Multivision Solus 1020

Encased in a smart matt black chassis with a silver trim, the Multivision Solus 1020 is an attractive desktop replacement notebook powered by an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor. This is partnered with a 60GB Hitachi hard disk and, as the Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics card has 64MB of dedicated memory, you are left with the full 512MB allocation of DDR SD-Ram system memory.

As well as a Panasonic slot-load DVD/CD-RW multidrive, which also supports DVD-Ram, is an MP3 player with silver controls on the front of the notebook, along with an LCD status panel.

The range of storage is supplemented by a Type II PC Card slot, located just next to the mini Firewire port, Lan and power sockets on the left-hand side of the unit.

The Solus managed a score of 187 in Sysmark, 7,273 in 3Dmark and 49.2fps (frames per second) in Unreal Tournament. Battery life of one hour and 17 minutes might be disappointing in a notebook, but you're unlikely to want to lug this 3.3kg heifer far.

Two fairly quiet speakers sit just under the bright 15in LCD TFT screen, which has decent viewing angles. The keyboard has some flexibility, and features large, well-spaced keys in sensible positions - apart from the Insert and Delete keys under the right-hand Shift key, which are easy to press accidentally while typing.

A VGA slot is at the rear of the unit next to the parallel and two USB2 ports, with a modem socket, single PS/2 slot and TV-out socket on the right-hand side.

Contact: Multivision 0870 066 0885
www.multivision.co.uk

Specifications:

• Windows XP Home
• Athlon XP 2500+ 1.86GHz
• 512MB of DDR SD-Ram
• 60GB hard disk
• 1x DVD-R, 1x DVD-RW, 2x DVD-Ram 16x 8x 24x CD-RW
• Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics, 64MB of memory
• 15in LCD TFT
• 3.1kg
• 328 x 283 x 26.5mm (w x d x h)
• 2yr C&R warranty