BenQ Joybook A52E v01

Good – A nice low-mid range notebook. If you find one at a dealer, it's most likely very old stock (but new if you know what I mean), a display model or refurbished/second-hand. I haven't mentioned the touchpad and buttons. Although they work perfectly fine, we prefer using a mouse. So it's good, but I can't attest to its durability because I almost never use it!

At standard spec, you can run several programs concurrently under Windows XP Pro. With only 512MB, it does rely on virtual memory a fair bit, thus slowing things somewhat.

But for reliability/stability it's great. Never has a blue screen, in fact I can't recall any crash!

This Joybook should be cheap today, as for the 2007 RRP, today you can find 4x memory, 3-4x HD capacity and faster CPU, with newer WiFi protocols and Bluetooth.

Great for students or less demanding users who want a reliable notebook for 2D tasks like internet and occasional Flash/simple 3D gaming. Even better if you use it as a second home PC or somewhere with mains access. - When purchased in 2007, was about the cheapest new 15.4" notebook available ($499, with a $100 cashback by redemption from BenQ). There was an equivalent Acer model available at the same price, but no cashback!

- Built-in Atheros 5006EG (802.11b) WiFi, Agere Systems HDA Modem and Realtek ethernet adapter.

- Three USB ports thoughtfully located at left, rear and right sides.

- Mic and headphone front and centre for convenience.

- Good sound with Realtek HD audio

- SATA 5400rpm drive. 2007 was early days for SATA but no issues to report here -- it just works!

- Integrated ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M. 2D easily handled. It can run older 3D games (eg the awesome freeware snooker game foobillard, or 3D virtual pinball). Hardware and driver stability is top-notch. No crashes or heat-related issues here.

- LCD display remains sharp, bright and clear after 3+ years of regular use. Video playback is fine, with virtually no smearing.

- Came bundled with Microsoft Windows Basic edition (see below) - You may be a little disappointed with the CPU (Intel Celeron M) as it runs at only 1.6GHz

- Battery life. I've achieved a maximum of approx 160 minutes only.

- The ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M, while stable, is an integrated chipset on the motherboard. As such, it uses system memory. You can select the share size of 64MB or 128MB at BIOS setup level. Whichever you choose, it leaves just enough memory to run the supplied Vista Basic. Less of an issue with Windows XP Pro.

- We've had some issues with the Optiarc DVD-RW drive. Ours can't read rewritable media. I've tried a few brands of CD-RW and DVD-RW discs with no luck. Some DVD-R burns resulted in coasters too.

Not a big deal for me, as the desktop PC handles those tasks.

- Came bundled with Microsoft Windows Basic edition. The standard hardware struggles to run this O/S, despite being the lightweight Vista. If you have an old version of WinXP, this machine copes much better with that!

Or boost the memory -- motherboard can handle 2 Gigabytes max.

- Fitted with 80 Gig drive. This is tiny by today's standards, so check if dealer (or previous owner) has upgraded!

- Similar issue with memory. Fitted with a single 512Mb stick from factory. However, such memory is cheap enough, so just add another in the second slot! Type: PC2-5300 667Mhz DDR2 SDRAM SO DIMM 200-pin.

- Being 15.4" the screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio. Full screen 16:9 video will have thin black bars top and bottom. This may not bother you.

Some newer notebooks have a 15.6" screen which is true 16:9 - no black bars!