Hypersonic Avenger AG2: speedy thin-and-light offers poor battery life.(REVIEWS: LAPTOPS)(Product/service evaluation)(Brief article)

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THE LIGHTWEIGHT HYPERSONIC AVENGER AG2 is one of the most powerful notebooks in the thin-and-light class, but poor battery life holds it back from portable computing glory.

Available in five different colors--black, blue, pink, white, and yellow--the AG2 weighs 4.1 pounds and features a glossy 12.1-inch wide-screen TFT. That's a decent-size display, but we wish Hypersonic had opted for a roomier 13.3-inch model, instead. (The same goes for the system's cramped keyboard.) That said, the 1,280x800-resolution screen does a nice job with movies, and its viewing angle is excellent, though its gloss coating causes glare. The AG2 comes with a built-in Webcam and a pretty standard array of wired and wireless connections, though it lacks an HDMI port.

The Avenger AG2 starts at a midrange price of $1,239; our $1,599 test unit came packed with a speedy 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo T9300 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 200GB hard drive spinning at a desktop-caliber 7,200rpm. The system's Intel GMA X3100 integrated ...