Advent 7015

Expensive notebook PCs are either very big or very small and the Advent 7015 is definitely in the former category.

We prefer the term 'desktop replacement' for notebook PCs of this size, since they offer most of the features of a desktop PC but aren't really designed to be carried around in a shoulder bag.

Computers from Advent are sold exclusively through PC World stores. Such high-street PCs were once frowned upon as poor value, but that's less the case these days.

At £1,699 though, the Advent 7015 is a lot of money for a notebook and the price puts it up there with high-end models from Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens and Sony.

Superficially, the 7015 certainly looks stylish. Its clean-cut design lacks any pointless ornamentation and the metallic blue case cuts a distinctive dash.

There is a lot of plastic where you might expect to find tough aluminium or magnesium alloy on other notebook PCs, but since this isn't a notebook for carting from place to place, this isn't much of a problem.

Pop the catch to lift the lid and inside is a spacious keyboard with a deep wrist rest. The keyboard does flex a little but it's comfortable enough to use.

The keys are large with broad tops and the large Enter key is a welcome touch, as are the nicely positioned cursor keys.

The four silver buttons beneath the touch pad pick up greasy fingerprint marks a little too easily for our liking and the silver shortcut buttons above the keyboard have embossed symbols that are difficult to see but again, these are very minor gripes.

The 2.8GHz desktop Pentium 4 processor is a bit of a powerhouse for a notebook PC and this showed in our tests, where it performed largely on a par with similarly specified desktop PCs.

As is the case with most notebook PCs, the graphics performance from the nVidia GeForce4 420 Go chip is less impressive but still adequate for less demanding 3D games.

When you consider the rest of the specification - 512MB of fast DDR memory, 40Gb hard disk, internal floppy disk drive, two USB ports, mini-FireWire port, modem and network sockets, and a TV-out port - the 7015 starts to look like a well-rounded system.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of caveats. First, the presence of a recordable DVD drive may seem like a tempting extra but apart from being great for backups and handy for video-editing, it isn't an essential device just yet.

Second, would-be video editors will also be hindered by the relatively low resolution of the screen. A 1024 x 768 display is fine for a TFT monitor on a desktop PC but we've seen higher resolution screens on plenty of posh notebooks.

The bottom line then is that although the Advent 7015 is certainly a powerful notebook PC, the inclusion of a recordable DVD drive and a low-resolution screen limit its appeal; it's probably a little over-specified for the majority of users.

DETAILS

Price: £1,699
Contact: PC World 0800 056 5732
www.pcworld.co.uk