ENTRY-LEVEL LAPTOPS

As the title of this month’s group test reveals, we are testing and comparing laptops aimed at the first-time laptop user. Whether you are new to mobile computing, or computing in general, the laptops on the following pages should prove to be more than capable of meeting average expectations.

ENTRY LEVEL
Many potential buyers will wonder why such a group is called ‘Entry-Level’ when there are a large number of laptops available that cost less than our £1000 (inc. VAT) lower limit. While the pricing of all computer equipment is constantly falling, the needs of the first-time user remain constant. Therefore, when we refer to an Entry-Level laptop we are referring to the specification of the machine and its relative performance and usability rather than just its price. To this end, we consider an Entry-Level laptop to have a mini-mum of a desktop processor, such as the Intel Pentium 4, running at an average clock speed of 2.66GHz. A memory allocation of at least 256MB of DDR SDRAM and a 30GB hard drive is the minimum the user should expect. An Entry-Level laptop can be a two or three-spindle machine and have a minimum of a 13.1-inch TFT screen. While we expect the graphics adapter to play a minor, but increasingly popular, role in the choice of a laptop, expect integrated graphics rather than a dedicated solution.

As you will see on the following pages, almost all manufacturers are able to offer a greater specification than this. The most interesting developments have been in terms of the number of machines with dedicated graphics adapters and maybe more surprisingly, the emergence of the DVD-Rewriter drive at such an affordable price point. Such optical drives are capable of burning up to 4.7GB of data onto a single disc with ease. Without giving too much away, we were surprised with the quality of many of the laptops sent in for this review. We hope that you will be too.

Acer TravelMate 290LCi
Advent 7037
AJP 8355
Evesham Voyager 64 3000+
Fujitsu Siemens Amilo M
Multivision Solus 1030
NEC Versa M500
Packard Bell EasyNote K5 283
Rockdirect Quaddra XT 3.06
Samsung V30 LVC 2400
Sony VAIO PCG-FR315S

REVIEW CO-ORDINATORS:
Michael Browne
Roger Kirkwood