The good: High-end performance in a sleek and light package; unique tiger stripe design; bright LED-backlit screen; includes sleek external DVD writer.

The bad: Runs hot while gaming; expensive; does not have shortcut and multimedia buttons; mediocre battery life; security features absent; lacks HSDPA.

The bottom line: For power users who want a light laptop to carry around, the LG P300 fits the bill almost perfectly. The flipside is its high price and lack of an integrated optical drive.

Read full review of the LG P300 »

By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
May 5, 2008

Targeting corporate as well as entertainment users, we found this LG model quite impressive in the latter aspect. The number of times we can say high performance and thin-and-light in the same breath is as numerous as vegetarians at a meat packers convention. The BenQ JoyBook S41 was one such machine, and now we can add the LG P300 to this short list. If it was not for the necessary footprint required to hold the 13.3-inch display, the P300 is almost as light as an ultraportable. Though it joins the list of sleek 13.3-inch laptops popularized by the MacBook Air and Lenovo ThinkPad X300, there is one key difference. While Apple and Lenovo use low-powered parts to increase battery life, the LG P300 has gone the other way and created a thin-and-light for the gaming crowd. Decked out with a full-powered Core 2 Duo processor and an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GS video card, there is no longer a reason one should have to compromise between sleek design and performance.

As a business portable, however, the LG P300 is missing more than a few features. We did not find common security protocols like fingerprint sensor or TPM security chip, nor is the harddisk protected against drops and shock. Suffice to say, the frequent business traveler should adopt third-party security solutions if sensitive company information is stored on this machine.

Design

Our first impression of the purple tiger stripe design was, frankly, bleah. But over time, the design grew on us and was not as glaring as before. In any case, its distinct look really sets it apart from the crowd. Despite its glossy finish, we were surprised the surface did not pick up fingerprints.

To fit the 13.3-inch LCD, the P300 has a footprint of 315 x 236.5 x 32.1mm but a heft of only 1.65kg, making it larger but lighter than some ultraportables. Though the P300's dimensions are similar to the ThinkPad X300, it does not hold an integrated optical drive under the hood. In its place is a gaming-grade graphics card which gives it exceptional performance for its class. The rear of the unit is reserved for the battery, with all other ports located at the flanks of the unit. The front end holds only the memory card reader. This arrangement allows the connectors and ports to be easily accessed.

The interior of the unit has a clean look--meaning no dedicated shortcut buttons or multimedia controls. With the exception of the volume control jog dial at the right side, shortcuts are accessed through a combination of Fn and F1-F12 keys. Though the palm rest has a brushed aluminum look, it's actually plastic. The single touchpad button reminds us of Apple MacBooks, though underneath there are distinct right and left click sensors and functions like any other Windows-based notebook.

Features

The LG P300 targets the business crowd while offering enough graphics power for entertainment needs (like gaming). It may not be as slim as the MacBook Air or hold an internal optical drive like the ThinkPad X300, but this does not mean the P300 is not feature-rich. At the top of the display sits a 1.3-megapixel Webcam, while three USB 2.0 ports and ExpressCard/34 slot allow for external peripherals. Instead of a FireWire port, the P300 went with the S-link connector instead. This is essentially a mini-USB slot which allows you to easily transfer files between PCs with a standard USB to mini-USB cable.

The 13.3-inch transflective widescreen has a native resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels and is powered by an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GS graphics card. The screen uses LED backlights which are brighter yet use less energy. The graphics card has 256MB of discrete video memory and can grab up to 768MB of system RAM during periods of high stress. Though this is not the most powerful mobile video chip in the market, it is almost unheard of in a laptop so sleek and light. Interestingly enough, the graphics card is also PhysX-compatible. This means games like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is able to render more realistic in-game physics compared with non-PhysX graphics processors. Its closest competitor in the portable gaming arena is the Dell XPS M1330, though the latter sports the less powerful Nvidia GeForce 8400M video processor.

External displays can be hooked up via the VGA or HDMI port. The speaker bar at the top of the keyboard offers stereo sound, but like most laptops the audio quality is not fantastic. There are audio jacks to which you can hook up external headsets or speakers, though it lacks an S/PDIF digital output for superior audio output.

The keyboard is comfortable to use and the silver shade fits well with the palm rest. The trackpad is also reasonably responsive and we have no complaints with the tactile feel of the mouse buttons. Though it lacks an internal optical drive, an external Super Multi DVD writer comes standard with the package and requires only a single USB port to connect and power the device. We were quite impressed with the external drive as it is one of the sleekest we have seen and the USB cable stores inside the unit when not in use. Tested with a DVD+R disc, it can write up to a maximum speed of 8x and is on par with most USB-powered external optical drives. If you need to burn DVDs in a hurry, you should consider instead external devices which are AC-powered that can write up to 18x.

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