Before this year the only way to be a “real” gamer was to be own a powerful desktop machine. Now with the shift toward portability what are gamers to do? With the introduction of huge 17” laptop screens, which are bigger than some people’s home screens, gaming on a laptop became closer to a reality. The only thing laptop users lacked in order to become full-fledged gamers was a powerful graphics card. Now, with the use of ATI’s Mobility 9600 PRO, and the introduction of the Mobility 9700 PRO this has become a reality. Today I’ll be reviewing The Hollywood Silver by Liebermann Inc (Go-L.com). Since the company first appeared in late September it has been subject to a lot of criticism. Many people believed the entire company was a hoax, that the specifications of the rigs were too unreal to be true. The only thing unreal about this laptop is being able to Unreal Tournament 2003 on it!


The Specifications are definitely impressive, this laptop isn’t cheap, but being able to play games everywhere is worth it. Some people might want some more USB ports but there are a number of USB hubs that you could carry around to solve this problem.

Included Software:
Windows XP Professional
Nero 6

Seems like a pretty unimpressive software pack at first glance, but I’ve only listed the main two included programs. Liebermann has taken the liberty to add many very useful programs to the system. I’m not talking “Try AOL 9.0 Today” icons but many applications that experienced computer users love. To name a few they include My IE2, Trillian, TweakUI and many other freeware programs that would be a pain to get yourself. Liebermann also includes their customized desktop, which is a huge improvement over the standard Windows XP look. They customize the taskbar with utilities that show hard drive usage, Network connectivity and CPU usage. It also has categorized icons that show important utilities for the categories. The start menu is customized and looks like the older Windows 98 one but has much better organization of programs. Unfortunately it seemed that some of these modifications make the laptop unsuitable for a corporate network, so a shot of these modifications might not work

Design

While Liebermann doesn’t manufacture their own enclosures, they choose an excellent chassis made by Clevo. The body is very durable and the silver color is visually appealing as well. The chassis itself is about 1.5” thick which isn’t small compared to today’s ultraportables, but for the performance in this package, the size is acceptable. The 17” screen itself is huge, very bright, and extremely easy to view thanks to this laptops 120° viewing angle. The I/O configuration of the laptop was easy to access, with a headphone port, a microphone port, a switch to turn the wireless network on and off, and a Firewire input in the front. On the right of the chassis is a CATV in for the TV tuner, and a S-Video in connection for camcorders. In the back it has 2 USB ports, the power connector, the second monitor out, a game port, a parallel printer port, two PS2 connectors, a phone jack and an Ethernet port. On the left side is the 6 in 1 card reader, which is not too common on most laptops, and a CD-RW drive. There are two opening tabs on the laptop in front so it won’t open unless you want it to. The keyboard is very sturdy and durable, with well-spaced keys and a solid key feel. It does not feel at all like a laptop keyboard. Although I’ve never liked trackpads, I’ve always preferred trackballs, this one was very easy to use, double tapping the trackpad is equal to a double click on a mouse which makes navigating the desktop very easy. Special functions, like sound adjustment require you to press 2 keys at once, one special key and then a corresponding F key, a very simple solution. The 4 speakers are located to the right and left of the keyboard, the right and left of the front, and the subwoofer is located on the bottom. The subwoofer definitely helps the system from like most other laptops with the “tin can” sound. I can find no flaws with the layout, except the inclusion of only 2 USB ports, but that could be a chipset limitation, and many mice and keyboards still use the PS2 slots so its not too big of a deal.

General Usage

As a desktop, battery life is not a major issue, so I didn’t bother measuring battery life, but from the little experience I had without an external power source I would say unless you put everything the laptop into power saving mode, it wouldn’t be a top performer in the section, although you could probably watch a full DVD as long as most power saving options where on. In everyday takes such as word, accessing files and going online the computer excelled and opened flawlessly. Unlike most other machines, this laptop is very stable. No program crashes occurred during testing. During everyday tasks, the fans usually came on about once or twice an hour, but they usually do not run more than a few minutes, and are not very loud. The laptop’s screen is one of the highlights of this package. Its brightness makes it easily viewable, which is a big plus. The only major fault in this laptop is sub par battery life, but like most desktop replacements, this laptop is filled to the brim with high quality components that do require a lot of power, so battery life suffers as a result. The Hollywood Silver also includes a “RAM Drive” for temporary storage of files in use by the computer. This drive is solid state, meaning it has no moving parts, and offers lightning quick storage of files being used by the computer, just like RAM. On the new “Hollywood Gold” you have the option to get a full version of this “RAM Drive” which is ultra fast but very expensive.


Performance

I ran a number of commonly available benchmarks, for processor tests I ran SiSoft Sandra, for gaming I ran Aquamark 3, 3DMarks 2001 SE and 2003, Splinter Cell, and Unreal Tournament 2003. While not a complete library, it should give you a good idea of how the system will perform on older games and newer, more demanding games. I choose not to run Unreal Tournament 2004 because it hasn’t been out for along enough of a time to understand exactly how to benchmark the game. Unreal Tournament 2003 is still a very nice looking game and a very common standard.

SiSoftware Sandra Standard (2004.2.9.104)
3DMarks 2001 Second Edition
3DMarks 2003 Version 1.4.0
Aquamark 3
Splinter Cell version 1.2b with Beyond3D Oil Rig demo
Unreal Tournament 2003 version 2205 and [H]ard|OCP Benchmark Utility 2.1

To start off I ran Sandra to measure the processor and memory performance.


As you can see the processor performs very well, especially for being a mobile system. This laptop can do any work you would require your desktop to do with ease. The CPU arithmetic should give you a good idea about how well floating point performance will be and the multimedia sections measures multimedia performance. As you can see the 2.6C edges out a 3.0C processor, a very good showing!


Memory bandwidth is excellent for a laptop, which can be attributed to the 800mhz FSB and using DDR400 memory. Good memory performance is crucial for newer games with the large textures and large amounts of data to be processed.

While neither 3DMark 01 SE or 3DMark 03 are the best examples of real world benchmark, they do offer a baseline to compare scores from, and should give you a general idea of performance in that area.


As you can see you should have no problem running DirectX 7 and DirectX 8 games with no Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic filtering. A score of 10,000 is about what a Geforce4 Ti4200 would score on a desktop, but the Geforce4 Ti4200 doesn’t support DX9.


DirectX 7 and DirectX 8 games run at 4X AA and 8X AF should run pretty well, the frame-rate hit is well worth the IQ improvement.


You shouldn’t have too much trouble running DirectX 9 games, as long as AA and AF are off. This is the 9600 PRO GPU in action, as a processor doesn’t play a large roll in this benchmark. The 9600 PRO GPU definitely has a lot of power; it handles the only true DX9 test, Nature, at a higher level than the 3rd test which is DX8.


It depends on the game in this situation, you might be able to get away with it but you might have to sacrifice quality settings in the game. Again it doesn’t have too much trouble handling Nature. The Hollywood easily runs both 3dmarks programs, its future proof and the 9600 PRO GPU has excellent image quality.

Next I ran another benchmark, Aquamark 3, since Aquamark 3 is based off a real game engine it should be an accurate representation of DirectX 9 performance. The graphics in this game should be crisp and the smoke in a certain section should be very dense, and that’s exactly how it looked on the Hollywood.


An average of 24.13FPS, this number seems low but Aquamark 3 tests the most advanced pixel-shaders and some areas really push the hardware to the limits that you usually don’t see being done in a game. The score over 20,000 also signifies that you can play the game on “high” settings, not bad for a laptop. This real world benchmarks again demonstrates that the Hollywood is ready for tomorrow’s games.

Splinter Cell is a very demanding game that desktop machines often had a hard time handling at the highest detail. Splinter cell has lots of shadow work that require both CPU and GPU capabilities. The graphics looked spectacular at the highest levels and even turning them down didn’t effect the quality that much, but made it much more playable. I ran the Beyond3D Oil Rig demo, as well as the Tibilsi 1 demo that came with the 1.2 patch. All tests are run at the highest settings. The red line represents the minimum level of playable FPS.


Since Splinter Cell is a much slower paced game, the minimum playable FPS was closer to 20 than 30. As you can see, running Oil Rig at anything but 1024X768 would be unplayable; Tibilsi would be playable only on 1024X768 as well. Remember that this is at the absolute highest quality settings, so to really play the game you would need to drop some of the quality settings to a lower level. For pure benchmarking purposes it is showing how much it stressed the system yet still achieved an almost playable speed.

I also ran two time demos from UT2k3, Antalus and Inferno. Unreal Tournament is a fast paced game and it helps to have higher frame rates to keep the game play smooth. All settings are on high and sound is disabled. UT2k3 uses a lot of awesome effects and most desktops can run, but it’s still a really graphically advanced game for a laptop. UT2k3 uses some really high quality textures so that also stresses the system.


In Antalus the frame rate stays above 90 at 1024X768 and in Inferno above 50, easily playable. You shouldn’t have trouble playing any map at 1280X1024 with no AA or AF, which is great since UT2k4 is out now, it is upgraded just slightly and performs about the same as UT2k3.


1280X1024 is definitely pushing the limits of the system running 4XAA and 8XAF, it drops below 30FPS too many times to be playable. You can definitely run it at 1024X768 with 4XAA and 8XAF, which looks gorgeous and hardly drops below 30FPS. The Hollywood is definitely a good choice to be playing fast paced and graphically advanced games like UT2k3 and UT2k4

Overall the performance of this system was excellent. While I only have a handful of benchmarked games listed, I played others on it as well and they performed well. You can play almost any game at 1024X768 and 2XAA and 4XAF easily. Unfortunately most games don’t support 1440X900, the native resolution of the monitor, the few games that do look awesome at it. I’d expect that the Hollywood will probably perform decently in both Doom III and Half-Life 2, and probably better in less advanced DirectX 9 games. This laptop should be able to handle everything you can throw at it for the next year and a half at least. As for Image Quality I found no faults, the games looked the same as on my 9800 PRO, a testament to this laptop’s strength.

Conclusion

Liebermann has created one hell of a product with the Hollywood Silver. It has everything you could ask for and more. Awesome performance, good looks and overwhelming capabilities wrap up the whole package. This laptop has so many functions it’s impossible to say whom it would be meant for. Professionals will love the camcorder inputs, in addition with the extremely fast storage subsystem of this machine. Gamers who desire portability and gaming strength will love this laptop, mainly because it gives them the capabilities of bringing their games with them. Battery life, weight, and the inclusion of only 2 USB ports are minor setbacks, but they are offset by the desktop-like performance and giant variety of inputs on this laptop. Price is always a factor, however, and for these laptops you have got to pay big. Starting at approximately $3000 USD, the laptops affordability may alienate some customers in the market. The Hollywood Silver is a laptop for professionals and gamers alike who desire the most performance in a portable package. If you are in the market for a laptop, the Hollywood Silver from Liebermann Inc (Go-L.com) is an excellent choice, if you can justify the price tag.