Laptop Reviews and Benchmarks

Reviews

There were a few reviews of Unix and RISC laptops in the 90s, mainly testing and evaluating them as transportable workstations. Will be extended.

IBM RS/6000 N40 (PowerPC):

RDI PowerLite (SPARC):

SPARCbook 1 and 2 (SPARC):

SPARCbook 3 (SPARC):

IBM WorkPad z50 (MIPS):

Performance

Comparison to SPEC benchmark data from other contemporary Unix workstations:

* - Reference or approximate values
System CPU SPEC92
int/fp		 SPEC95
int/fp		 MIPS
Toshiba SPARC LT CY7C601 SPARC 25 MHz 13
TriGem SLT-100 SPARC 20/25 MHz 12/15
Sony NEWS 3250 MIPS R3000 20 MHz 17
Tadpole SPARCbook 1 CY7C600 SPARC 25MHz 18
Tadpole SPARCbook 2 CY6111 SPARC 40MHz 21* 21* 30
Hitachi 3050RX/100C PA/50L 33MHz 42
RDI PowerLite 50 microSPARC 50MHz 26 21
SPARCbook 3 microSPARC 50MHz 26 21 59
RS/6000 N40 PowerPC 601 50MHz 41 51
IBM WorkPad z50 NEC VR4121 131MHz 72
Toshiba SPARC LT C60 SuperSPARC+ 40 MHz 76
Toshiba SPARC LT C70 SuperSPARC+ 50 MHz 96
Sun SPARC Voyager microSPARC-II 60MHz 47 40 89
RDI PowerLite 85 microSPARC-II 85MHz 64 54
SPARCbook 3XP microSPARC-II 85 MHz 64 54
SAIC Talon HP PA-7100LC 60MHz 67 85 2.08 2.66
RDI PowerLite 110 microSPARC-II 110MHz 77 65
SPARCbook 3GX microSPARC-II 110 MHz 78 65 134
RDI PowerLite 170 TurboSPARC 170MHz 3.08 2.74
Tadpole ALPHAbook* DEC 21066A 233MHz 94 110
SAIC Galaxy 1100 HP PA-7100LC 80MHz 99 122 3.12 3.55
IBM ThinkPad 850* PowerPC 603e 100MHz 120 105
SPARCbook 3000 TurboSPARC 170MHz 143 119 3.50 3.00
SPARCbook 3TX TurboSPARC 170MHz 3.50 3.00
IBM RS/6000 860 PowerPC 603e 166MHz 3.94 2.71
RDI UltraBook 170 UltraSPARC 166MHz 265 354 5.56 8.06
RDI PrecisionBook 132 PA-7300LC 132MHz 6.49 6.54
UltraBook 200 Sun UltraSPARC 200MHz 322 462 7.44 10.40
RDI PrecisionBook 160 PA-7300LC 160MHz 7.78 7.39
RDI PrecisionBook 180 PA-7300LC 180MHz 9.22 9.43
RDI UltraBook IIi UltraSPARC IIi 400MHz 17.90 20.60
Comparisons
Siemens SCENIC 1000 Pentium II 333MHz 13.0 9.43
SGI O2 MIPS R10000 196MHz 10.1 8.77
Intel Alder Pentium Pro 200MHz 8.09 6.75
Sun Ultra 2 1170 UltraSPARC 167MHz 6.34 9.33
DEC Alphastation 255 DEC 21064A 233MHz 4.27 5.09
Siemens PCE-5S Pentium 100MHz 96 81 4.04 2.35 79
SPARCstation 20/71 SuperSPARC II 75MHz 125 121 3.11 3.10
Intel i486DX2 66MHz 32 16 31

Further reading

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