Review: Packard Bell Easynote GN Skype Edition

Not the most powerful laptop in this group, but provides excellent value for money

Packard Bell’s Easynote is based on a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor, which can’t match the 1.8GHz and 2GHz processors used by some of its rivals. Even so, the Easynote’s performance is strong enough to cope with office software, digital photography and video editing.

Where the Easynote really scores, though, is on its wide feature set. At just £699.99, the Easynote is one of the cheapest products reviewed here, yet it includes a 14in widescreen display that is matched only by the HP Compaq nc6400, which is almost £200 more expensive.

We would have liked the screen to be a bit brighter, but it’s adequate for watching DVDs or working with big spreadsheets or presentations.

There’s also a little webcam built into the display and the Skype software is pre-installed (Skype can now handle videoconferencing as well as internet phone calls – hence the ‘Skype Edition’ in the model name).

Other video features include a Firewire port for connecting a DV camcorder and a composite video output so that you can record your video projects onto VCR or display them on a bigger TV screen.

The size of the screen pushes the weight close to our 2.5kg limit, but the Easynote is still light enough to carry around without too much trouble.

Battery life is also respectable – almost four hours when running business software and about two and a half hours for DVD playback – although this is one area where it is beaten by several of its rivals.

Even so, the Easynote’s sheer value for money is hard to beat. There are more powerful laptops available, but the Easynote provides both good performance and versatile multimedia features at a very competitive price.

This article is part of a group test of lightweight laptops.
See also Fujitsu-Siemens
HP Compaq
Mesh Pegasus
Samsung NP
Sony Vaio
Evesham Lightbook
Graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf downloads above.