£699 inc VAT • packardbell.co.uk • tinyurl.com/6zudqqz
An eye-catching design is all very well, provided that it catches those
sideways glances for the right reasons. Packard Bell, a vendor with
a history of questionable colour choices, has plumped for a bronze
finish for its EasyNote TSX66. We're not sure we like it that much.
Fortunately, it also offers strong performance.
Underneath the tanned exterior lurks a powerful quad-core Intel
Core İ7-26300M processor, teamed with 6GB of DDR3 RAM. The
Packard Bell dominated our WorldBench 6 test with 132 points.
In our graphics tests, however, the laptop ranked near the bottom
of the group with just 17fps in Fear ('Maximum' detail settings). Unlike
much of the competition, it relies on the graphics integrated to its
processor rather than a dedicated card.
The keyboard is excellent. With full-size, isolated keys, typing
is very comfortable on the EasyNote. There's also a touchpad that
supports some multitouch gestures and scrolling.
Packard Bell supplies a generous 750GB, 5,400rpm hard drive,
one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports. You also get a webcam, a card
reader and a DVD drive, plus HDMI and VGA connections.
In common with all the laptops in this group test, connectivity
options include 802.11 b/g/n wireless, gigabit ethernet and Bluetooth.
Given that it performed better than any other in WorldBench 6,
we were surprised by its strong battery life. The Packard Bell fell
just 7 minutes short of the MacBook Pro (page 56), at 381 mins.
VERDICT: The colour scheme may not be to all tastes, but the
Packard Bell EasyNote TSX66's £699 price tag should appeal.
This laptop delivers strong application performance - the best
in this group - and good battery life, although it suffers from
poor graphics. The keyboard and trackpad are also excellent.
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