Mesh Edge17 Inspire CS review

Mesh's Edge17 is a 17in laptop with a 1,440x900 screen resolution, which is both wider and taller than the 1,366x768 displays on many 15in models. It includes a dedicated graphics chipset, but it's only the Nvidia G105M which, even with 512MB of memory, isn't very powerful, and the Edge17 scored a measly 8.3fps in our Call of Duty 4 benchmark.

With settings turned down, you might be able to play some older titles, but generally speaking this chipset is unsuitable for playing 3D games. It's more than powerful enough to decode HD video, but there's no HDMI output. You'll have to use the VGA output if you want to watch 1080p content on an HD TV, but some only accept 1080p via HDMI. Thankfully there's also a digital audio output, as the internal speakers are tinny and lack bass.

We've seen this case before on other budget laptops, and while it feels solidly built, it doesn't look particularly elegant. Mesh has squeezed a numeric keypad into the space to the right of the keyboard, but there's still 30mm of room either side of it. However, the keys don't fit perfectly into the space in the case, leaving gaps around the bottom and right side of the numberpad.

Thankfully the keys themselves have a light action and fairly good feedback, and the layout is standard. The touchpad is deceptively small yet responsive, and the large see-saw button has a reasonably light action.

Despite having a reasonably fast dual-core processor inside, the Edge17 scored below average in our benchmarks due to the inclusion of only 2GB of RAM. Other laptops in the same price range, such as the Samsung R520, with 3GB of RAM and a similar processor have seen fairly sizeable performance increases.

Although the extra screen space is tempting, the screen itself can't match the best for quality. The backlight is uneven and nowhere near as bright as the Toshiba L500's or Samsung R520's. Colours are dull and contrast is poor. Add to this the poor battery life of under two hours and, we can't recommend the Inspire CS.