X-bit labs

14" Widescreen: Most Optimal Solution? 10 Contemporary Notebooks Roundup (page 24)

Category: Mobile

by Vasily Melnik

[ 06/07/2006 | 10:56 PM ]

There is a mechanical Wi-Fi switch here:

So you can turn on the wireless adapter with a single movement of your hand. It’s not all well with these two USB ports:

You can use only one of them at a time unless you attach standard connectors.

The keyboard is ordinary:

No innovations here, it is quite comfortable in use, but the additional keys near the arrows surprised me somewhat:

Well, I can understand they just found no other place for the Context Menu button, but the additional Fn key should be there to allow you to adjust the screen brightness and sound volume with one hand. But however I tried I couldn’t figure out how to put my fingers down to use this key comfortably. Maybe you’ll find the answer to this riddle?

Keyboard status, HDD and WLAN activity indicators are on the right:

There are two LED indicators on the front panel: Power and Battery Charge.

There’s as many as one instant-launch button here.

It’s placed next to the Power-On button and invokes the AVStation Now application.