Ben Gamblin Online - Blog: Gadget Show lightweight laptop review

Gadget Show lightweight laptop review

31 Mar '08, 21:24

The Gadget Show returned to British television screens today, for it's 6th series; promising an hour of 'soft' tech reviews and gadget fun.

Why soft reviews? Well there's hardly a lot of in depth discussion about the pro's and con's of a particular product especially when compared to other products that it might be tested against. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In depth reviews would turn off a lot of viewers who just want to see what the latest gadget on the street is, and what some people think of it.

However, I don't think today's comparative review of lightweight, small laptops was particularly fair.

The review focused on three laptop computers:

• The MacBook Air
• The Asus Eee PC
• Sony Vaio TZ31

The problem I had with this review, is simply the choice of machines. I'm OK with the MacBook Air, and Sony Vaio - but including the Asus Eee PC in that? It only costs something along the lines of £220 compared to over £1100 for the other two. Was this a 'David vs Goliath' type test or something?

In my mind, it's a different class of computer for a different user. The Asus is designed to corner the 'cheap laptop' market and because of this does not have the processor, RAM or screen size that the other laptops have. It's a laptop that's able to take a bit of abuse due to the extremely small size meaning it can be carried nearly everywhere. I'd be terrified of causing damage to the other two and because of that, wouldn't consider them as portable since I would insist on a proper laptop bag to carry them with. The Eee PC would probably be thrown into a bag carrying everything else.

In all fairness the Gadget Show reviewers did give it the same rating as the MacBook (3 G's) but there are many other companies producing laptops to a similar specification to the Asus that I think it would have been fairer to do a comparison between them perhaps as well as a comparison between computers of the MacBook and Vaio class.

And my personal opinion on the three? The MacBook is the best looking notebook I have ever seen but I don't think I'd be happy with just one USB port. I know a hub could be used but then there's more cables, destroying that sleek look. The Vaio looks like any other laptop to me, and I'm not aware of it's specs. They said it took 3:30 to boot into Vista though, so something is seriously wrong with it's default settings and software. I've seen the Asus in a store, and it's size amazes me. It would be great for surfing from the sofa, taking on holiday, uploading stuff to this website. Granted it's not got the highest specs, but that's not what it's about.

That Asus is going on my shopping list!

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