Zoostorm 53-7701 Family Laptop review

Looking at the Zoostorm Family Laptop's specification on paper is enough to make anyone raise a quizzical eyebrow surely there's a mistake in the price?

Sift through the list of the components nestling inside the Zoostorm and it appears as if someone has distilled the best attributes of all the other laptops here and then slashed the price mercilessly. Firstly, the processor it's an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 with two processor cores running at 2GHz. Allied with 2GB of memory, the Zoostorm scored of 133% in our benchmarks not the quickest, but you'll have to pay at least £400 more for any of the faster laptops here.

Even the cheapest laptops in this group test have a dual-layer DVD writer as standard, but the Zoostorm goes one better by also having a 160GB hard disk. Given that the only other laptop to provide such a huge hard drive is the almost-twice-as-expensive Mesh that's pretty impressive.

Fair game

It's little surprise that the Zoostorm can't compete with the expensive Evesham and Rock laptops when it comes to gaming performance, but it still acquits itself admirably. The ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 isn't a high powered 3D gaming chipset, but it still managed to garner 39% in our Call of Duty 2 benchmark. As long as you don't expect to play the latest 3D games with every detail setting cranked to maximum, you'll find the Zoostorm capable enough.

The screen is the one of the few obvious clues as to the Zoostorm budget pedigree. Size isn't an issue its an ample 17in from corner to corner and the native resolution of 1440 x 900 gives enough Desktop space to spread a couple of documents side by side. The only grumble is with its image quality, which while perfectly acceptable just isn't as good as the pricier laptops on test. The screen isn't as bright as the best examples here and there's a noticeable graininess to the image, which makes whites look a slightly dirty grey. It's not a bad display by any means, but if you want better you'll have to pay more for the privilege.

Hot hot hot

Another caveat is that the case gets pretty hot during use. As the processor seems to be installed just beneath where your left hand rests while typing, a sweaty palm is an occasional and mildly aggravating side-effect. Equally aggravating is the time the Zoostorm took to recharge its battery just short of six hours. For a desktop replacement this isn't too much of an issue, but it's something to bear in mind.

The one thing we haven't mentioned so far is the built-in TV tuner. It's only capable of receiving digital terrestrial signals, so if you're one of the few who can't pick up digital TV, then you're out of luck. Like most digital TV tuners it'll also struggle to get good reception unless hooked up to a rooftop aerial, or a very good internal one with a booster. However, if that's all present and correct, Vista's new and much improved Media Center software makes watching and recording TV straightforward.

Any complaints directed at the Zoostorm 53-7701 seem churlish once you have a peek at the price tag. £881 buys you a powerful, versatile and impressively slimline laptop that will be as at home permanently plonked a desk as it will shoved in a bag and lugged about from A to B. The one-year return to base warranty is distinctly underwhelming, but put a bit of the cash saved towards extending that and you're onto a solid gold winner.