LG R1 is well built and compact, making a great travel companion for professionals. With 1GB amount of RAM, LG R1 should handle the typical workload of a notebook of this size, but the integrated Intel video system uses as much as 224 MB of the system RAM (this means you might think about upgrading to 2GB). The proccesor, 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 DUO does a fine job even if not the best available on the market. Storage is handled by a Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 100 GB SATA HDD and the extremely capable LG GSA-4082N Dual Layer DVD-RW drive. The laptop’s 14” 1280*768 display is glossy, with a good looking text and no evidence of ghosting during games or movies. WiFi connectivity seems to works pretty well finding 90% of the available connections, and LG’s Hexa-Band antenna technology will help increase signal strength.

The R1 has a 5-in-1 media card reader that supports the smaller card formats (XD/SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro), a 4 pin firewire port is included which is accompanied by 3 USB slots also. For connecting other expansion devices, LG has provided a single ExpressCard/34 slot. As a bonus, you get a VGA and S-Video port in case you want to output your screen to a second monitor or TV. A 56k modem is also included. Just doing basic word processing activities you can to get from 3:30 hours to 4 hours of battery life with the screen at full brightness.

LG gives it’s buyers excellent utility software: among these is LG’s ‘Intelligent Update’ utility which quickly connects to the Internet and checks for LG updates. It updates all of your drivers and software to the latest LG-tested versions automatically, plus that it also handles Microsoft updates and value added software. The keyboard and touchpad feel good. Like many notebooks, the R1’s keyboard has quite a few Alt-Function keys, but the Onscreen Display Manager gives visual feedback about these functions as you enable/disable them (volume, brightness, wireless and fan control).

LG R1 Notebook Specifications