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In the Lap of Luxury

Jonathan Blum

It's August. Barbeques. Beaches. And sadly, back-to-school.

In this digital age, getting ready to study usually means suiting up at least one member of the family with a slick new laptop computer.

That's too bad. There's nothing more idiotic than a laptop.

Portable computers break every law of common sense.

First, they're too big. Even the smallest real laptops -- no micro, personal digital thingamajigs here -- are monsters. The lightest machines, such as Sony's (SNE Quote) Vaio TX750, weigh in around five pounds, once you factor in power supplies and the accessories you really need for it to work.

Laptops are also too expensive. The simplest machines, like Dell's (DELL Quote) Inspiron B130 with its pathetic 14-inch screen, start at a stiff $500.

All that money doesn't buy much performance, either. Portable computers always lag desktops in terms of processing power, storage and other metrics.

And that's ignoring the fact that some Dells just plain blow up.

But, irrationally, people love their notebook computers. Digitimes reports 80 million laptops of varying types will ship worldwide this year. Inside this tech tsunami is my personal pick for most bizarre laptop: the desktop replacement portable computer.

Desktop replacement laptops create the ultimate illusion of the ultimate computer solution: They claim to offer similar performance to desktops, but in a portable package.

But they don't. Instead, they are often hilariously garish riffs on the portable computer, the monster trucks of the PC world.

DRs come with huge screens: 17 inches is almost standard.

They're stuffed with multimedia features such as digital-video-disc drives and universal-serial-bus connectors.

They come chock full of processing power and storage.

And most start at a husky 10 pounds. That makes them heavy enough to not only replace the desktop computer, but the desk itself.

Desktop replacements aren't cheap. Decent desktop replacement notebooks start at more than $2,000. Even hitting $5,000, as we shall soon see, is no challenge.

Two Put to the Test

	H-P Compaq nw9440

To get a sense of the allure of desktop replacements, I got ahold of two of the better models: Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ Quote) Compaq nw9440 mobile workstation (about $3,550) and Alienware's Aurora mALX (about $4,870).

First, the H-P. The 9440 is exactly what you would expect from a higher-end H-P notebook: a serviceable 17-inch screen married to a perfectly fast Intel processor.

Both are built around an attractive, if bland, case that holds plenty of memory, storage and battery life. My 9440 ran a bit more than 2½ hours at max battery burn. Real usage will be about double that.

The 9440 wasn't unreasonably huge; with a power supply and the other junk I carry, my unit touched 10 pounds.

However, all this heft paid dividends.

The 9440 is billed as a portable workstation. And work, work, work it did. I multitasked a Chicago blues audio stream from Radio 365, a video clip from Sprint, the Snakes on a Plane movie trailer, "Rockstar: Supernova" audio and video clips my editor forced me to sample, a couple of Microsoft system upgrades and several dozen fat multimedia marketing Web sites for an industry prize I was judging.

The only slam? The 9440 is all work and no play.

It's dull. For $3,500, I expect some flash. The machine is the tech equivalent of hauling to London, commissioning elite tailor Steven Hitchcock for a one-of-a-kind suit and then getting the thing done in a poly-wool blend. What's the point?

On the other end of the DR PC scale -- way on the other end -- is the Alienware ALX.

Sporting a 19-inch screen and nearly 20 pounds of working weight, the ALX is the wooly mammoth of portable computers. It's the biggest I've seen since we rolled desktops around on dollies back in the day.

The ALX arrived in a slick black box the size of quarter cord of wood.

Inside was not only the computer, tucked in a sleek velour bag, but a luggage tag; a Razor diamond mouse; a key chain; a performance mouse pad with storage tin; a pen; a black, button-down Oxford shirt with logo; a six-cubic-feet backpack, also in black; surround-sound headphones; discs; and a very spooky manual, a la area 51.

The ALX is the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Champion of computers -- there seems to always be room to stuff in another feature.

It comes with not one, but two, very fast video cards.

It has a state-of-the art Advanced Micro Devices 2.5 Ghz processor and plenty of other go-fast features.

The ALX boots faster than most personal computers. And though I felt goofy doing office work on the ALX, I loved the raw horsepower: it was a bit like taking a Corvette to drop off the kids at school.

But if office work was pointless on the Alienware, game playing was not.

"Call of Duty" ran as smoothly as any good gaming computer. Rendering was near TV quality. Game play was fluid enough to make you forget you were on a computer. And the machine's excellent keyboard and mouse made the game an extension of your hand. Honestly, the Xbox is so passe.

Games did rock, but rock did not. Multimedia is not the ALX's strong suit.

	Alienware Aurora mALX

The audio quality fell solidly into the PC category (read: awful). And though the ALX's screen has as high resolution as better displays, the device doesn't handle video cleanly.

Everything from old-school Errol Flynn DVDs to latest-generation high-definition content could not hold up to even a basic DVD player paired with a good display. And at these prices, it should.

Now, neither I -- nor you --- should be daunted by the prices or bulk of these machines. If raw processing with a bit of mobility tossed in is what you are looking for in a PC, get one.

But not even $5,000 can overcome that both these machines are still laptops -- little more than exercises in compromise.