Hi-Grade Notino W6700-2000

Anyone who's seen an Apple Titanium Powerbook may find that this little number looks strangely familiar.

It seems that Hi-Grade is attempting to steal Apple's thunder by producing an equally stylish Windows notebook at something approaching half the price of a real Ti Powerbook.

The main styling cues are, of course, the colour and the translucent ivory-coloured keyboard set in the middle of the machine's wide body. The luminescent blue power button and discreet blue pinpoint LEDs sit above the keyboard.

On a more practical note, Higrade has also bestowed the W6700-2000 with a wide-aspect screen identical to that of a Ti Powerbook's, at least in terms of size and resolution: a 15.2in diagonal with a native resolution of 1,280 x 854.

Finally, along the front edge a slinky row of mirror-silver buttons - and accompanying blue LED - will let you play audio CDs when the machine itself is switched off.

Looking a little closer it's clear that the low price of the W6700 notebook hasn't been achieved without a few design compromises.

First off is the fact that while a Ti Powerbook's case is made of titanium, the Higrade has to make do with lowly silver-effect plastic, thus the illusion is shattered as soon as you touch it.

We also get the feeling that the screen has been designed and sourced separately from the main body of the machine, since its three integrated power status indicators are plain, dull green LEDs, which does rather spoil the effect of those classy high-intensity blue ones.

It's not all plastic though: the internal chassis is magnesium-reinforced and feels relatively sturdy, and doesn't creak ominously under its own weight when you pick up the machine up with one.

The finer points of design aside, there's no question that the W6700 has got what it takes where some people would say it really counts: under the bonnet there lurks a 2GHz Pentium 4-M, 256MB of DDR SD-Ram and a graphics system equal to anything that Apple has to offer.

The Nvidia Geforce 440 Go chipset has a comfortable 64MB of dedicated memory and achieved 5,232 in 3Dmark. Our review unit had a 40GB hard drive, but the shipping model will sport 30GB.

The full range of connectors is present, including two USB2 ports, Firewire, network, modem, parallel port and a PC Card slot.

We haven't seen a bad notebook screen in our labs for quite some time, and the Hi-Grade fortunately bucks no trends in that department, with a good viewing angle, brightness and contrast.

The 1,280 x 854 resolution is a real benefit in terms of the increased working area over standard 1,024 x 768 screens but without Windows text and icons becoming too small.

And, of course, the wide aspect ratio is a better option for watching DVDs on the integrated combo drive. The battery lasted nearly two hours in our tests.

The size and weight of the W6700, with its large 352 x 260mm footprint but moderate 2.7kg weight means it lies in a bit of no-man's land between a truly portable mobile and a full desktop replacement machine.

But the full-size, full-travel keyboard with its solid feel and the big high-resolution screen means using it as your main or sole PC is certainly a viable proposition.

The unit ran for a respectable one hour, 56 minutes in our battery life test, so using it on the road isn't out of the question either. And it's certainly fast enough, with a Sysmark score of 181, although we've seen notebooks topping 200 of late.

Any 'real' Ti Powerbook user would certainly turn their nose up at the W6700, and you might even get the odd sniffy look from Sony Vaio users, but the machine is at least a departure from the dull design of many mid-price notebooks.

In all honesty the posh look doesn't quite come off, but beauty is only skin deep and there's no doubt that the W6700 is a good value, capable notebook on its own terms.

Contact: Hi-Grade 0800 074 0403
www.higrade.com

Specifications

• 2GHz Mobile Pentium 4
• 256MB DDR memory
• 30GB hard disk
• DVD/CD-RW combo drive
• 64MB Nvidia Geforce 440 Go graphics
• 15.2in wide-aspect WXGA+ TFT screen
• Windows XP Home
• MS Works 7
• 2.7kg
• 352 x 260 x 31mm (w x d x h)
• 2yr international C&R warranty