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Mesh Edge17 Inspire CS review

Mesh Edge17 Inspire CS
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £499
inc VAT

Poor build quality and a stingy helping of RAM undermine the Edge17's advantage in having a slightly larger screen, and the screen itself is patchy and dark.

Specifications

17 in 1,440×900 display, 2.9kg, 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500, 2.00GB RAM, 320GB disk, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

http://www.meshcomputers.com

Mesh’s Edge17 is a 17in laptop with a 1,440×900 screen resolution, which is both wider and taller than the 1,366×768 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.

Basic Specifications

Rating **
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T6500
Processor clock speed 2.1GHz
Memory 2.00GB
Memory slots 2
Memory slots free 0
Maximum memory 4GB
Size 39x397x282mm
Weight 2.9kg
Sound Realtek High Definition Audio
Pointing device touchpad
Power consumption standby 2W
Power consumption idle 39W
Power consumption active 58W

Display

Viewable size 17 in
Native resolution 1,440×900
Graphics Processor Nvidia GeForce G105M
Graphics/video ports VGA
Graphics Memory 512MB

Storage

Total storage capacity 320GB
Optical drive model TSSTcorp TS-L633A
Optical drive type DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Ports and Expansion

USB ports 3
Bluetooth no
Wired network ports 1x 10/100
Wireless networking support 802.11b/g
PC Card slots 1x ExpressCard/54
Modem Yes
Supported memory cards SD, MMC, Memory Stick Pro
Other ports minijack audio output/S/PDIF (shared), minijack audio output, minijack microphone input

Miscellaneous

Carrying case No
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Software included Microsoft Works 8.5

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £499
Details www.meshcomputers.com
Supplier http://www.meshcomputers.com

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