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Notwithstanding that this is a ‘technical’ evaluation; it may be surprising to some that whether a candidate is on the leading edge of technology is not a major element of the examination process. Of more importance is continually listening to customer demands for our mobile devices, as well as monitoring the overall technology landscape for the foreseeable future.

 

Certainly all products must fall within the widely accepted roadmap set by chipset manufacturers like Intel. The Engage 131 / 132 models both run under the Intel Montevina chipset and tick all the boxes for performance and component compatibility. But what our customers are looking for, and what we seek to achieve with all new products is to establish a marque that will have clearly defined longevity and stability. This is vastly different from the retail market, which very much has to cater for the early adopters who demand state-of-the-art now, and leads to product lifecycles of as little as 3 months!

 

This can result in quite a balancing act as we have to provide support for rapidly changing processor, memory, and wireless technologies. So for example, the lineage of the Ergo Vista 621/631 products embraced both the Intel Santa Rosa and Montevina chipsets, with processors of 65nm and 45nm technologies, all within the same chassis, all of which are supported by Ergo. This gives a significant advantage to customers who buy Ergo products which provide real tangible security of investment.

 

Probably the major criteria for investigation are the physical aspects of the product. At a time when all vendors can produce ranges of laptops which can be technically benchmarked like-for like, this can be a key differentiator. Firstly in terms of styling, how does the product look and feel, and importantly, how does it function from a usability perspective? The vast majority of our customers, whether they are in schools, colleges, or the services demand robust mobile devices that will survive potentially unsympathetic use by pupils and students, or handle challenging environmental elements in the field.

 

 

With the new Engage 131/132 models a cursory inspection reveals a robust laptop body which houses a striking full size keyboard with dedicated numeric keypad, the keys themselves which are embedded into the chassis framework that makes them significantly harder for (ab)users to pop out, a real benefit for our education sector users.

 

The screen itself is a 15.4” TFT and the model comes in two variants, the Engage 131 has a UMA graphics processor while the Engage 132 has a dedicated GPU for more demanding graphic intensive applications. The screen is attached to the main body by 2 sturdy hinges which are tough enough to survive all but the most extreme user abuse.

 

Increasingly customers are demanding improved battery life from laptops, both for environmental reasons, and a usability perspective. All Ergo laptops are evaluated with BAPCo MobileMark battery testing software to emulate real usage, and the Engage 131 scores over 3 hours life with an intensive usage pattern.

 

Another significant element of the evaluation is the ongoing supportability of the product as we provide warranty packages of 36 months and beyond, and also supply to customers who themselves provide internal frontline repair support. The ease of repair and access to components for upgrading memory, CPU, HDD etc is considered. The design of the Engage is well thought out and all internal devices are easily accessible, and replacement components are readily available for the product lifecycle and beyond.

 

This process of evaluation is undertaken on all potential new models and only 20% of evaluated candidates make it through. Overall the Engage 131/132 are stylish and feature rich new laptop offerings that sit well in the Ergo portfolio, they are more than worthy successors to the highly popular and successful Ergo Vista range.