Multivision Visage

The Visage, Multivision's first foray into the notebook market, is a powerful system built around a 1.8GHz Mobile Pentium 4 and 256MB of DDR-Ram.

Performance was impressive, putting the Visage miles ahead of the notebooks included in the July issue group test in vnunet.com's sister title Personal Computer World.

No doubt, this system's nVidia Geforce4 MX420 Go graphics card, the first we've seen in a review system, supported by 32MB of DDR memory, helped this system's excellent performance in our 3Dmark benchtest.

Sadly, the power management features that the Geforce4 MX420 Go card boasts did little to prolong the battery life, which weighed in at just one hour 14 minutes. With this level of power consumption, the Visage may find itself relegated from road warrior to a desktop replacement system.

The 14.1in screen was a little grainy, with noticeable blurring in the corners, and the keyboard was rather flexible when typing.

The Insert and Delete keys are also positioned right beside a shorter than average space bar, increasing the risk of accidentally deleting or writing over text when typing. We were pleased, however, with the touchpad, which was fairly large and responsive.

The Visage features a decent array of connectivity, including mini FireWire, three USB slots, a parallel port, modem and Ethernet ports and infrared.

Unfortunately it hasn't included a serial port, and the wisdom of including a Smart Media slot is dubious given the popularity of Secure Digital.

This is a powerful notebook let down by poor battery life and, judging by the heat it gave out, you wouldn't want to use it on your lap for long.

Specifications:

• 1.8GHz Mobile P4
• 256MB of DDR-Ram
• 30GB UltraDMA hard disk
• 24x CD-RW/DVD-Rom combo
• nVidia Geforce4 MX420 Go graphics card with 32MB DDR
• 14.1in screen
• Smartlink V.90/V.92 modem/Lan
• Windows XP Home Edition
• Dimensions: 312 x 266 x 33mm (w x d x h)
• Weight: 2.7kg
• 1yr C&R warranty.

Price: £1,196.15 (£1,018 ex VAT)

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