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| Packard Bell EasyNote TJ66-DT-022UK 15.6-inch Notebook (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, Nvidia Graphics, Vista Premium) |
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Packard Bell EasyNote TJ66-DT-022UK 15.6-inch Notebook (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, Nvidia Graphics, Vista Premium)
Packard Bell
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| Product Details |
ISBN/ASIN: B002GYVF70
Release Date: 2009-07-09
Sales Rank: 30370
Average Rating: 
Media: Electronics
Audience Rating:
Product Group: CE
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| Customer Reviews: Average Rating: 4.5/5 | | Great all-around: Rating: 5/5 |
As most other reviewers have stated this laptop really does provide great value for your money. The build quality is surprisingly good, given it's budget price, though i would personally have preferred less emphasis on glossy plastics but all in all i think it looks quite nice.
Hardware wise, the Core 2 Duo T6500 does a pretty good job handling most tasks, including playing HD video, some medium duty work in 3DS Max and playing Team Fortress 2 at around 20-30 FPS with most settings cranked up to high. Speaking of gaming, the GeForce 105M surprised me as i was expecting it to be around the level of performance of most of the Intel HD graphics, but is turned out to be a pretty decent mid-range performer able to handle most things short of Crysis reasonably well.
The keyboard is another point of note, i'm usually quite picky about keyboards but as far as laptop ones go, this is one of the better ones i've used, having pretty good key travel and no flex that i can detect. The included numpad is nice too, as
this is rarely found on sub 17 inch laptops; and the Synaptics touch pad supports multitouch gestures.
Wireless connection is provided by an internal Intel 5100 adapter, supporting the latest Draft-N spec. Tested with myD-Link DIR-655 i was able to get transfer speeds around 100Mbps (or 13 MB/s). Sadly bluetooth is not included despite the indicator LED being present, but you should be easily able to install one yourself as there is a spare internal slot for one; alternatively you could install a 3G modem.
Battery life is nothing special, at around 3 - 3.5 hours just browsing the web over wifi.
The only downsides for me are: the display which while LED backlit and reasonably bright, lacks contrast, has a rather limited viewing angle and, depending on how much you care about it, a distinct blue-tint (somewhat fixable through the Nvidia Control Panel); and the annoying beep it makes every time you plug on unplug the charger.
The lack of recovery dvds is not really and issue, as there is a hidden 10GB partition containing the recovery image, accessed by pressing alt+f10 at boot and following the onscreen instructions. | | Great value for a decent spec laptop: Rating: 5/5 |
I had been looking for a laptop for about 3 months before buying this last week. Up until then, I couldn't find anything that I really liked and that met my "wish list".
All I needed a laptop to do was handle basic word processing tasks, download music files, stream football from the internet and play some basic games but I wanted the laptop to have an HDMI output, dedicated graphics, HD capability, a decent dual core processor and not to look cheap and tacky. I'm pleased to say that this laptop met my requirements.
In my opinion you get quite a lot for your money: Core 2 Duo processor, 512MB dedicated graphics, 4GB Memory, HDMI output (for connecting to your HD TV) and a separate number pad. The build quality seems to be of a high quality and the white interior and red touch sensitive "hot" keys make the unit look more expensive than what it really is (the lid is also more of a grey colour than brown)
The negatives for me are Windows Vista and the weight. To be honest I don't think Vista will really affect anything that I plan to use the laptop for and the weight will not bother me as I don't intend to carry the laptop around for hours on end.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for an affordable, high quality laptop!
| | Great value for money but a few shortcomings.: Rating: 5/5 |
The easynote TJ66-DT-022uk is perfect in nearly everything. Majority of reviews as you can see are positive and it is definately great value for money. The only things that let it down for me were 1) Nvidia graphics card inside is definatley no good for 3d gaming 2) same goes for screen refresh rate, ghosting/blurring was noticable when i tried a racing game (Grid Racer) 3) Viewing angle was not as wide as some laptops/ monitors i have seen, so not great (but not bad)for watching films id give it 7/10 for film quality. 4)the shiny screen rather than a matt one made me finally realise i could not use this long term. it seemed light enough to mee and its quote of 4cm thick (at its widest more line 3cm overall)is a red herring as its no thicker or heavier than most standard 15" laptops ive seen recently.
Otherwise this has a decent core 2 duo centrino Processor, bluetooth looks very stylish (Mac book style). I can only say to myself "what can you expect for this price".
If 3d gaming aint your thing, you arent obsessed with film quality, you are on a budget, dont use it in broad daylight then this is a genuine bargain.
Oh and Amazon are my favourite e-retailer for buying from for peace of mind with their quality sales and customer services.
| | A laptop to be proud of.: Rating: 5/5 |
I make no claims to be an IT Boff or Systems expert.
My Computer usage is normally word, excel, internet and watch the occasional movie. So my review is based on this.
I recently purchased another Laptop and while it is a nice machine and has higher specs then this model I prefer this particular model.
To look at PB have got this just about spot on with the design. I really like the white keyboard and it is a pleasure to use. I have the Brown honeycomb design and i'm very happy with it. The touch buttons at the top and nicely highlighted in red when they are in use.
Compared to my other model this laptop is pretty slim and weighs a lot less. The battery life is very good and if left idle will show the battery as 8 hours. I would estimate that I had about 3 to 4 hours doing what I was doing on the power saving option.
The speed of the machine is very good and I have downloaded 1000's of photos from memory cards with no noticeable slowdown in the system performance.
The machine comes installed with Windows Vista, Adobe Photoshop and trials of Excel and Norton.
Thankfully the software installed is minimal. Nothing is more annoying then spending your first few hours with your new toy/workmate uninstalling a load of crappy games and software you will never use.
The screen is of high quality and when at it's brightest makes watching a film a great experience.
I am extremely happy with this machine and it deserves 5 stars.
| | Multi-tasking all-rounder...: Rating: 4/5 |
There was a time when Packard Bell only seemed to make 'budget' beige-box PC's for discount stores (I'm being diplomatic here), but times change and they're now owned by Acer - and it shows.
The TJ66 has a glossy 'Moonstone' (more often known as 'brown') top panel with a glossy 'Piano White' interior. Compared to the standard black finish of most laptops the white keyboard remains more visible in low light and doesn't show finger-marks quite as much. It does all look slightly plastic-y but actually feels solid and well-made with no creaky-squeaky sounds as you use it. The keyboard also includes a numeric keypad which can be a real advantage if you spend a lot of time in spreadsheets or accounts software.
The row of LED touch-buttons along the top of the keyboard allow you to adjust or mute the volume, disable the touchpad, toggle power-saving mode (which slows the processor and dims the display), toggle WiFi and initiate a one-touch backup solution PB have included. There's also an indicator light for Bluetooth here which is a bit annoying since PB haven't included a working bluetooth chip in this laptop. I was able to add Bluetooth functionality myself with a Micro Bluetooth USB Dongle - it works seamlessly but that nice blue LED on the keyboard still doesn't light up. On the other hand, WiFi sensitivity seems notably better than average and I'm able to pick up a signal in places our other laptop cannot.
The glossy screen has an LED backlight so it's very bright and clear and comes on at full brightness without needing to warm-up first. The viewing angle isn't the best I've seen (admittedly it's almost always an issue with laptop screens) but it only gets really noticeable when you play DVD's or games with a lot of dark scenes. The DVD reader/writer is a tray-loader which works well (if a little noisily) but does feel exposed and fragile compared to slot-loaders. For dealing with your digital photo's the laptop comes with an inbuilt card-reader and a full version of Adobe Photoshop Elements - unfortunately it's Photoshop Elements 6 and not the latest version Photoshop Elements 8
Although it's certainly not billed as a gaming machine the TJ66 does have a discrete graphics card with a healthy 512MB of dedicated memory onboard. The Nvidia GeForce G105M is a revved-up version of the older GeForce 9300M G card and it's a reasonably capable (DirectX 10 compatible) card, though hardly cutting-edge. Older 3D games should play very well but the most recent and more-demanding games will probably require you to reduce the graphics settings to get a playable frame-rate and might not play at all at the highest settings.
Packard Bell claim a battery life of 3.5 hours and that's probably only slightly optimistic if you're browsing the internet or working in a productivity app. This will, of course, drop to around 2 hours if you fire-up a demanding game or watch a DVD. Luckily the battery charges up again quite quickly. In use the laptop does get warm, though never uncomfortably hot, but there is a small fan which comes on even during undemanding computer tasks - it's very quiet and unassuming but kicks-in more often than you'd like.
Mine arrived with Vista Home Premium installed but no 'restore' discs in the package, you have to burn your own (needs 3 blank DVD's) soon after setting-up your laptop. There's a Windows 7 upgrade available for a handling fee (valid until Jan 31st 2010) via Packard Bell's website and that should be a worthwhile option as it promises to be notably faster, more compatible and may even extend battery life. I'll try to update this review with any problems or benefits when I get my 7 upgrade.
The TJ66 is clearly intended to be a good general purpose laptop and it's hard to find any very serious faults with it - but it's equally hard to pick out any area in which it really excels. It certainly offers decent value with a good spec' at a sensible price-point and if you need a full-sized laptop which can handle everyday tasks at good speed, with a bit of gaming on the side, then it's a good buy. | |
