Putting the KDE Slimbook through its paces

An Adequate SSD

The already somewhat mature mSata SSD Kingston mS200 with 120GB capacity has a reading speed of just under 400MByps, reaching about 200MByps when writing. More modern SSDs are faster. Nevertheless, the bundled drive is compatible with the system and should be sufficient for most users. It's also several times faster than conventional mechanical hard disks. If you need a larger SSD, however, it may be better to order the standard 120GB drive and replace it with a better one yourself.

Upgrading components such as RAM, SSD, or the WLAN module is very user-friendly. You just need to loosen the 12 screws on the back cover to reach them.

Low Noise

The strategically placed gaps in the aluminum housing make for good heat dissipation and will likely keep the Slimbook ticking over nicely. This in turn makes itself felt in a pleasantly quiet working environment. During testing, we transcoded a video using the editor Handbrake , which loaded the CPU on all four cores to over 90 percent. Only when we placed our ears very close to the casing did we hear a low noise. Even using the stress tester cpuburn , which constantly serves a 100% load on all cores, the fan remained inaudible at a distance of 30cm.

In order to get a comparable test of the main components, we installed the Phoronix Test Suite (PTS) [3] from the vendor site as the Ubuntu version was completely out of date. We used the Universe suite, which offers the most extensive tests [4].

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