Modtech CIVIC Panaromic

This is an interesting model from ModTech--a power notebook with a value price.

The design is slimline and smooth. The chassis is dark grey with silver trim. Those interested in video editing, multimedia production or even playing games would appreciate the vibrant 15.4" display (with maximum resolution of 1280 x 800) and powerful 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics processor. This, in combination with the Pentium M 745 processor and 1GB of RAM, helped the notebook achieve a 3DMark 2001 score of 10,576--an excellent score for a sub-$2500 notebook. It also achieved a PC WorldBench 5 productivity application benchmark score of 87. Battery life was quite strong too, with our tests indicating you can expect 75 minutes of battery life in a worst-case-scenario.

Multimedia buffs will also appreciate the sizable 80GB hard disk, fixed DVD-writer, four-in-one media card reader (great for use with digital cameras), S-Video TV-out, S/PDIF audio-out, three USB and single FireWire ports and the InterVideo InstantON feature allowing for quick-boot access to CD and DVD playback.

The CIVIC's keyboard is a good size and there's a scroll mechanism on the trackpad--two factors that go a long way to making this notebook quite usable during long sessions at work or play.

Being a Centrino notebook, this model also features 802.11b wireless networking (with on/off switch) plus a 56Kbps modem and Ethernet port.