PC Nextday Fizzbook review

The Fizzbook is a laptop designed for use by children from eight to 14 years old.

It has a chunky case with a moulded, two-tone design and rubberised surfaces. It comes with a built-in carrying handle covered by a green leather cover, which is attached to the case by Velcro. The screen has a large bezel around it, and there are large, rubberised wrist-rests, which are comfortable.

Unfortunately, PC Nextday hasn't used the full width of this already skinny case for the keyboard, and the result is a non-standard arrangement of keys. The Ctrl and Windows keys are barely a centimetre wide and the Tab key is just 8mm wide. What's more, our thumbs often hit the raised bezel around the keyboard instead of the spacebar. We gave the Fizzbook to a 12-year-old to try out, and even with her delicate fingers she found it hard to type.

Although aimed at kids, there's no educational software bundled apart from a free trial of a learning game. Software aimed at parents is included, allowing them to set up web and application filters, plus schedule internet access and shutdown times.

Our young tester found the bundled trial software to be fun, but spent more time playing with the webcam. The webcam software is very basic, and image quality was poor. The camera in our review model was badly fitted, resulting in distinct dark patches in the bottom corners. Oddly, the built-in microphone wasn't switched on by default, and when it was, sound quality was very poor.

With an Intel Atom processor and 1GB of memory, the Fizzbook performs adequately compared to similar netbooks. High-quality content from the BBC's iPlayer played at full screen, although the picture wasn't as sharp as we've seen on other screens. Colours are bright and the matt finish cuts out reflections, but there's a distinctly grainy look to the whole 8.9in screen. Headphones or external speakers would be preferable to the awful internal speakers.

PC Nextday claims the Fizzbook has been drop-tested from 60cm. However, there's a 30GB hard disk rather than a solid-state disk, so care still needs to be taken. Apart from this drop-test claim, however, we can't see anything to justify the 'child-friendly' label - there's nothing to protect the delicate LCD screen, for example. It's also worth noting that there's no optical drive, but you do get an SD card reader.

Overall, the Fizzbook isn't great value. With standard 802.11g wireless networking, just two USB ports and no video output, it lacks expansion options. Its tiny keyboard and equally tiny hard disk don't compare well with cheaper netbooks such as Asus's Eee PC 904HD.

Author: Barry de la Rosa