Inside The P150HM
We were a little disappointed to find no ExpressCard slots on the P150HM, especially after opening the unit to discover an empty PCIe x1 slot. Yet, it appears the absence of any external card slots is meant to make additional room for a larger battery. MALIBAL upgraded from the standard Wi-Fi combo adapter to Intel’s high-end Ultimate-N 6300, losing the standard adapter’s Bluetooth functionality in the conversion.
Beneath two heat sinks are the parts that make the P150HM a potential desktop-slayer, its Core i7-2920XM CPU and GeForce GTX 485M GPU. MALIBAL filled every memory slot in its Lotus P150HM to push total capacity to 16 GB, and even the graphics module is upgradeable using standard Clevo graphics modules.
A plastic sleeve with foam strips holds the drive firmly in place, but we have to ask Clevo why it didn’t just put the foam strips on the bay cover…and avoid the plastic sleeve?
A 77 watt-hour battery looks fairly large for a notebook this small, and gives us hope that we may be able to use the seven-pound P150HM as “more than a portable desktop."
Fortron Source’s 180 W power brick is much smaller than the ones used for Clevo’s larger models, yet weighs almost as much at 1.8 pounds. At least the smaller size makes it easier to pack away.
