NEC Versa P700 review

You don't usually expect desktop-replacement notebooks to ooze excitement from every angle, and at first glance the NEC Versa P700 doesn't look like any exception. It's chunky, heavy and the word 'functional' seems the best way to describe its appearance. Until you fire it up, that is.

Brace yourself, because nothing can prepare your eyes for the huge 2,048 x 1,536 resolution that appears when the Windows Desktop loads. And yes, you did read that right. Forget Dell's 1,600 x 1,200 screens, NEC has pushed the 15in TFT to the utmost extreme.

The text and icons are inevitably tiny, but the screen's incredibly sharp and a pleasure to use without getting a headache. The real bonus here is the extra Desktop real estate on offer. You could open up a web browser, edit a PowerPoint presentation and play a CD in Windows Media Player at the same time, and still have room to spare.

Viewing high-resolution images in Photoshop was also a breathtaking experience. Since the pixels are so small, photos look crisper than they do on a CRT, and the colours are vibrant and natural too. Transitions are smooth, and, while a high-resolution CRT would be better for graphics professionals, this is still one of the best high-resolution panels we've seen. Viewing angles - both horizontal and vertical - are also adequate, and the response times are quick enough to keep up with DVD movies.

Plus, with a 64MB ATi Mobility Radeon 7500 on board, after-hours entertainment isn't out of the question either. 3DMark2001 SE returned a highly respectable score of 5,121 in 32-bit XGA, and the P700 clocked up an equally impressive 37fps in Unreal Tournament 2003 at the same resolution. The 64MB of graphics memory isn't enough to play games at 2,048 x 1,536, but it's more than enough for 1,024 x 768, and the screen's high pixel count means it still looks great in XGA too.

But there's more to this notebook than a high-resolution screen. Under the bonnet is a 2.2GHz Pentium 4-M, which is backed up by 512MB of DDR memory. In our 2D benchmarks, this formidable combination managed 0.91 - slightly below our expectations. However, this doesn't mean the Versa is a slow machine - it will happily lap up common office tasks.

Connectivity is also well covered, with a healthy mix of both modern and legacy ports. The traditional parallel, serial and VGA ports are partnered with two four-pin FireWire ports and two USB 2 ports, so you can connect just about any peripheral to the P700. There's also the bonus of 802.11b WLAN and, while there's no Bluetooth, you could always add it through one of the two side-mounted PC Card slots.

In spite of its size, the P700 is also quite ergonomic. The keyboard is firm and comfortable to type on, its layout is easy to adapt to and there's plenty of room for your palms. We were also pleased that there was no significant heat build-up - the P700 was quiet and cool after prolonged use.

There are three spindles inside - a 40GB Hitachi hard disk, a floppy drive and an 8x DVD-ROM and 16x/10x/24x CD-RW Toshiba combo drive. The latter two drives are fitted into NEC's MultiBays, so you can swap things about if need be. If 40GB of storage isn't enough, you can optionally fit a second hard disk in place of the optical drive. Alternatively, you could fit the bundled weight saver in either of the bays too.

Unfortunately, you'll need a second battery handy, as the P700 isn't exactly energy efficient. It lasted for just one hour in our intensive tests, and the light-use test only increased this to 101 minutes. The other gripe regarding mobility is the Versa's hefty 3.6kg weight and portly 326 x 277 x 47mm dimensions. And, as I mentioned earlier, style isn't a strong point - another reason to keep the P700 on your desk in the office.