Evesham Voyager C510

Intel recently released its next generation Wi-Fi-based Centrino technology. Codenamed Sonoma, it allows notebooks to use faster mobile processors, PCI-Express graphics and improved 5.1 audio. The Voyager C510 is Evesham's first Sonoma notebook and uses an Intel Pentium M 760 processor.

If you haven't yet become used to Intel's convoluted new naming system, the M 760 is a 2GHz mobile processor. You'll find there's an ample 512Mb of memory supplied. However, it's the graphics performance that really sets this notebook apart from other portables.

Using a 128Mb GeForce Go 6600, one of nVidia's latest mobile graphics cards, the Voyager C510 delivers great 3D gaming performance. In our labs tests it managed to clock up an impressive score and was able to run the majority of games perfectly acceptably. Having said that, the latest 3D titles will require a drop in quality settings for smoother gameplay.

Aside from its performance, the Voyager C510 also benefits from an attractive case. The two-toned silver system looks stylish and manages to remain reasonably compact. The 15.4in wide-screen display is perfect for viewing movies and performs well with a native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050 pixels.

The 80Gb hard disk is a decent size for a notebook computer of this price and, if you want to back up data or burn music and photos, a Panasonic recordable DVD plus (+) and minus (-) drive is also supplied.

Being a dual-layer model, this DVD writer will be able to burn up to 8.5Gb of data to special dual-layer DVDs. If you prefer, the DVD writer can be swapped out and replaced with an optional second hard disk. The C510 is also laden with all the usual ports and sockets and integrated Wi-Fi.

In terms of software, the Voyager C510 comes with Pinnacle Studio 9 SE, a video-editing package that you don't often see bundled with notebooks, but Evesham clearly wanted to make full use of this model's graphics power.

The office suite Microsoft Works 8 is also included along with Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD SE. A three-year warranty (one year on-site, two year return-to-base, labour only) is also thrown in.

Battery life is just about what you'd expect from such a notebook and it lasted for two hours and 23 minutes under our standard test conditions. Weighing in at 2.9kg, this isn't the kind of notebook you'd want to carry around with you on a long walk. That said, it's by no means the heaviest notebook we've seen and, if you take in to account the large screen and performance, it's not a bad trade-off.

The Evesham Voyager puts Intel's new Sonoma technology to good use and impressed us a great deal. Its relatively low price tag makes it even more appealing. If you're after a notebook that's capable of running games and other graphic intensive applications, the Voyager C510 comes highly recommended.

Contact:
Evesham 0870 160 9500
www.evesham.com

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