Evesham Quest eXPlorer review

We often look at budget notebooks in Computer Buyer, but it's rare to see a portable computer that sells for much under £700.

This offering from Evesham costs just £499, and that includes VAT and delivery.

BUDGET PUNCH

At first glance, the eXPlorer's low price looks just too good to be true. Just what can Evesham offer for only £499?

The answer, it turns out, is quite a lot. The eXPlorer is the first computer we've reviewed that uses AMD's Mobile Sempron processor. Sempron is AMD's budget processor, and is available for desktop and notebook PCs. The Evesham's chip is based on the Athlon XP processor, so it shouldn't be too underpowered.

A computer's performance isn't just decided by its processor, though. The amount of memory it has affects which programs can run, and how quickly. The eXPlorer has 256MB, which is fine for basic Windows XP computing. Running more than a few programs at once will slow the system down, and some software needs more, particularly if it uses large video or image files.

With its modest specification, we weren't expecting the Evesham to shine in our performance benchmarks, but it was by no means disgraced. Its overall 2D score of 46 is less than half that of our reference PC, but that's a desktop PC based around a powerful Athlon 64 3000+ processor. The Evesham isn't exactly a powerhouse, but we've seen lower scores from more expensive notebooks. The eXPlorer would, however, perform better with another 256MB of RAM. Happily, it does have a free memory slot, so could be upgraded quite cheaply in the future.

One thing that can't be upgraded, though, is the notebook's graphics chip. Games players should definitely pay more for a system with a dedicated, powerful graphics chip. The built-in graphics of the eXPlorer couldn't run Doom 3, and its weak score of 1,641 in 3DMark 2001 means it would struggle even with older games.

CASE NOTES

Some budget computers, such as the £699 AJP Traveller reviewed in our January issue, have become surprisingly portable. Truly portable notebooks, however, still cost a little bit more than this budget model.

The eXPlorer is on the large side of medium and weighs 3.4kg, so it certainly isn't the ideal travelling companion, but its battery lasted for more than an hour and a half in our intensive test. Evesham includes a carrying case, and the notebook is well-built and sturdy enough for the occasional road trip.

The 15in LCD screen has a resolution of 1,024x768, and picture quality is very good for the price. Whites are clear and bright, and our test of greyscales, which should graduate evenly across the screen from dark to light, was impressively smooth.

Its downside is that it offers fairly narrow viewing angles, so if you aren't looking at it straight on, contrast and colours will begin to look uneven. Still, this is common among affordable notebooks - and the eXPlorer is better than many we've seen. The lid allows the screen to flex a little, and pressure from behind will temporarily discolour it, but otherwise the whole notebook seems very sturdy.

The keyboard is sprung quite firmly, and the keys aren't as clicky as we'd like, but it doesn't flex when you're typing. Most keys are placed where you'd expect, though like many other notebooks there is a Function key outside the left Control. This can be frustrating for users who frequently use keyboard shortcuts. The trackpad is very good, with just the right level of touch-sensitivity.

FEATURES

The notebook has a 40GB hard disk, which is the minimum size