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Our latest review sample from LG is the LG R1-C001A9 model which retails for $1400 USD or $1500 CDN. LG touts the R1 series of notebooks, "14 inch wide screen multimedia powerhouse." A quick look at the specs reveal a fairly conservative offering. Let's see if we are missing something or if the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Specifications
Hardware highlights:
- Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 1.86 GHz processor
- Intel GMA 950 integrated video
- 1GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM
- 100GB 5400 RPM hard drive
- DVD burner/CD-ROM burner optical drive
- 14" wide screen display
LG R1 and everything in the box
The specifications place the R1 in a class with the Dell Inspiron 640m - a formidable competitor. We'll take a look at a feature and price comparison in a bit, but first let's delve into the details.
Starting with the CPU, we see the R1 employing the relatively new Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 operating at 1.86 GHz. Aside from a slower clock speed, the biggest difference between this CPU and the more expensive models in the Core 2 Duo line is the amount of level 2 cache. In the T5600's case it has 2 MB - half of what the bigger and better T7xxx series has. This is a great chip that is designed to hit a certain price point, but it will please almost anyone with its real-world performance.
In terms of measurable computational performance, the R1 calculates Pi to 2 million decimal places in 1 minute 16 seconds. This is a respectable score for a small notebook. FutureMark's PC Mark05 measures overall system performance and reported an aggregate score of 2855.
SuperPi Comparison
SuperPi measures CPU performance by calculating Pi to a specific number of digits.
| Notebook | Time to Calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits |
| LG R1 (1,86GHz Core 2 Duo T5600) | 1m 16s |
| HP dv6000z (1.8GHz Turion64 X2 TL-56) | 1m 54s |
| Compaq V3000T(1.6GHz Core Duo) | 1m 26s |
| Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.00 GHz Core 2 Duo) | 1m 02s |
| Toshiba A100(2.0GHz Core Duo) | 1m 18s |
| Acer Aspire 5102WLMi(1.6GHz Turion64 X2 TL-50 | 2m 22s |
| Gateway E-100M(1.2GHz Core Solo ULV) | 2m 02s |
| Dell Inspiron 600m (1.6 GHz Dothan Pentium M) | 2m 10s |
| HP dv5000z(2.0GHz Sempron 3300+) | 2m 02s |
PCMark05 Comparison
Another synthetic benchmark we use is Futuremark's PCMark 05. This is a good general measure of system performance.
| Notebook | PCMark05 Score |
| LG R1 (1,86GHz Core 2 Duo T5600, Intel graphics) | 2,855 PCMarks |
| Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo) | 3,487 PCMarks |
| Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60) | 5,597 PCMarks |
| Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400) | 3,637 PCMarks |
| Panasonic ToughBook T4 (Intel 1.20GHz LV) | 1,390 PCMarks |
| Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400) | 3,646 PCMarks |
| Sony VAIO FE590 (1.83GHz Core Duo) | 3,427 PCMarks |
PCMark05 Detail:
| PCMark05 | R1-C001A9 |
| Overall | 2855 |
| HDD -- XP Startup | 6.12 MB/s |
| Physics and 3D | 81.1 FPS |
| Transparent Windows | 219.06 Windows/s |
| 3D -- Pixel Shader | 12.84 FPS |
| Web Page Rendering | 3.03 Pages/s |
| File Decryption | 50.54 MB/s |
| Graphics Memory -- 64 Lines | 482.49 FPS |
| HDD -- General Usage | 4.29 MB/s |
| Multithreaded Test 1 / Audio Compression | 1275.14 KB/s |
| Multithreaded Test 1 / Video Encoding | 217.44 KB/s |
| Multithreaded Test 2 / Text Edit | 68.96 Pages/s |
| Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Decompression | 14.15 MPixels/s |
| Multithreaded Test 3 / File Compression | 5.43 MB/s |
| Multithreaded Test 3 / File Encryption | 15.05 MB/s |
| Multithreaded Test 3 / HDD -- Virus Scan | 24.25 MB/s |
| Multithreaded Test 3 / Memory Latency -- Random 16 MB | 7.65 MAccesses/s |
Memory is 1 GB of DDR2 running at 667 MHz in dual channel mode made by Hyundai. This amount of RAM should handle the typical workload of a notebook like the R1, but the integrated Intel video system likes to hog as much as 224 MB of the system RAM. It would be nice to have a user over-ride either in the Intel GMA control panel or BIOS, but there was none. This would be less of an issue if the R1 was configured with 2 GB or RAM.
