Hypersonic Avenger AG2 Notebook Review

Temperature Testing & Conclusion

No one wants a scorched lap, so we always check the temperatures on notebooks. The Hypersonic Avenger AG2 was found to have an idle CPU temperature of 45C when the ambient room temperature was 24C.

To figure out peak load temperatures we fired up Cinebench R10 and ran the CPU benchmark on both CPU cores. This is enough to put the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.5GHz), 6MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB processor at 100% and get things nice and toasty. This 45nm watt has very low leakage and is based off the Penryn die, which is one that desktop enthusiasts love. When tossing it into a 12.1″ notebook that weighs only 4.1 pounds the result was load temperatures at 76C! No wonder the left side of the notebook gets so hot during use!

Final Thoughts and Conclusions:

The Hypersonic Avenger AG2 starts at $1349 and the system we tested today was $1598 since we had an upgraded CPU, extra memory and faster 7,200 RPM hard drive. The Hypersonic Avenger AG2 is the fastest notebook that we have ever tested when it comes to CPU performance, which is impressive considering the Dell XPS M1710 that we compared it against in Cinebench was nearly $5,000 a couple of years ago. The Avenger AG2 is fast enough to make most desktop systems look slow, but this does come at a price. When running Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit with Service Pack 1 the battery life was just over an hour when doing simple tasks like looking at pictures and using MS Word. For a 12.1″ ultra-portable notebook more than an hour of battery life is needed. In case you are wondering the system was run in ‘power saver’ mode with the LCD display brightness turned all the way down during testing! If you plan on traveling and like battery life then you might want to consider a slower processor, but the Intel T8100, T8300 and T9300 processors are all 35W parts according to their thermal design power ratings.

Other than the super short battery life the Hypersonic Avenger AG2 was found to be a great notebook. Over the past month is has traveled with us across the nation and has survived a handful of airport security check points without a scratch. The Avenger AG2 turns heads thanks to the small form factor design and the bright colors that it comes in. Our review sample was yellow, which was a nice bright change to the usual black notebooks that everyone has. If you like notebooks with a high gloss LCD display and want the most CPU performance you can get in a 12.1″ notebook that weighs just 4.14 pounds the Hypersonic Avenger AG2 is the choice for you! Just be sure to pick up an extra battery or look into finding the 8 cell battery we talked about in the article (check the internal page!).

Legit Bottom Line: The Hypersonic Avenger AG2 Notebook looks all chic and cute, but don’t be fooled. The Avenger AG2 is blazing fast! Too bad it just sucks up the battery with just as much enthusiasm.