Novatech X15 GS review

Novatech's basic black case won't win any design awards - bevelled edges are all that differentiates it from a shoebox - but it has a certain minimalist charm.

The plastic isn't the obviously cheap and tacky sort, and beneath its satin finish is a reassuring solidity. There was a bit of flex in the lid, but otherwise the chassis felt robust to us.

The keyboard was especially firm, and although it sounded a bit plasticky in use it was very comfortable to type on. The trackpad has an especially smooth surface, which we found very responsive. Its two buttons are large, but have very little travel and aren't equally sensitive over their whole area, so we didn't get clear feedback every time we tried to click.

Like all these budget laptops, the Novatech has a glossy finish to its display that looks nice but has a tendency to catch unwanted reflections, especially outdoors or in harsh lighting. However, the picture was bright and colours sharp. Movies and photos looked great. With the same dedicated graphics chip as the Acer Aspire 5520G, the Novatech's 3D scores were disappointing, but it'll still run older games at lower resolutions.

General (2D) performance was excellent, and well suited to everyday office applications and Internet tasks. At 2.5kg this could have been a good machine for mobile use, but battery life put paid to that. It just scraped two hours in our light use test, dropping to one hour and 40 minutes of DVD playback. The hard disk is also relatively small, so you might need to invest in an external USB hard drive to cope with a large collection of music, movies and photos.

Still, for under £500 this is a well balanced package. It certainly won't blow your socks off in the latest 3D titles, but will let you dabble in strategy games and online virtual worlds, and it's fine for films. In general tasks, you get a good level of performance compared to the competition. The design may not be inspired, but it's inoffensive, and build quality is decent.