Mid Range Notebooks

The Samsung R65 has the one of the best features in this category and a price tag that is 3K lower than the class average. The R65 comes with only a track-pad which is not a minus, but it has a scroll feature as well as a button to lock it to protect against accidental clicks. It also has a COM and an IR port, both legacy ports that are fast fading from use with the advent of Bluetooth and memory cards. It does have both of those too, along with a PCMCIA II slot. The only thing we did miss then was a Smart Card reader. 






Like its Q35 cousin in the Ultra Portables category in this shootout, the R65 features an 'AVNow' button. Using this, you
can power on the notebook into a media center environment and use it to browse photographs, listen to music and watch videos. The

AVNow environment is a 'lite XP', as evident from the screen that says “Windows is now shutting down” when you subsequently power it off. However, the form factor is comfortably lap-sized and it weighs 2 Kgs. But for all that the thickness of the model is commendable making it an ultra thin unit. The R65 finishes only 2nd best

performance wise in its category, though it stands first with 4525 3D Marks and 47.4 MCC Winstones. A battery time of 02 :27 lets it down.






BOTTOM LINE: It has our 'Editor's Choice' award and that we agree should be enough to make you buy an R65

Looking for the best

performance and features and don't mind paying 30K extra for it? Then

this Lenovo 3000 V100 is for you. It comes in an ultra-portable form

factor, weighing 0.5 Kg more than other ultra portables we have seen here.

Like the R65, the 3000 is also a dual core, but has 1 GB of RAM. Its

graphics is a standard Intel 950GMA with 128 MB video memory, but that

does not seem to handicap it too much.

For configuration,

management and recovery, the V100 comes with the Lenovo Care product suit

that lets you do everything from setting up your connectivity and security

to protecting your data against theft or modification by malware, to

recovering any data that was lost. The notebook's APS (Active Protection

System) is a continuously learning motion sensor that guards your hard

drive against jerky movement by parking its head safely. The one thing

missing in this notebook for a Lenovo is the ever-present ThinkLight!

Otherwise, it has a Web cam, an 5-in-1 SD/Memory card reader and wireless.

We did miss Bluetooth

though — that would have been a great addition to the notebook at this

price.

It scored the highest in

performance for this category and let's see what went into that. It

started off low with 1382 3D Marks (low because the chart topper here is

4525 from the category winner, the R65) and then bested the MCCW sheets

with a 55.4. Then they must have put in a power plant into the notebook,

because its battery time is 3 hours and 30 minutes, the best in the

category.

BOTTOM LINE: For

its combination of features and performance, the Lenovo 3000 V100 is well

worth the price tag, though it leaves one's arms smarting at the 2 Kg

weight for an “ultra portable” billing.

Features: 62.1 Performance: 79.4 



Price: 100  


Overall: 445 


Rs. 60,999

Features: 74.1



Performance: 90.1 


Price: 87.1


Overall: 490


Rs. 69,999

Features: 62.0



Performance: 63.7


Price: 66.7


Overall: 380


Rs.91,414

Features: 73.3



Performance: 90.9


Price: 96.8


Overall: 499


Rs. Rs.63,000

Features:  94.9 



Performance: 80.5 


Price: 98.4 


Overall: 544


Rs.62,000