PC Nextday Zoostorm 4-6610

We see plenty of budget laptops come and go through our Labs. Often, they're rather uninspiring machines whose principal selling point is their low price. The Zoostorm 4-6610 bucks the trend, though: not only does it satisfy the budget criteria, but its impressive specification is backed up by good real-world performance.

In everyday use, the Zoostorm is a pleasure to use. Its keyboard is built on a solid base and the trackpad is smooth without being too sensitive, with a useful strip on the right-hand side for vertical scrolling through documents.

The 15.4in widescreen display is a particular highlight. Not only is it practical in use, but it's also of superb quality. Stepping away from the gloss finish of monitors from the likes of Apple and Sony, this laptop can be used without fear of distracting reflections. The downside is that images have slightly less impact and saturation, but it's by no means dull. It's more than adequate for editing digital images and our DisplayMate tests revealed very good colour accuracy too. The resolution is a touch low at just 1,280 x 800, though: it can feel a little restrictive at times, and will limit you to just a couple of open windows at once.

And doing several tasks at once is something the Zoostorm otherwise lends itself to well. The Core 2 Duo dual-core CPU at its heart is the T7200, with each core having a speed of 2GHz. With 1GB of 533MHz RAM to help during our multi-application tests, the system returned an overall benchmarks score of 1.06, meaning there's very little the Zoostorm won't be able to cope with, including high-resolution video and image editing. Those with a penchant for after-hours gaming are catered for by ATi's Mobility Radeon X1600 card, which returned average frame rates of 23fps and 27fps respectively in our Far Cry and Call of Duty 2 tests at their lowest settings - fine for the casual gamer.

The hard disk's nominal capacity is a generous 120GB, so you can feasibly use this as your main system, as long as you don't plan to store hundreds of music albums or hours of video on it. We're pleased to see such a flexible optical drive on offer at this price too - you can read and write to every kind of CD and DVD, including dual-layer and DVD-RAM.

There are no serial or parallel ports onboard, although there is an infrared connector. Elsewhere, there are four USB ports - two on the side and two on the rear - making it easy to plug in a few peripherals without cluttering your workspace. We're pleased to see both FireWire and ExpressCard/54 too. There's also a TV antenna input, although it wasn't connected to anything internally on our review unit. You can buy a DVB-T TV tuner for £29 inc VAT to install in the spare mini-PCI slot inside, or for an extra £50 inc VAT you can get the card, Windows Media Center Edition and even a free upgrade to Vista Home Premium once it's released (ask for the Zoostorm 4-6612 Advanced Media Laptop, part code 3384-6612). For domestic use, it's the option we'd go for and adds significant value.

We have a few issues with the 4-6610, though. On the move, its 2.8kg weight makes it just about portable, but battery life proved disappointing: under intensive use, the system ran for just 47 minutes, and light use extended this to only 2hrs 13mins. We also couldn't help but feel disappointed with the dull chassis. Then there's the amount of heat produced. Even when word processing, the left-hand vent pushed out a surprising quantity of hot air.

If battery life isn't a big concern, the 4-6610 offers excellent value. It features all you need in terms of power and the screen is outstanding. The TV tuner, MCE and Vista upgrade is also tempting. But a good reason not to rush into anything is the Sony VAIO VGN-FE31H. This offers a slightly slower CPU (a T5500 with an overall benchmark score of 0.98), but the same-sized hard disk and an integrated webcam, considerably longer battery life (4hrs 30mins under light use), as well as far superior looks. Sony even offers a great range of bundled software, including Photoshop Elements 4 and Premiere Elements 2. If you need every spare ounce of performance, go for the 4-6610, but just £50 more will buy you a more flexible purchase.

Author: Dave Stevenson