Short review on Compal NBLB2

Hi, I got a NBLB2 a few days a go. I have done some benchmarks and tried to clock the GPU, so here is a little review: (I am not very good at English, but I hope you understand what I am writing)

Configuration:
~1920x1080 LED LCD screen
~Intel Core I5 540m
~320GB SATA 7200RPM
~4 GB ram
~Bluetooth
~Standard keyboard (not the one with sharp edged)

When I first took the laptop out from the box, I was surprised about how light it felt. I noticed early hat the black glossy lid is very sensitive to fingerprints and scratches. There is some weak spots on the right side of the keyboard, the lid and over the battery. The rest feels quite sturdy.

Keyboard:



I chose the classic keyboard, instead of the one you see in all the reviews. I have tested some keyboards with sharp edges, and my experience is that it is very easy to hit the wrong button. That was why I chose the classic style. I have nothing special to say about the keyboard. It is good to type with, and there is no weak spots on it.

There are a thouchpanel above the keyboard. I haven't found out what it does yet, so I can't say much about it.

Touchpad:



The touchpad's layout is a bit unusual. There is no edges around it. It's made of exactly the same material as the plastic around it. Suddenly you take your finger away from the touchpad without noticing it. I guess that is something you just get used to.

The left and right button is the same button. I would have preferred two buttons, but that is just what I think.

Speakers:



The sound quality is amazing compared to other laptop-speakers I have heard. The sound is crystal clear, and there is no distortion in the speakers, not even at max volume. There is a lack of bass in the speakers, but you can't expect it when it doesn't have a subwoofer. The maximum volume is quite good for mobile use.

The display:



This is one of the things I like best with this laptop. I thought my old laptop had a quite good screen, until I compared them. On my old laptop, white looked like yellow compared to the nblb2 screen. The black is also much more black. The brightness is amazing on it. 50% brightness on the nblb2 is lighter than my old laptop (btw, my old laptop is a MiTAC 8222J. it was a configurable laptop, and I bought it from the same place that I bought the NBLB2 (multicom.no) ).

The 1920x1080 resolution is maybe a bit to much for a 15.6" screen. You have to zoom in on the text a little when you are on the web, and maybe increase the size of icons on the desktop.

I would still recommend choosing the 1920x1080 screen.

Benchmarks:

I didn't write the results down, so I can't say the exact right score.

3DMark 06 (1280x1024): 6850 (+/-50)
3DMark Vantage (1280x1024): 3468
Furmark xtreme burn mode (30 min): GPU max temp: 79 degrees

GPU clocked to 800/1000:

3DMark 06: 8650 (+/-50)
3DMark Vantage: 4650 (+/-50)
Furmark xtreme burn mode (30 min): 90 degrees

The NBLB2 never gets hot, only warm. Under normal use it feels cool and there is some warm air coming out from the left side.

Battery life:
The NBLB2 I got came with a 6 cells battery 5200mAh. With normal settings, it goes into hibernation when it is 5% left of the battery. I measured the battery life from 100% to 5% when it hibernated.

Idle (50% brightness, wlan and bluetooth on): 3h 40m

DVDrip on vlc (50% brightness, wlan and bluetooth off, headphones with 50% volume): 2h 40m

1080p, x264, DTS-HD audio on Media Player Classic (same as above): 2h 10m

It is actually possible to watch a full 1080p movie with standard length.


I can add pictures, and do some tests on request.

 

Thanks for the review. The laptop is quite a reasonable successor to the JFL92 I'm using right now. It's too bad Compal switched to 16:9 -- the optimal resolution for this screen size is 1680x1050 -- but at least they put in a decent LCD (unlike most manufacturers who insist on 1366x768 garbage). I've never tried it, but I've heard that if you're using Windows, you can globally adjust the font size if the resolution is too high for the size of the display.

It seems they're keeping the battery life constant; the JFL92 also gets about 3 and a half hours or so. One question: does the battery stick out from the back of the laptop? They've gone for a smaller, 6 cell battery so I hope they at least got rid of that nuisance.

 

The battery doesn't stick out from behind, and there is not possible to upgrade it to a lager battery either, because when you open the lid, it covers the back.

 

want to say thanks for writing this review. I am looking to buy this laptop myself for college but unfortunately, there is a shortage of reviews done on it, especially ones written in English.

My biggest concern was the keyboard, but since you live (I assume) outside the United States, you went with a different one and cannot weigh in on that aspect. However, I am attaching a photo of the keyboard that will come with the computer in the US, so you can verify that it is not the one you have.


The updated information on the battery life is also very useful, as most reviews have it configured with the quad-core i7.

Also, a few pictures would be great, maybe of the screen and keyboard/touchpad.

 

I don't have the keyboard on the picture above. I had the possibility to choose between the one above, and this one:
I chose the last one.

If you don't like the keyboard, you can just buy a keyboard that fits for any of these models:
Compal NBLB2
Compal KHLB0/B2
Compal JAW91
Compal HGL30/31
Compal HEL80/81
Compal IFT00/01
Compal IFL90/91
Compal JFL92
Compal JFT02
Compal JHT00/01
Compal JHL90/91
Compal KHLB2/B0

eg: This one Sager NP2090 / Compal IFL90 Keyboard , or you could just find one on ebay.


I could upload some pictures later, when I am done with school.

 

Thanks for uploading the pictures. They are great and that display looks awesome. You make a good suggestion, I could just end up buying a different keyboard and either installing it myself, or seeing if the reseller could do it for me.

 

Excellent work! +rep

 

Thanks for the review! Your keyboard is really as mine (IFL90), it's always good to have options. Are you using the gpu clocked or you just did it for the tests?

ps someone's playing Fallout III =p

 

I haven't played any demanding games jet. I have only played Oblivion, Dragon Age and a little bit Fallout 3, and they don't require more power from the graphic card.

 

Does the battery lift the back up, then? It can't stick out from the backside, because of the lid.

 

Does anyone want me to test out some games on this laptop? Just say what type of game you want me to test out, and I'll do it.

 

Can you test Crysis and GTA IV?

 

Ok, I can see if I can do it tonight.

 

Metro 2033 please.

 

I can do that when I have time for it, too.

I tested out Crysis. On 1920x1080, medium graphics, 0AA, it had a average frame rate at 25-35 fps. There was some programs running in the background (µtorrent seeding at 2 MB/s), so I will do a more accurate test later.

edit: I don't know if there is any point in testing out GTA IV, because I have a dual core processor.

 

Thanks for doing the Crysis test.
I think I've seen some youtube vids of people using i5s to play GTA IV. I would really like to know if it would run because im consdering the i7 620m as my processor option which is dual core.
And also Metro 2033 would be interesting to see some results for.

 

Anyone have experience with the 540m in this laptop?
How does it handle itself during games, multitaking, and hd video/youtube hd video?
Is it worth choosing over an i7 720qm which would cost me $26 less than the 540m?

 

cool, thanks for the review

 

The main reason for me that I chose 540m was the improved battery time.

Right now, I am running this in the background: 2x 1080p videos (vlc and mpc), a dvd-rip (windows media player), 720p youtube video (firefox), photoshop cs5, µtorrent, some programs that I forgot to close, 15 tabs in fireforx with different websites, Oblivion, avg, daemon tools.

All of the videos are running smooth, and I don't feel any slowdown when browsing tabs, folders, web pages. In the task manager, the processor load are from 25 to 39%.

For normal use, the i5 is enough, if you are going to use a lot of heavy multi task programs, then you should consider the i7.

 

So you have all of that running at once with the videos all playing at the same time with only 25-39% cpu usage? And could you do a test of GTA IV at 1080p? I've seen videos of people playing it smoothly with a 430m and an ati5650 so I'm wondering if the 540m can run it at 1080p.

 

Yes, all the videos were playing at once and oblivion was minimized, and the cpu usage was between 25-39.

I'm going to test out gta4 soon, when I'm done with some other stuff.

 

wow thats amazing. if gta works then i will have completely made up my mind about this laptop with an i5.

 

I used the inbuilt benchmark in gta IV, and got this results:
1280x720, High settings: 30 fps (average)
1920x1080, High settings: 15-16 fps (average)
1920x1080, everything on low: 18 fps (average)

It's a bit weird that it only gets 2 fps when I turn everything down to low.

When I tried to play the game, I got framedrops all the time. I don't know if it is something wrong with the game (crack) I downloaded, or if the game needs to be updated.

 

Thank is kind of strange. I doubt its the crack though since the crack shouldnt touch that part of the game. Question now is if its the cpu or the gpu thats the bottleneck.

 

I think that's because of the CPU and GDDR memory. GTA4 loves to eat CPU power and both video and system memory for breakfast.

 

I found out that all the framedrops wasn't because the cpu or gpu. It was gta4 who didn't like that I was using the laptop keyboard. I tried out a xbox 360 controller, and it ran much more smoother. (20-30 instead of 5-30)

 

Thats a bit weird. I'll be using a PS3 controller for all PC gaming so I shouldnt have to worry about that problem. Do you know what the cpu usage was at when GTA was running?

 

The cpu usage and the vram usage was around 50 %.

 

Thats not bad at all. Looks like I'll be choosing the 540m. Thanks for all your help.

 

can anyone recommend a sleeve for this laptop? I'm waiting for mine in the mail, so I don't know the dimensions.

 

Thanks for your useful review, tct93.

I'm having troubles in selecting the right language/keyboard combo for my NBLB2 I just got few days ago.

It has the same keyboard as the one mentioned by ComicSands (thank you both for posting those pictures, btw).

Could you tell me what combo you are using?
I have tried several, included english US international, but some of the symbols are mixed up.
I would like the symbols on the keyboard to match those on screen.

Thank you.

*edit for spelling, English as second language