Acer Travelmate 661LMi

Designed for anyone who wants the power of a desktop PC on the move, the Travelmate 661LMi is the latest offering from Acer. With a 15in screen, DVD writer and Centrino technology, this is a highly specified system with more than a few tricks up its sleeve.

The Travelmate looks ready for business, and its smart silver and grey casing provides a fitting corporate appearance. Due to the large display, the unit is much wider than A4, but it is still only about 1in thick. That said, it weighs 2.86kg: it's not the heaviest notebook in the world but, despite its name, you won't want to carry the Travelmate around for very long.

The screen offers an SXGA resolution of 1,400 x 1,050 pixels, which we found works best with Windows set to large screen fonts. The picture is crisp, although the display isn't as bright or clear as some other panels we've seen recently, even on the maximum brightness setting. Overall, quality is fine, but not the best around.

The Travelmate's size provides room for a large, slightly curved keyboard and an oversized palm rest, but the touchpad is dwarfed by comparison. It's also surrounded by a 1970s-style silver bezel, making the active area of the pad even smaller. Along with left and right buttons there's an additional four-way controller set between them for scrolling, but we would have preferred a switch to toggle the pad on and off, as with HP's 5400 series. The keyboard is comfortable with a fair degree of travel; above it four extra keys provide quick access to Internet browsing, email and two other functions of your choice.

Parallel, external VGA, Ethernet, S-Video and modem connections lurk at the back, while the left-hand side of the machine hosts four USB2 connectors, a single mini-Firewire port, a Type II PC Card slot and audio line out, microphone and headphone sockets. There's a smartcard slot for system security devices, and a useful built-in memory card reader provides support for Multimedia Card (MMC), Memory Stick, Secure Digital (SD) and Smart Media cards.

In terms of external drives, the system comes with either a DVD/CD-RW combo or a DVD writer, which slides out when not needed to lighten the load. Our review model came with the latter installed.

Internally, the 1.4GHz Pentium 4 M is backed by Intel's 855GM chipset, and our review model included a healthy 512MB of DDR-Ram, up to 64MB of which can be assigned to the integrated Intel graphics controller, while a 40GB Ultra ATA100 hard disk provides mass storage. The drive is protected from day-to-day knocks by what Acer calls Dasp (Disk Anti-Shock Protection System). Intel Pro/Wireless networking provides Wifi and other sharing options.

Along with Windows XP Professional, Acer bundles Norton Antivirus, Platinum Secret for security options, NTI's CD & DVD Maker and Cyberlink's PowerDVD for movie viewing. Also included is a neat Notebook Manager utility for adjusting various settings quickly. This is a functional line-up, though we would have expected at least Microsoft Works 7 to get things going on the productivity front.

The Travelmate achieved a respectable Sysmark score of 154. Sadly, it fared worse under our 3Dmark graphics tests. Intel's integrated hardware could only manage a score of 1,874 and just 10fps (frames per second) in Unreal Tournament. If you're looking to play the latest 3D games, this isn't the machine for you. However, if you want to work on the move, it's perfect. The Travelmate lasted an outstanding four hours and 27 minutes under our battery tests - the longest we've seen. Clearly, Centrino is living up to its promises.

At just over £1,300, this isn't the cheapest option around but, in terms of features, you get a lot for your money. The four-in-one card reader and DVD writer really do make a difference. If graphics performance was, we'd be looking at a recommended award.

Contact: Acer 0870 900 2237
www.acer.co.uk

Specifications:

• 1.4GHz Pentium 4 M
• 512MB DDR-Ram
• 40GB hard disk
• 24x 24x 10x CD-RW, 8x 2x 2x DVD-RW (read, write, rewrite)
• 15in TFT at 1,400 x 1,050
• Four-in-one memory card reader
• Smartcard slot
• Ethernet, infra-red and Wifi
• Integrated graphics (up to 64MB shared graphics memory)
• Optional docking station
• 330 x 272 x 28.9mm (w x h x d)
• 2.86kg
• Two-year warranty