ZaReason Verix Notebook
Testing:
Beyond choosing between different hardware components, when ordering the Verix there is also the choice between having Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.04 LTS, Kubuntu 10.04 LTS, Debian 5, Linux Mint 9, or Fedora 13 being pre-installed. There is also the choice to have ZaReason not load any operating system onto the notebook. With our review unit we had Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (x86_64) installed. ZaReason's Ubuntu installation isn't too custom but doesn't even have a customized background or other branding, but there are a few packages added in like having the NVIDIA proprietary driver and other common packages that are helpful to Linux desktop users (the Phoronix Test Suite was also pre-installed, which ZaReason uses in testing out their hardware).
For an idea as to the performance with this customized notebook, we ran a few benchmarks comparing it to a Lenovo ThinkPad T61. While the hardware specifications are not close, you can at least get an idea for its level of performance. The T61 notebook had an Intel Core 2 Duo "Penryn" CPU clocked at 2.50GHz, 4GB of system memory, a 100GB Hitachi HTS72201 SATA HDD, a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, and a 1680 x 1050 panel. Below is a comparison of the two notebook's battery power consumption when both systems were idling at the GNOME desktop for one minute followed by running the OpenArena game benchmark. Both notebooks were loaded with an identical Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (x86_64) stack with the NVIDIA 195.36.15 display driver.
As you can see, the ZaReason Verix is quite power hungry with its average power consumption being at 47 Watts, but when just taking into account its power consumption while running the light OpenArena game it's about 58 Watts. We have already used the ZaReason Verix for some performance testing in other articles such as in verifying our Linux 2.6.35 regression and in spotting a now-resolved NVIDIA binary driver regression along with our Btrfs file-system testing from last week. However, again, just to get an idea for the level of performance of the Verix we have a few more benchmarks enclosed between it and the Lenovo ThinkPad T61.