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The ability to tote around a compact personal computer in a briefcase or backpack has been the real source of the mobile PC boom. So, it's no surprise that, as desktop sales have stagnated, the market for laptops has seen spectacular growth.

Truly mobile laptops, however, have their limitations. The quest for increased mobility means increased battery life, lower power requirements, or both. Those compromises are fine when you're traveling, but sometimes you need a lot of PC horsepower and don't have the room for a full-sized desktop model. One popular alternative has been the small form factor PC, such as the Shuttle XPC series or the Aopen XCube we reviewed recently. While these are very small PCs indeed, transporting them does require lugging around a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

Sometimes you just need a lot of horsepower in an all-in-one package. It's that need for power in a transportable form that has given rise to the desktop replacement notebook. These compact PCs offer nearly all the strength of a desktop system but come in a notebook form factor – albeit one that appears to have bulked up on performance-enhancing drugs.

We took a look a pair of these mega-notebooks: Voodoo PC's Envy m:855 and PC Notebook's Panther 4HR. Bear in mind that these are not "desknote" units -- they ship with batteries and can be used untethered from wall power. But you won't just toss them into your briefcase for your next business trip, either – not if you value your back, at any rate. Do these massive laptops deliver on their performance promise -- or do users still need to make compromises? As usual, it's not as cut and dried as we would like.

The two PCs we look at here are built and sold by two smaller companies. VoodooPC is the first to market with an Athlon 64 notebook PC, while Utah-based PC Notebook offers up a system with a 3.2GHz desktop Pentium 4 and is the first laptop with a RAID array. Both sport ATI's Mobility Radeon 9600 3D graphics hardware, but both also offer unique features. Let's look at the base specs.

Component PC Notebook Panther 4HR Voodoo PC Envy m:855 Processor Intel 3.2GHz Pentium 4; 800MHz FSB Mobile Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz clock rate) Core Logic Intel 865PE Via K8T800 Memory 1GB DDR400 memory 1GB DDR 400 memory Graphics 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Display 16.1" 1280x1024 TFT 15" 1400x1050 TFT Hard Drive 2 x 60GB, 7200RPM 2.5" hard drives in RAID 0 striped array 1 x 60GB, 7200RPM 2.5" hard drive Optical Storage DVD-R/-RW drive (Toshiba SD-R6012) DVD-R/-RW drive Audio Intel Integrated 5.1 channel C-Media 5.1 channel Speakers Integrated Keyboard Reduced travel, separate numeric keypad Reduced travel Pointing device Touchpad Touchpad Floppy Drive Yes No Wired Networking Internal Gigabit Ethernet Internal 10/100 Ethernet Wireless Networking Optional 802.11b (not included) Internal 802.11g/b Modem 56kbps V.90 integrated 56kbps V.90 integrated TV Tuner Integrated, internal (remote control included) Optional, External USB 2.0 Ports 4 (on back) 4 (2 on back, 2 on side) Firewire 1394a, 6-pin, full size 1394a mini-size, 4-pin S-Video? 1 input / 1 output 1 output VGA Out Yes (DVI-I with adapter) Yes DVI Port Yes (DVI-I) No Additional I/O 1 serial, 1 parallel port, PS/2 keyboard/mouse port 1 parallel PC Card Slots 2 type I/II 2 type I/II Memory card slots Secure Digital and MMC (through integrated portable MP3 player) SD / MMC / Compact Flash / Sony Memory Stick / Smart Media Actual Weight 12 lbs. 6 oz 9 lbs. 4 oz Price as tested $3813 $3500

These systems take slightly different approaches to the problem of delivering CPU horsepower. The Voodoo unit is sleek and elegant-looking, but it's pretty much a traditional notebook PC -- albeit a somewhat heavy one. (Voodoo specs the unit at 8 lbs, but our test unit weighted in at 9 lbs, 4 oz.).

The PC Notebook unit is more like a small form factor desktop PC combined with a monitor. A few compromises had to be made -- including 2.5" hard drives -- but the ability to add up to three separate drives mitigate that somewhat. Our test unit weighed in at 12 lbs, 6 oz. It's also bulkier than the m:855, fully 2.2 inches thick versus the Voodoo's 1.7" thickness. It feels massive and it's certainly not something you'd kick back on the couch with. If nothing else, the large rubber feet on the bottom dig painfully into your thighs, reminding you that this is really a desktop unit in notebook clothing. But it is portable and runs off battery power.

We'll take a look at some of the features in more detail later, but let's talk about performance first.

We used the latest version of our standard benchmark suite. Some of the more recent additions include:

XMpeg 5.02 and the DivX 5.1 codec to our suite of media encoding tests.

Splinter Cell: This title uses a modified version of the Unreal engine and actually implements some DirectX 8.1-class shaders. We run the test at low resolution to minimize the impact of the graphics card.

Flight Simulator 2004: FS 2004 scales with both CPU and graphics hardware, and is a good overall systems test.

Halo: Halo for the PC uses pixel shaders adhering to the DirectX 9.0b Pixel Shader 2.0 standard.

AquaMark3: a synthetic 3D benchmark based on Massive's Aquanox 2 game engine.

Cinebench: This particular test is based on Maxon's Cinema4D modeling and rendering application. The Readme file goes into substantial detail on the design of the benchmark. We only use the CPU rendering result here. We've dropped POV-RAY 3.5 in lieu of the Cinebench test.

An upgrade to 3D Studio Max 5.1 (SP1) for our 3D Studio rendering tests.

Networking was enabled on all systems. The desktop resolution was set to the notebook's native resolution. Game tests were conducted at either 640x480 (512x384 for Serious Sam SE) or 1024x768x32. We determined early on that games were essentially unplayable with antialiasing enabled, so most of the game tests were conducted with AA turned off. The Winstone tests were run at the native resolution of the notebook's LCD flat panel.

Benchmark: Business Winstone 2002 and Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003

Multimedia CC Winstone 2003 has updated most of the test applications to their latest versions: Photoshop 7.0, Premiere 6.0, SoundForge 6.0 and so on. The new Multimedia CC Winstone also adds a Lightwave 7.5 rendering test. You can get a copy of the new Multimedia CC Winstone CD for a nominal shipping charge a href=http://www.etestinglabs.com/benchmarks/ccwinstone/ccwinstone.asp?visitor=X>here.

Test Resolution: 1280x1024x32 (PC Notebook), 1400x1050 (Voodoo Envy) Graphics Driver Setting: Defaults Hard drive defragged before test runs

Benchmark: 3D Software Rendering Tests

We're now using 3D Studio Max 5.0 for our 3D Studio tests. Render resolutions were 1024x768 for Lightwave, but varied for 3D Studio. Our 3D Studio rendering tests have increased in number, using the benchmark scenes provided on the supplemental disc shipped with 3D Studio 5.1. The hard drive was defragged before the 3DStudio Rendering Test. We also used Maxon's Cinebench 2003 benchmark, based on the company's Cinema4D engine.

Benchmark: Media Encoding

Adobe After Effects: Various resolutions and encoders on multiple data items Windows Media Encoder 9: Quality set to "DVD video, CD audio". (640x480 video, 16-bit, 44KHz audio). Windows Media Encoder 9, to convert a 248MB WAV file to 64kbps WMA audio. QuickTime 6.3 Pro, Windows version. MPEG-4 encoding set to "Low-speed DSL". Sound Forge 6.0: Four filters are chained together and run on a 248MB .WAV file using Sound Forge's standalone batch converter. MusicMatch 8.0, used to convert a 248MB .WAV file to a 96kbps MP3Pro file.

Benchmark: PCMark 2002, 3DMark 2003 and AquaMark3

PCMark 2002: Default run at 1280x960x32 desktop resolution 3DMark 2001SE run at 1280x960x32 and 640x480x16 (software T&L on the 640x480x16 test) All graphics driver options set to default 3DMark 2003SE was run at 1280x960x32, in standard mode.

Benchmark: 3D Gaming

All games were run at 640x480x16 and 1280x960x32 (or 1280x1024x32 if the game didn't support the 1280x960 mode). All the Unreal Tournament tests were run in 32-bit color. The reason for running the low-resolution tests is to minimize the overall impact of the graphics hardware. However, we also report the 1024x768x32 tests so you can gauge how a similarly equipped system might handle games at playable resolutions. Audio was enabled, except for the Unreal Tournament 2003 test. We ran the Flight Simulator 2004 tests in a low-resolution, low-eye candy mode to minimize the impact of the graphics hardware and stress the underlying processor and memory subsystem harder.