Jul 30, 2005 05:57 PM
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(Updated Jul 30, 2005 05:57 PM)
I was looking for a laptop at a budget range of 55K Rs. to replace my existing PC. As I browsed through various catalogs, websites I settled to decide between three competitors Acer TravelMate 4152, IBM R50e and Compaq Presario M2013. I went for Acer TravelMate 4152 because of its Sonoma Platform which uses a newer Intel 915 GM chipset with higher processor speeds 500 Mhz compared to 855's 400 Mhz used by IBM and Compaq. A brief review of its various features according to me. 1. Build Quality: Weighing 2.87 Kgs and encased in a silver body it looks solid and sturdy to handle. The battery and RAM compartments are easy to open. It has a 8 Cell Li-Ion battery with estimated time of 5 hours. 2. Processing Power: Powered by a Intel Pentium M 740 Processor (1.73 Ghz and 2 MB L2 cache) and with 256 MB RAM the processing power is good for programming and light graphics applications. It supports DDR2 (dual channel) RAM and I would recommend anyone to upgrade 256 MB extra for the extra power. It has Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 built in for graphics support. 3. Storage : It comes with a 60 GB ATA Hard disk and by the way it also supports SATA hard disk. The CD drive comes in the form of DVD Read and CD Read / Write. It also comes with a 6 in 1 card reader for reading MMC,SD and Memory Sticks. 4. Connectivity : It comes with 4 USB 2.0 ports and 1 IEEE 1394 port (Firewire). There are also 1 serial port,1 RJ-11 port, A/V ports and S-Video Out. 5. Networking : It has built in support for Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g. It also has bluetooth, infra red for wireless transfers. A inbuilt modem is also present. 6. Display & Sound : It comes with a 15'' XGA TFT LCD .Its viewing angle and picture quality is good. Sound produced from the stereo speakers in the front is good for a laptop. 7. Software: The laptop comes with a preloaded version on linux and there is also a driver CD for setting up various devices. The Acer e-powerManagement and Launch Manager is very useful. The e-Powermanagement software gives the user tools to tweak the battery back-up time. Finally people with a 50K budget can definitely go for it. The battery back-up depends on the applications being run. For running office applications I got a remarkable 4:30 hours. Using bluetooth and wireless networking brings it down to 2:30 hours. The one drawback is you have to buy a full version of windows or have a good linux version as the preloaded one has only limited functionalities.
