Other lowest-priced notebooks

Acer TravelMate 290 

This is a sleek laptop that’s about 1.28” thin, with decent features and great performance. The laptop has ample space on either side of the touchpad for resting your hands while typing. Plus, it has two extra buttons, which are meant to launch MS Outlook and IE. The notable specs include a 1.3 GHz P M, 20 GB HDD and a DVD combo drive. Plus, notable connectivity options are three USB ports, one FireWire, a Type II PCMCIA slot, Parallel, IrDA, and a 802.11b
(Wi-Fi) connection.

In performance, it gave decent performance in BW 2002 at 20.7, while scoring 25.5 in MCCW 2003. It gave 68.1 fps in Quake III and scored 2508 in 3Dmark. This makes it good for regular productivity work. Battery performance is also decent with an hour and 37 mins of battery backup. The notebook has a good recovery CD, which can make restoring your system from crashes a breeze.

ACI ethos

This is a sturdy, compact notebook with average looks. Overall, the notebook is average in performance and features, but the price at just Rs 50K is very attractive. In fact, it’s the only P4 M-based laptop at this price. 

It has P4 1.8 GHz processor, and 40 GB HDD, both of which are good. The onboard graphics, based on the SiS 650 graphics controller, aren’t that great. This also affects the performance scores. Connectivity options are good–two USB, one FireWire and PCMCIA, plus an IrDA port besides regular legacy ports such as parallel PS/2, etc. It has a CD-ROM drive and comes with Linux OS. It has a well-laid keyboard and the touch pad is decent with a scrolling option for convenience. 

The notebook comes with a three-year warranty. 

Edge AiO 265 

This notebook gets its points from good performance and aggressive pricing. You can own it for around Rs 56K with WinXP Home edition. It’s a sturdy machine, weighing 2.5 kgs, having a P4 M 1.7 GHz processor with 256 MB RAM and a 20 GB HDD. Its graphics and performance is decent with 73.4 fps in Quake III and 2837 in the 3Dmark benchmark. This is probably due to the Nvidia GeForce 440Go adapter with dedicated 16 MB VRAM. It was the only notebook to come with dedicated VRAM. Scores in the remaining benchmarks, BW 2002 and MCCW 2003, were average. Its batteries lasted for an hour and 42 mins. Coming to features, the laptop has a DVD-drive, and not many extra connectivity options besides the regular ones like LAN and audio. These include two USB ports, of which only one is v2.0, and a Type II PC card slot. It also has a parallel and PS/2 port. The touchpad isn’t as smooth as the others, giving a rubbery feeling. Overall, a good laptop if you’re worried about price and performance, but don’t mind fewer features. The laptop comes with 3-years warranty.

Hyundai Mlife 270S

A new entrant to the Indian laptop market, Hyundai Mlife 270S has all the basic features one would like in a laptop. At Rs 46K, it is the cheapest laptop in this category. The notebook offers good connectivity options with all kinds of ports including IrDA, FireWire, parallel and PS/2 ports. Though all-important options are there, they’re placed in the rear, making it slightly inconvenient to access. It comes with a floppy drive, a 30 GB HDD and a regular CD-drive. 

Coming to performance, it gave average results in all tests, which included 14.1 in BW 2002 and 19.7 in MCCW 2003. This is probably due to the Celeron processor. Battery backup is decent at an hour and 42 mins. Users who need a laptop for ordinary office work would find this a good buy. It’s also among the few laptops to come with three-years warranty. 

IBM R40e

With this Rs 60K laptop, the Big Blue has also entered the low priced laptops bandwagon. It’s a sleek small laptop, weighing 2.7 kgs, and is just 1.6” thick. 

The laptop houses a Celeron, whereas other similar priced laptops have come with P4s. This makes it an average performer. But it does score well in features as it inherits some features, such as software-management features that are a part of IBM’s ThinkVantage Technology, from its more expensive cousins. These let you manage a laptop better, with restore and data recovery options. Connectivity options are bare minimum, which include a parallel and PS/2 connector and the regular audio ports, LAN and video out. There are two USB ports, and this was the only laptop to have a Type III PCMCIA slot. 

Plug n Play M3

They don’t come any lighter than this at this price. This notebook weighs only 1.3 kgs and is an inch thick, making it a good choice for mobility purpose. The price is just as thin as the laptop at about Rs 60K. 

This was the only machine with a Via processor inside, which makes it so thin and lightweight. It houses a Via Antaur mobile processor running at 1Ghz. While this gives it a mobility advantage, it sacrifices on performance compared to the others. It didn’t score too well in all the benchmarks, and the backup time was also of an hour and 10
mins. 

The laptop has a few interesting connectivity options such as a memory card reader, SPDIF jack, and a FireWire port. Plus, there are two USB ports and a PCMCIA slot. But being so slim, it doesn’t have any optical drive or floppy drive, so you’ll have to get those separately. It’s a notebook for users who don’t want to lug around too much weight for running very basic office apps. 

Samsung X 05

This is a stylish and lightweight notebook. And if you go by performance and features alone, then this notebook is a winner. Overall, it scored the highest in performance in its category. But you have to pay about a lakh of rupees for it. It’s a Centrino-based laptop, which means onboard WiFi, a P M 1.5 GHz processor, 256 MB RAM, and an ample 40 GB HDD. It also has a DVD combo drive. Besides regular connectors for LAN/modem, VGA Out, etc, it also has two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire, and Type II PCMCIA slot.



On the performance front, it scored 22.9 in BW 2002 and 29 in MCCW 2003, both of which are very good scores. Graphics and gaming results were equally good at 2612 in 3DMark 2003se and 69.7 fps in Quake III. Backup time was average at an hour and 18 mins. A small problem though is that it heats up from the bottom in a small area just over the PC card slot. It’s among the few laptops to come with three-years warranty in this category. 

Toshiba Satellite A10

Good performance, decent features and looks describe this laptop. The notebook has a P4 M processor with 256 MB RAM. It was among the toppers in gaming, business and content creation productivity tests. It scored 21.2 in BW 2002, with the highest being at 22.9. Also, it scored 27.1 in the MCCW 2003, second only to the two Centrino notebooks in this category.

However, its connectivity options are not that good, having just two USB and a parallel port, besides the usual LAN, modem, VGA out, and audio ports. Plus, there’s a PCMCIA slot. Other components are decent, with a DVD combo drive, and a 30 GB HDD. The notebook also has decent software recovery and management features. 

On the usage front, the notebook is quite easy to work with, but for the oddly placed ‘Windows’ key and the shorter Left Shift key. Speakers are well placed and add to its good looks. 

Wipro Little Genius 4000D

Wipro Little Genius costs more than the Presario, but at the same time scores better in performance. Probably because it has a P4 processor as compared to the Presario that has a Celeron. It performed well in BW 2002 and MCCW 2003 application benchmarks. The 3DMark score was average in its category, and it didn’t do too well in Quake III. This is probably due to the shared video memory architecture and an ordinary Intel Graphics Controller. The notebook gave a battery backup of nearly 2 hours, which is good. Feature wise, it has a good 14.1” TFT LCD display screen, and plenty of ports for connectivity, including legacy parallel and PS/2 ports. Plus it has IrDA, FireWire, and two USB 2.0 ports. The notebook alone weighs a little less than the Compaq at 2.9 kgs. Its carry bag is also good. The notebook comes with the Win XP Home and the Norton Anti-virus 2002. 

Zenith Wi-Fi 4x

This gave the best performance score along with the Samsung X05 in this category. It’s just an inch thick, weighs only 2 kgs and comes with a DVD combo drive, a 30 GB HDD, a FireWire port, Wi-Fi and four USB ports. Being a Centrino, it has an P M processor. It has a comfortable to use keyboard layout and a touch pad with four way scrolling. However, it lacks serial, parallel and PS/2 ports. The laptop heats up a little upon prolonged usage. In performance, it got good scores in all the benchmarks, and its battery also lasted for 1 hour and 39 mins. If you’re looking for a sleek well performing laptop that can handle most of your office and multimedia applications, and are not overly sensitive about the price, then this is a great buy.