ViewSonic launches the VNB132 and VNB141 ULV-based ViewBooks

ViewSonic's latest notebooks feature Intel's SU2300 and SU7300 processors

VNB132

VNB141

ViewSonic has just launched two new notebooks: the VNB132 and VNB141 ViewBooks. The VNB132 is the smaller of the two at 13.3” and weighs 1.7kg; whilst the VNB141 has a 14” display and a DVD RW Super Multi Drive, and weighs 2.14kg. ViewSonic set the MSRP for the VNB132 at $649 and the VNB141 at $829, but they are both available from Amazon.com now for $639.51 and $799.65 respectively.

With a price difference of almost $160 between the two, what else does the VNB141 have to offer? The VNB132 has a 1.2GHz Intel Celeron dual-core SU2300 ULV processor and is based on Intel's GS40 chipset, whilst the VNB141 has a 1.3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 ULV processor and features Intel's GS45 chipset. The SU2300 is ranked 190 in our CPU benchmark list, and scored 1000 in a 3DMark06 CPU benchmark and 2380 in a CineBench R10 (multi-render) benchmark. The SU7300 is ranked 178, and scored 1165 and 2777 in the aforementioned benchmarks. The potential difference in CPU performance between the VNB132 and VNB141 therefore, is slight.

Although both machines' chipsets feature the same GPU, the one inside the VNB132 has a lower clock rate than the VNB141's>Intel GMA 4500MHD; consequently, it's less powerful and has the HD suffix removed from its name. The 4500M is ranked 171 in our GPU benchmark list, and scored an average of 965 and 594 in 3DMark05 and 3DMark06 benchmarks respectively. The 4500MHD is ranked one place above the 4500M and scored an average of 1238 and 689 in the aforementioned benchmarks. Both GPUs should be adequate for most tasks facing the VNB132 and VNB141, although the systems will struggle to run most 3D games, and some HD content will be difficult for the VNB132 to handle. To see what kind of frame rates you could expect playing games on these systems, have a look at our GPU gaming list.

One might expect the VNB141 to be far more taxing on battery power than the VNB132, but it can still run for up to 6 hours on a 6 cell battery, compared to the VNB132's battery life of 3 hours on a 4 cell battery. For some reason the VNB141 has a 250GB hard drive, which is 70GB smaller than the VNB132's hard drive. Another difference, albeit minor, is that the VNB141 has one less USB port than the VNB132.

Aside from their dimensions, the rest of the machines' specifications are the same: both have a black interior and exterior, and feature 2GB DDR3 SDRAM; a VGA port; a HDMI port; a 7-in-1 card reader; LAN 10/100/1000 support; and WLAN 802.11 b/g/n support. Although there isn't a large performance difference between these ViewBooks, the VNB141 does offer a lot of more than the VNB132 for the small price difference; consequently, the VNB141 is a better choice.

Specifications