Review: Advent 8112 notebook computer

We were astonished by the Advent 8112’s rock bottom £449 price tag when it first landed in our Labs back in September.

PC World, which sells the Advent-branded PCs, assures us it will be available until Christmas at least, so we lined it up alongside the others.

Although it’s the cheapest 12.1in laptop we’ve seen, few cuts have been made in the core hardware. Its processor, a T5250, ticks over at 1.5GHz, making it the slowest of the standard voltage Core 2 Duo chips. But with a 667MHz FSB it still achieved a respectable 3,338 in PCmark05.

The 12.1in display is evenly lit and to have squeezed a DVD writer in such a small package is impressive.

The chassis can be twisted if you force it, but the design is refreshingly simple. However, we found the Advent, along with the Acer, tended to get quite
warm something that could become irritating.

In terms of basic functionality, this notebook is as good as any other, offering Vista Home Premium, three USB ports, one Firewire and a Wifi switch to quickly turn the wireless on or off to save battery life.

We had no qualms with the trackpad, but the keyboard presented a few frustrating issues ­sometimes a key press would result in no letter appearing on screen.

The spec sheet says Intel’s GMA X3100 graphics are DirectX 10 capable, but in reality this part, and all others on test, will never be powerful enough to run DirectX 10 games smoothly.

The biggest cost cut of all lies with the battery. At 2,200mAh (milliamp hour) it is the lowest capacity design on test, lasting two hours and 33 minutes in our Mobilemark Reader test, which is the least demanding battery test. While its battery life is poor, this notebook is portable and excellent value for money.

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This article is part of a group test, see also:
1 Introduction
2 The great weight conundrum
3 Acer Travelmate 6292 review
4 Advent 8112 review
5 Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook P7230 review
6 Hi-Grade Notino D2200 review
7 HP Compaq 2710p review
8 HP Pavilion TX-1260ea review
9 Lenovo Thinkpad X61 review
10 MSI PR200-064UK review
11 Panasonic Toughbook CF-W7 review
12 Samsung Q45-A007 review
13 Toshiba Portégé R500-10U review
14 Performance graphs, page 1 of 2
15 Performance graphs, page 2 of 2
16 Replacement battery costs
17 Conclusion and awards

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