GHz processor, because it is associated with incredibly fast desktops and desknotes.

As we noted before, the low voltage Pentium III-M systems still weren’t completely satisfactory from a design and practical standpoint, and many system designers had to use Transmeta from a lack of available options. As Anand mentioned in our Centrino review, low voltage Pentium III-M processors still were basically desktop components clocked down for use in mobile systems. Transmeta wasn’t that much better because, while it consumed less power, it didn’t bring the necessary performance. Even though we are just starting to break the mobile barrier with Centrino technology, it brings the necessary performance and architectural design for true blue mobile systems to us now. Tablet PCs and ultraportable notebooks both need to function away from the wall for at least 3 hours, and be able to charge faster than the previous generation. Both of these traits still point back to the processor, which needs to consume less power and will, in turn, produce less heat. Because Centrino accomplishes that, we have already seen its quick success. While ultraportable notebooks have already embraced this technology, Centrino based tablet PCs are just starting to make their way into the market. We have word that in the coming months, there will be several product announcements that involve Centrino based tablet PCs, as even some previous Transmeta based tablet PC lines switch to Centrino.

Construction — Build, Appearance, Size

In terms of convertible tablet PCs, the Toshiba Protégé 3500 tablet PC is actually more popular in the North American market, while overall, Acer has had some trouble in North America due to market strategy. This is apparent at most shopping outlets, including our own Price Check Engine. Though, we should note that the Acer TravelMate C100 was and still is the #1 tablet PC in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa).

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In all respects, the TravelMate C110 looks very much like the C100, and follows the same general design. It is opened via a single sliding clip in the center of the system’s front. Just slide the clip to the left, open, and it appears in its notebook’s function.

Like most slate tablet PCs, the C110 line uses the standard 10.4" XGA LCD display, which can run at a maximum resolution of 1024x768x16. Considering that an ultraportable notebook uses a screen size of 12.1", the C110 is a bit physically challenged when it comes to performing as a notebook. It is suited fine as a tablet PC because most people will be holding it at a 1' distance from their face, which is about the optimal size to keep everything within eye range. When using a notebook, most people sit at about a 2' from their notebook display, and this may mean the C110’s 10.4" XGA LCD display is going to take some time to get use to.

When converting to tablet PC mode, you just need to unclip the two clips on the bottom far left and right of the LCD display. Then you just twist clockwise and fold the display back. After that, you just need to re-secure the clips and you find it in tablet PC mode. Acer recommends that you make sure the display is within 85° to 95° of the base of the unit before you make the transition to tablet PC mode. But this is just to avoid scraping the top of the keyboard. To get back to notebook mode, you go backwards, which is easy enough.

You may have already noticed that the clip to open the C110 is two-sided. By this, we mean that when you unclip the C110 in notebook mode, an identical secure hook appears on the top side of the display. This serves the purpose for automated orientation. When you switch to tablet PC mode and fold back the display, the hook on the top side of the display secures into the slot, which also closes in the notebook mode. There is a pressure point that detects when the hook secures, and this changes the display orientation from landscape to portrait. There is an immediate problem one notices: the stereo is covered by the tablet PC, and any sound is directed to the back of the display, which makes the sound muffled.

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The C110’s keyboard design has some give and take issues, as a result of the screen size. Overall, Acer has done a good job with the form of this convertible tablet PC. Given that the screen size is 10.4", the keyboard couldn’t be the size of what even ultraportable notebooks are touting. There are two factors that seem to make you sense that the keyboard is spaced too closely: key size and key font. Keys on the C110 are about one millimeter smaller, when compared to other similar keyboard layouts. As a spacing comparison, the IBM ThinkPad X31 has alphanumeric keys spaced 18.5mm (vertically) and 18.2mm (horizontally), and technically considered to be under a full sized keyboard’s specifications. Meanwhile, the C110 is spaced 17.5mm (vertically and horizontally). In addition, the low profile design of the keyboard reduces height/sloping and curvature of keys, even more so than on other similar notebooks designs. With the smaller keys, we found the markings use about the same size font, but don’t seem to use the bold type effect that we have seen on other similar keyboards. While the font issue plays more on the eyes, the low profile keyboard design C110 had very little tactile feedback. However, it seems Acer manages to still feature arrow keys. Though, they are multifunctional as controls for volume and brightness.

The touchpad, left and right mouse buttons, and a four-way internet scroll key are directly below the spacebar and to the right of the C110’s only speaker. The mouse buttons and the internet scroll key are made of a similar material as the casing, which leaves a bit to be desired in tactile feel. The four-way internet scroll key could specifically use some work by indenting the center/increasing curvature to get a more natural feel, which would be more preferable to four raised points.

When in either notebook or tablet PC mode, the C110’s display features buttons that enable certain functions outside of a keyboard. This is mandated by Microsoft, who certifies tablet PCs for use with their Windows XP tablet PC Edition. For purposes of explanation, we will stick with landscape orientation to describe the layout of the button locations. To the bottom and the right of the display, there are three buttons (starting from the right): round, down/left, and up/right. Their associated actions are Enter, Down, and Up, respectfully. On the right side near the bottom of the display, there are two buttons (from the top down), the Ctrl-Alt-Delete button and the Function button. Acer seems to have understood that too many additional buttons doing dedicated functions can create a layout problem where the user may mistakenly keep hitting buttons. In order to drain the most out of the few buttons, the Fn button, like on the keyboard, allows for other buttons to perform other actions: change orientation (Fn + up/right), escape (Fn + round), and tab (Fn + down/left). While these are the defaults, they can be changed to do a range of many actions.

Indicator lights on the C110 are located in two spots: one array of LED lights is on the front and the other on the back. The front LED status lights (from the top) reveals: number lock (green when on), caps lock (green when on), battery charge (orange when charging), media activity (green when accessing floppy, hard drive, or optical drive), sleep mode (orange in sleep mode), power (green while system is active), and Bluetooth/WLAN (red when either are active).

On the front, the color scheme is the same, but there are only three LED status lights (from the top): sleep mode, power, and Bluetooth/WLAN.

The long string of LEDs and buttons surround the 10.4" XGA LCD, which is electro magnetic according to the Microsoft Tablet PC specification. Again, we don’t know for certain if this is the same 10.4" display that was used in the previous tablet PCs we have seen, but we do know that the digitizer unit is. Like the Electrovaya Scribbler SC500 and the FIC SlateVision tablet PC, the C110 uses the Wacom 10.4" digitizer with a W8001 controller board, which we previously mentioned is capable of reporting 133 times per second with 256 levels of pressure resolution. For the C110, it is situated behind the left side of the 10.4" XGA LCD. This has basically become the standard for tablet PCs with electrostatic digitizers (for more information on the digitizer technology, read here). Briefly, digitizer technology just means that the screen is not touch sensitive, and the included stylus doesn’t have to touch the screen to move the cursor.

Since the C110 is a tablet PC, the screen is covered by a protective sheet of glass, which resists damage (cracking, scratching, etc.) and the generation of false colors due to acute pressure. The protective glass that covers the screen seems closer to that of the Electrovaya Scribbler SC500, because of its overall smoothness. The stylus didn’t glide aimlessly, but it could use some more texture to the screen surface; we should note that it would not reduce visibility.

The buttons and LEDs surround a 10.4" XGA LCD display that runs at 16-bit color. The screen, which is electro-magnetic according to the Microsoft Tablet PC specification, appears to be the same screen used in the FIC SlateVision. The screens have similar appearances, although the Scribbler SC500's screen did appear brighter than that of the pre-production SlateVision we looked at previously. Although we cannot know for certain that the 10.4" display in the Scribbler SC500 is the same as that used in the SlateVision, we do know that the digitizer units used in both are the same; something we will examine more once we take the unit apart. For now, just keep in mind that the screen is not touch sensitive. The included pen does not actually have to make contact with the screen to move the cursor (for more information on the digitizer technology, read here).

Construction — Build, Appearance, Size (continued)

Seeing that the C110 is a convertible tablet PC and small in its own right, there is only a single clip that secures the screen when closed. There isn’t much on the front of the C110 except for an infrared port and small hole for a microphone. While the microphone is out of the way of general typing, it isn’t when the touchpad is to be used. The scuffling motions will create unwanted noise. This also is a poor location, considering the C110’s function as a tablet PC. When switched to a tablet PC, there is really no way for the microphone to pick up speech directly without turning the C110 explicitly for that purpose. It doesn’t matter if you are right handed or left handed, but in either tablet PC portrait orientation, the microphone is going to be covered by either your hand or your inner forearm. In normal tablet PC landscape orientation, the microphone will be facing away. In the inversed tablet PC landscape orientation, the microphone will be facing your torso and likely covered by whatever garment you are wearing. This also goes for the infrared port. But in normal tablet PC landscape orientation, it will still serve its purpose, since it will point to the device with which you want to communicate.

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On the right side of the C110, there are several I/O connectors. Starting from the left side, there is a PCMCIA slot, stereo output, mono line input, one unpowered 4 pin IEEE1394 firewire port, and two USB 2.0 ports. It should be noted that a rubber cover must be removed to reveal the USB and firewire ports. The rubber is quite durable, and is a good substitute to a hard plastic cover.

The C110 is just shy of completing the normal array of sound connectors, since it is missing a dedicated microphone input, but the mono line in can serve in this regard. The PCMCIA uses a removable dummy card, and we found this to be inferior to the spring door design. The dummy card doesn’t really cover the entire PCMCIA slot, so dust can collect internally over time. This is aside from the fact that the dummy card can easily be lost or damaged, since it is relatively small and make of plastic.

Above the rubber cover that hides the USB and firewire ports, there are several vents that exhaust heat from components like memory and the north bridge, which are directly below the right side of the keyboard. To the right of the USB ports, there are two additional sets of vents, which passively exhaust heat from the processor.

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The backside of the C110 also uses rubber covers to hide four ports (from the right): a connector for Acer’s Easyport replicator, modem, Ethernet (with a set of LED status lights), and VGA. Left of the connector for the port replicator, there is a Kensington lock slot and above that are several vent slots, which also passively exhaust heat from the processor.

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The left side of the C110 is featureless minus a power port and a few exhaust slots, which are for the hard drive directly below. The cover to access the hard drive can be removed, but there shouldn’t be any need to unless an upgrade is to take place. Once the cover is removed, the hard drive slides out by pulling a take to disengage it from the motherboard.

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The top, as we noted earlier, is only home to three status LEDs. The casing is made of magnesium alloy, which adds to the C110’s structural integrity and maintains the ultraportable theme. The hitch is that the hinge, which rotates the screen between the tablet PC and notebook function, is made of plastic. Upgrading it to the material of the casing will help for those unwanted drops.

The internal stylus is housed in the top right hand corner of the screen. It is thinner than Electrovaya’s internal stylus, and comes a bit harder to use. We still prefer the pen-like stylus, which we saw in the FIC SlateVision tablet, that is also included with the C110.

The TravelMate C110 measures 10.1" x 8.5" x 1.2" (257mm x 216mm x 29.7mm) and weighs 3.2lbs (1.4kg). Overall, this makes the C110 smaller and lighter than the Electrovaya Scribbler SC500 and the FIC SlateVision tablet, only exceeding either in height by a tad. The small profile design comes in handy for “on the go” functions.

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Flipping the system reveals an access panel, which covers a single SODIMM slot and an Intel MiniPCI 802.11b wireless card. The other SODIMM slot is below the keyboard, and isn’t designed to be user accessible. The only way to access the other slot is to unscrew the three screws in the row towards the back. Then, you will need to flip the system right-side up and unseat the keyboard. After that, there is an additional metal plate to the right, which must be unscrewed to access the other SODIMM slot.

The 14.8V 1.8AH Lithium Ion battery pack is to the front of the system and is fairly easy to remove by sliding the release clip. The heat generated from the battery and other internal components was reasonable, as the system is based on Centrino technology.

Construction — Under the Hood

Trying to keep the voltage consumption at its lowest, Acer has decided to go with the ultra low voltage 900MHz Pentium-M. Aside from that, the system we received was configured with the Intel 855GM chipset, 512MB DDR PC2100 memory, WiFi connectivity, and a 40.0GB 4200RPM hard drive.

Like the IBM ThinkPad X31, the Pentium-M on this system is mounted directly onto the motherboard, most likely to save space since this is also an ultraportable system. The CPU makes contact with the heatsink with some thermal interface, similar to that on some of the bottom of the Pentium 4 heatsinks.

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The aluminum heatsink that cools the CPU is attached to the metal case that covers the components on the top of the motherboard. There is no fan, as the CPU is passively cooled in this system. Within the aluminum heatsink, there is very slim copper heat pipe, which runs parallel to the keyboard. While this proves some cooling, the exhaust is passed to two aluminum ducts above and to the right of the CPU. Since there is no fan, the system is dead quiet, which is a definite plus.

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Next to the CPU sits the National Semiconductor PC87392VJG Super I/O controller for the parallel port, serial port, digitizer, and FIR. The keyboard and PS/2 are controlled by the KBC M38857, which is south of the north bridge.

To the left of CPU sits the 855GM north bridge, which has a thermal pad on the metal case covering it to help dissipate heat. Previous Centrino based systems that we have looked at have come with the 855PM north bridge, so this is a first for us. Like the Intel desktop chipsets, the G designates integrated graphics. The 855GM comes with Intel Extreme Graphics 2 technology and shares up to 64MB of video memory. This isn’t intended for even moderate 3D graphics, and our recommendation would be to stick to 2D or simple 3D graphics. While this is a space saver, the shared memory architecture is going to eat into at least 32MB of system memory and will cramp the front side bus.

While it isn’t labeled, the modem for the C110 is the Ambit V.92 MDC fax/data modem.

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The motherboard for the Acer C110 is quite small. It has a surface area that is little over that of the casing, and its gapping left side allows for the C110 to cut down on weight and clutter.

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Construction — Under the Hood (continued)

On the back side, the ICH4-M south bridge is located behind the north bridge, and even though the ICH4-M supports a total of six USB 2.0 ports, the C110 only uses two. Below the south bridge sits the Ricoh R5C551 combination controller for IEEE 1394 firewire and PC Card.

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Left of the Ricoh chip is the AC’97 audio codec: Cirrus CS4299-XQ.

The system’s Ethernet controller is located on ICH4-M south bridge, but is connected to the Intel DA82562ET 10/100 LAN PHY, which is on the right side of the motherboard.

Our system came with both SODIMM slots populated with two Infineon 256MB DDR PC2100 modules, which is the standard configuration for the C110. The maximum amount of supported memory is 1GB, which would require you to upgrade both SODIMM modules to 512MB if that is to be taken advantaged.

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Naturally, WiFi comes in the form of the Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 LAN MiniPCI adapter. As we noted before, Centrino certification comes hand in hand with using Intel’s wireless card in addition to the processor and chipset.

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The choice of a 40GB 4200RPM Hitachi Travelstar IC25N040ATCS04-0 is nothing of a surprise. A 5400RPM drive would hog more power from the battery and generate more heat, and a 4200RPM is much more preferred in this respect.

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The speaker on the C110 is just about what the IBM X31 had. It doesn’t have great audio quality, but that is expected with the ultraportable design. However, the placement of the speaker could have been a little better. In tablet PC mode, the C110’s small speaker is blocked by its own display, which makes the sound dub a bit. Placing the speaker closer to the back of the system or within the screen itself would be recommended.

Features — Hardware and Software

It would prove inconvenient to use the C110 as a notebook without a drive to load CDs. Though, a built-in drive in a tablet PC isn’t that practical because it would draw additional power and adds unnecessarily weight for an on-the-go purpose. This is why the standard C110 comes with a slim external firewire optical drive. Of the two models for the C110 (C110TCi and the C110Ti), we have the C110TCi, which comes with a combo CD-RW/DVD drive. It is interesting to note that the drive housing is made by AOpen, an Acer subsidiary. The drive itself is made by Sony and is swappable. In theory, it is possible to get a swappable hard drive or another device and swap back and forth between them. The external drive still draws power, but an AC power adapter is included.

As expected for a tablet PC, the C110 comes with Microsoft Windows XP tablet PC Edition preloaded. We cannot reiterate how much better this is over a regular copy of Windows XP with a 3^rd party handwriting recognition program.

Acer preloads a few general applications. The C110 is apparently supposed to ship with Office XP, CyberLink PowerDVD, NTI CD-Maker, Norton AntiVirus 2003, and hotkey and management software. PowerDVD will serve its purpose just fine, but NTI CD-Maker will take a bit of time to get used to, compared to Easy CD Creator. Our sample came with everything minus Office XP. While Office XP was lacking, we instead had a beta sample of Office 2003 pre-loaded for us. This seemed to be more aesthetically appealing and seemed to have a few quality improvements over Office XP when we were using it in tablet PC mode.

The hotkey utility controls the five hotkeys situated above the keyboard. The wireless button toggles 802.11 WiFi and/or Bluetooth connectivity. Our sample didn’t come with Bluetooth, and so naturally that option was not available for us. The default is not to have 802.11 WiFi active when booted up, but this can be changed within the hotkey utility.

As noted before, there are two unprogrammed hotkeys, which can be assigned to a specific program in the utility. While the wireless button can’t be reassigned, the email and internet hotkeys can.

There is only one significant program that lets you get a grapple on the C110’s various settings. Of the several options in the Notebook Manager, boot sequence and the BIOS password can be set without the hassle of actually entering the BIOS.

The power scheme settings for the C110 are only those basic built-in schemes for Windows XP. This was as expected, but it would be nice to see specific schemes like that of IBM mobile systems. It would be further recommended that one of the hotkeys be default to access the Notebook Manager, as this utility will likely come into frequent use and is an official configuration utility.

The Invilink icon is visible in the Notebook Manager and on the top of the system’s casing, and is mentioned several times in the product manual. Simply put, this dubbing is nothing more than Acer’s name for wireless connectivity.

As it goes for all tablet PCs, there are buttons near the screen. These buttons can be reassigned to other actions, and the addition of a function button allows for more actions to be assigned, since each button can now have two purposes. This is definitely welcomed, since it only helped us perform common actions while being away from the keyboard.

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The Test

Windows XP Professional Test System
	Acer TravelMate C110	Toshiba Protégé 3500	Dell Latitude D800	FIC Centrino	IBM T40	IBM T40P	Desktop System
CPU(s)	Pentium M 900MHz	Pentium III M 1.3GHz	Pentium M 1.6GHz	Pentium M 1.5GHz	Pentium M 1.5GHz	Pentium M 1.6GHz	Pentium 4 2.4GHz
Motherboard(s)	Acer 855GM	Toshiba M1644T	Dell 855PM	FIC 855PM	IBM 855PM	IBM 855PM	Intel D845EBT 845E
Memory	512MB PC2100	256MB PC133	512MB PC2100	512MB PC2100	256MB PC2100	512MB PC2100	512MB PC2100
Hard Drive	40GB 4200 RPM	40GB 5400 RPM	40GB 5400RPM	30GB 4200RPM	40GB 5400RPM	40GB 5400RPM	IBM Deskstar DPTA-372050 20.5GB 7200 RPM
CDROM	N/A	N/A	CD-RW/DVD	CD-RW/DVD	CD-RW/DVD	CD-RW/DVD	Philips 48X
Video Card(s)	Integrated 855GM	Trident CyberALADDIN-T	NVIDIA GeForce4 4200 Go 64MB DDR	Integrated 855PM	ATI Mobility Radeon 7500	ATI Mobility FireGL 9000 64MB DDR	ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB
Ethernet	Onboard Intel Pro/100VE	Onboard Intel Pro/100	Onboard Intel Gigabit	Onboard Intel Pro/100VE	Onboard Intel Gigabit	Onboard Intel Gigabit	Linksys LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter
Operating System	Windows XP Professional SP1
Video Drivers	Intel 6.13.01.3460	Trident 6.4229.221(latest available for Toshiba)	NVIDIA 42.56 (latest available for Dell)	Intel 6.13.01.3460	ATI 6.13.10.6278 (latest available for IBM)	ATI 7.79.7.3 (latest available for IBM)	ATI Catalyst 3.1 NVIDIA 41.09
Benchmarking Applications	Bapco SysMark 2002 ZDM Content Creation Winstone 2003 ZDM Business Winstone 2002 BAPCo Mobile Mark 2002

Since the C110 uses the integrated graphics solution from Intel, it is not marketed as a 3D convertible tablet PC, as it certainly would be out of its league. Its design and intention to be kept as a 2D system will be taken into account accordingly in our tests.

General Usage Performance

The Acer C110 uses the ultra low voltage Pentium-M 900MHz, which is the lowest rated Pentium-M available. Thus, it wasn’t a shock to see the Acer TravelMate C110 at the bottom of the Centrino pack. We still were impressed that the IBM ThinkPad X31 led the Acer TravelMate C110 by only 6%. Though, we should note that the X31 only included 256MB of memory compared to the 512MB of memory on the C110. There are still two Pentium-M chips that we have not taken a look at, and despite the memory configurations, we would have assumed the margin between the two would have been greater. These scores didn’t leave us disappointed. It is well understood that there were going to be some sacrifices in making this ultraportable unit.

While it may be surprising to some to see the Toshiba Protégé 3500 Tablet PC fall below the Electrovaya Scribbler SC500, there is a good reason behind this. Even though the 3500 uses a Pentium III-M clocked at 1.3GHz compared to the SC500’s Pentium III-M at 866MHz, the 3500 is only outfitted with 256MB of memory to SC500’s 512MB. Because typical business applications rely on memory, we see this revealed in the benchmarks.



The C110 falls to the bottom of the Centrino pack again. The Office Productivity portion of SYSMark 2002 shows the C110 34% behind the T40p.

Content Creation Performance

In previous reviews, we mentioned that we encountered repeated errors with Content Creation Winstone 2003 on systems running the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system. We have since resolved this issue, and discovered that there are two things that usually are the source of the problem. One is the speech recognition that the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition has automatically setup, and the second is propriety software that usually comes bundled with system. Our discovery is based on previous benchmark runs and Acer, who we have to thank for helping us find and resolve some of the issues with the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

Due to the high variability in the Toshiba Protégé 3500 Tablet PC score, we have left it out of this graph. As a result, we only have Centrino scores to compare. This reveals that the T40p outperforms the C110 just shy of 50%.



Back at SYSMark 2002, we see the T40p take a 61% lead over the C110. But even with the optimization of the Pentium-M in content creation applications, the clock for clock speed shows the Pentium III-M ability to narrow the gap more than the Office Productivity portion of SYSMark 2002.

Mobile Performance

These results don’t show anything surprising. The performance results from MobileMark 2002 fall accordingly in line with processor speed with 900MHz processor falling below the performance of the 1.4GHz, the 1.5GHz, and so on.

We had no choice but to leave out the Toshiba Protégé 3500 Tablet PC from this graph because it couldn’t complete a full iteration of the benchmark to warrant a performance score.



Electrovaya’s Scribbler SC500 again leads everything we have seen thus far with its PowerPad technology. This seems to be the exception to the general rule, though we aren’t going to complain. In contrast, the C110 lasted 2 hours and 27 minutes, which was just enough to complete a single benchmark iteration of MobileMark 2002. It is a bit surprising to see the C110 with a shorter battery life than the Dell D800 and the FIC Centrino notebooks. With the ultra low voltage 900MHz Pentium-M, we would have assumed that the C110 would fall right after the IBM X31. We suspect this may have something to do with digitizer technology that tablet PCs require and the smaller capacity battery.

Startup Time Performance

Conclusion

The Acer TravelMate C110 is definitely a good hybrid between a low profile notebook and a slate tablet PC from a design standpoint, which is basically the definition behind a convertible tablet PC. Its size and weight made it easy for us to carry it around on trips and for general functions away from the desk without giving it a second thought.

Because convertible tablet PCs can function in 5 modes (1 more than a slate tablet PC), it is all but impossible to address all the layout issues. With this in mind, we are very pleased with what the C110 can bring. We still need to make clear that tablet PCs fall in line with the basic marketing profile of ultraportable systems. They are not intended to be a substitute for a dedicated system, whether it is a desknote or desktop. Instead, they are designed to accompany it.

The only other convertible tablet PC is the Toshiba Protégé 3500, which falls closer to the other end of the spectrum. It is more closely described as a notebook with the functional ability of a tablet PC, while the Acer TravelMate C110 is more of a slate tablet PC with the functional ability of a notebook. We know that Toshiba is going to continue their pursuit of tablet PCs, and it will be interesting to see what they produce in response to Acer. Acer, meanwhile, will continue to market their C110 as the first Centrino based convertible tablet PC on the market.

The problem with the C110 still remains to be battery life. One would imagine that a tablet PC should last longer than 2 hours and 27 minutes. Preferably, somewhere between 3 and 4 hours would be nice. Practically speaking, working away from the wall should have the option of at least lasting this long. This expectation for longer battery life also comes from sacrificing higher clocked Pentium-M processors for the lowest clocked Pentium-M available. Hopefully, we will see the next convertible tablet PC with this ability.