Analysis
The beach towels are still hanging out to dry, but it won't be long before students from the elementary to doctoral level begin gearing up for a new school year--and, in all likelihood, hitting up Mum and Dad for some presemester seed money. If your student is one of the growing legion of laptop-lugging learners, then you're probably scouting around for a good deal on a solid, mainstream portable computer that will suit his or her note-taking and Web-researching needs. We evaluated four such notebooks that deliver fitting firepower for most academic settings without breaking the bank.
Because your child is probably going to be using the notebook for a handful of mainstream tasks that don't require top-of-the-line performance, a solid midrange CPU and matching components are all he or she needs. To meet our filter, we asked vendors to provide us with notebooks featuring at least a 600MHz Celeron processor, 128MB of RAM, and a 10GB hard drive. We set the price ceiling at AU$4,500. An internal modem was also a requirement, as was either a built-in or PC Card Ethernet adapter. Although a modem is useful for using a dial-up Internet connection, Ethernet connectivity is fast becoming a necessity on many college campuses for high-bandwidth access to the school computer network.
Most students value convenience over extreme portability, so we looked mainly at what are called "three-spindle" notebooks, units that can accommodate a floppy drive, a hard drive, and an optical (CD-ROM or DVD-ROM) drive simultaneously. Of course, with all three drives inside, these notebooks weigh more. (The two notebooks included in this roundup--the Compaq Presario 1700, and the Dell Inspiron 2500 --weigh in at roughly 2.5 to 3.5 Kgs.) Some students, however, will accept a notebook with more limited functionality to reduce the carry weight.
Academic use is only one consideration; inevitably, these notebooks will serve double duty as entertainment platforms. Because of the slower processors and lower-end graphics chips in these systems, however, none of the notebooks reviewed here is a particularly good gaming device. But opt for a DVD-ROM drive, and any of them will at least deliver acceptable DVD-video playback.
One excellent back-to-school choice that's conspicuous in its absence here is the new Apple iBook, which was not available when we compiled this roundup, but did make it in on time for a stand-alone review in this issue. If you're not attached to the Windows OS, the iBook offers everything you'd want in a student notebook, including a tough polycarbonate plastic case, a powerful 500MHz PowerPC G3 processor, a 10GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive, 10/100mbps Ethernet capability and 56kbps modem, and a weight of under 2.3 kgs.
14%
7%
