Evesham Quest Roma T37

AMD gives Intel a run for its money

It's generally accepted that, when it comes to processors, AMD's offerings present better value for money than their Intel rivals. The latest processor war between the two giants is centred on the notebook market, where AMD's Turion 64 Mobile is presenting itself as a 64bit challenger to the Centrino.

The Evesham Quest Roma T37 uses the AMD MT-37 processor, currently the fastest in the Turion range with a clock speed of 2GHz. It did well in PCmark 2004 with a score of 3,765, which compares well with similarly specified notebooks using Intel's Pentium M processor.

With a 128MB Mobility Radeon X700 graphics chipset, 3D results were also impressive. This score might not compete with that of a dedicated gaming notebook, but it will have no problem playing the latest games at reasonable quality settings.

An 80GB hard disk is what we would expect for a notebook of this price, as is the inclusion of integrated 802.11g and Bluetooth. It's a shame Evesham has used a Sony DVD writer that will only play ball with the 'plus' DVD format.

The 15.4in widescreen looks good and displays crisp images at its native resolution of 1,280 x 800. A battery life of one hour 56 minutes is reasonable for a notebook with this much power, but it's dwarfed by many laptops using Intel's latest Centrino technology.

For £900, Evesham has included a lot of decent hardware for a very reasonable price.