Product Reviews

Although it isn't easy to see from the photo, the Zieo N500-HD is a big laptop. At 396mm wide, there's room for a 17in widescreen and a full-size keyboard, complete with a number pad on the right. And while the price might seem relatively expensive, you do get a lot for it.

Manufacturers talk about future-proof products, but that's virtually impossible to achieve with a PC or a laptop, such is the pace of change. But the Zieo should stand the test of time better than most, because it's built around Intel's new Santa Rosa platform, essentially the latest version of Centrino Duo. Three components are required to qualify for the Centrino Duo sticker: a Core 2 Duo processor, the 965GM chipset and WiFi.

The N500-HD's Core 2 Duo T7500 sits just below the top of the range, with its two cores running at 2.2GHz. Factor in the generous 2GB of memory and it wasn't a great surprise to see a score of 160% in our general 2D benchmark, a superb result.

Playing for time

The N500-HD is also pretty handy when it comes to gaming power. The nVidia GeForce 8600M is one of the latest graphics cards and provides support for the upcoming generation of games using DirectX 10. In this instance it has a generous 512MB of memory to play with, which helps make demanding games run more smoothly. In our 3D tests it scored 87%, good enough to cope well with current titles.

Since Vista Home Premium is installed, the Zieo can also act as an entertainment hub thanks to Windows Media Center. As well as being a jukebox for your music collection and photo albums, the built-in TV tuner means you can also watch, pause and rewind live TV. Evesham thoughtfully bundles a remote control so you can

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watch from a distance, and this neatly stows away in the ExpressCard slot. We were also pleased that the speakers (two on top and a subwoofer underneath) are easily loud enough to fill a small room without distorting, not something we can often say of laptop speakers.

Inside and out

For a laptop, the 160GB hard disk is a decent size, providing space to record TV shows and store your MP3s and photos, and you can burn files onto single or dual-layer DVDs with the built-in drive. At the front there's a memory card reader compatible with SD or MMC cards and Memory Sticks, and another useful inclusion is a 1.3 megapixel webcam. You can either use the built-in microphone or the headphone and microphone sockets conveniently located on the front edge.

In fact, the Zieo has more ports and sockets than most notebooks, offering three USB 2 ports, mini-FireWire, ExpressCard/54, VGA, modem, network and infrared interfaces. And as you'd expect at this price, there's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Importantly, the latter supports draft 802.11n which means you can take advantage of the latest wireless routers for better wireless speed and coverage. Like the Acer, the Evesham boasts an HDMI output, which allows you to hook up an HDTV and watch movies on a larger screen.

So far, so good - but the Zieo isn't perfect. Even taking into account that our test unit was a pre-production sample, the design isn't befitting of the price. It lacks the wow factor associated with many laptops in this bracket, instead looking rather plain. The screen may have a high resolution of 1680x1050, but it isn't particularly bright and has relatively narrow viewing angles. The keyboard, too, is disappointing. The layout is frustrating; keys aren't where you'd expect them to be, and it feels cramped. Finally, battery life isn't great: the longest you can expect is two hours and 27minutes with light use, and you might not get all the way through a DVD without recharging.

Evesham does include a good warranty, but we'd still hesitate to spend this much on what's frankly an ugly duckling. There's no denying that it turns into a beautiful swan where performance is concerned, though, and if this is important to you - along with the generous selection of features - it's good value for money.