Evesham Voyager 5000 review

Portables may never catch up with desktop speeds, but the gap is closing.

We're now used to Intel releasing ever-faster mobile processors for notebooks - but even so, the appearance of a Celeron 400 inside the new Evesham Voyager 5000 came as a surprise. Intel has so far pushed the mobile Pentium II to just 366MHz, and we weren't aware that it was going any higher yet. So it seemed peculiar that Celeron, rather than Pentium II or III, would be the first 400MHz processor for notebooks.

After a bit of work with a screwdriver, everything became clearer. The CPU at the heart of the Voyager 5000 isn't actually a mobile Celeron processor at all, but a standard Socket 370 desktop Celeron. That's certainly good for performance: unsurprisingly, the 400MHz Voyager 5000 is faster than any 366MHz notebook on the market. But there is a downside. Desktop processors aren't designed with the needs of the notebook in mind, namely lower power consumption and cooler running.

Heat is certainly an issue that Evesham has done its best to address. You'll find a large, complex and noisy fan arrangement on the underside of the notebook. While this should keep the CPU cool, we can't say the same about the bottom of the notebook, which does get remarkably warm - too much so for comfortable use.

The real problem is the battery. Not only does it run hot, but it's a nickel metal hydride cell, rather than a longer-life lithium ion battery. Sadly, the combination of a power-hungry notebook and this type of battery is not a happy one. The current setup would run for just an hour in our intensive battery test.

As a result, this really isn't the notebook for computing on the move. It's best described as a desktop replacement you can carry from one office to another. The rubber feet on the base give the feeling that the manufacturer knows this. Not only will they keep the fan's air-intake clear of the desk, but they'll also keep the hot spots away from vulnerable surfaces.

The Voyager has other portability problems: it's chunky and, at nearly 3kg, feels it too. On the upside, this means you get a larger screen, and a pretty good one at that. With a 13.3in diagonal, and top resolution of 1,024x768, it's pretty comfortable in use. Screen contrast and viewing angle are within acceptable limits. Even 10-point text is legible. Colour and brightness are also consistent across the display. The keyboard won't receive many complaints, either. The action is light but positive, the keys are wide and flat. Our only real concerns were the smallish Enter and Tab keys, and the slightly weird arrangement of the page navigation arrow keys.

The case construction feels sturdy enough, and it's also a well-featured machine, with a 56K internal modem on the left-hand side. The right-hand side is dominated by an infra-red serial port and the 24-speed CD-ROM drive. The floppy drive is accessible from the front. At the back are all the basic ports: serial, parallel, VGA, PS/2 keyboard/mouse and twin USB ports, along with audio in and out. The Crystal audio chipset and internal stereo speakers dish out acceptable noises, as long as the speakers aren't pushed too hard. As 96Mb of RAM is already fitted, along with a 5Gb EIDE hard disk, there's very little wrong with the specification. That's lucky, as the single memory upgrade socket is already filled, and we couldn't discover any way of upgrading the hard disk, either.

As a desktop alternative to a full-size PC, the staggering performance of this notebook is compelling. Just about any application you could want to use runs on this machine, and at a decent speed. Thanks to the ATI Rage Pro LT chipset, there's even some limited 3D acceleration too. The price may prove attractive enough to entice many users. In the final analysis, however, we'd happily trade those extra MHz for something that could be used comfortably on the sofa or train - and for a couple of hours.