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| Packard Bell EasyNote LJ65-DT-016UK 17.3-inch Notebook (4 GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive, ATI Graphics, Blu-ray, Vista Premium) |
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Packard Bell EasyNote LJ65-DT-016UK 17.3-inch Notebook (4 GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive, ATI Graphics, Blu-ray, Vista Premium)
Packard Bell
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| Ready to Order |
List Price: £799.99
Currently out of stock
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| Product Details |
ISBN/ASIN: B002GYVF7U
Release Date: 2009-07-09
Sales Rank: 37849
Average Rating: 
Media: Electronics
Audience Rating:
Product Group: CE
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| Customer Reviews: Average Rating: 4.0/5 | | Fantastic!: Rating: 5/5 |
This laptop was truly great! I bought this laptop for a great price and saw the price increase by £200 a couple of weeks later so it was truly a bargain!
Anyway now talking about the laptop itself I have found that it is fairly fast with intel Core 2 Duo. The colour of the screen is amazing with a 17.3" screen and because it has an LED backlit display. Another great feature is the Blue Ray on the laptop which shows movies in a sharp and crisp display. The immense 500Gb hard drive will make sure you're never short of space.
Now with the most important aspect of laptops, the Internet connection. Initially I had a problem with the Internet connection on the laptop which made me want to send the laptop back! However I found out there was something wrong with the wireless router itself since a newer router was to be sent.
I forgot to mention the camera which is amazing even though it is just below 2 megapixel! Another great feature is how easy it is to add a printer and scanner and wirelessly transfer media between different computers in the house.
I think I've included the main points but it was a great buy. What I mean from this is that his computer did not have Windows 7 but Windows Vista Home premium. What I ask is that is the price worth it now when Windows 7 is now the new operating system? But for me it was a great buy! | | A high quality, stylish notebook: Rating: 4/5 |
This large screen notebook is as advertised, a great desktop replacement. The sleek design and black shiny finish reflect the quality and the price and thus it is an impressive looking machine (although fingerprints slighly spoil the effect.) So far I have found this product to be extreamly reliable with no problems. The widescreen is a great size and although other reviews have mentioned the brightness being as issue, I haven't noticed this to be a problem. The keyboard is also fantastic with a separate number keypad which I prefer. The off-centre control pad with a long silver bar as the left and right click buttons took a little while to get used to and although it isn't perfect, it is certainly adequate.
There are many extras to add the high speed, large memory notebook, including a Blu Ray disc player, built in webcam and LED sensors above the keyboard which controls certain features such as volume, back up, internet connection and powersave with just a touch of your finger. With such a great specification and features, it is really only the price which lets the Packard Bell EasyNote down. I also find it difficult to identify who the target market is as it is quite expensive for those who want a laptop for word processing and using the internet. However if you really want all of the features then it is worth spending that little bit extra on. | | Pretty good but not perfect: Rating: 4/5 |
This is definitely a desktop replacement machine rather than one you pop into your bag as you leave the house in the morning. It is black and silver, with a subtle pattern and Packard Bell logo on the top, and a combination of mat black, gloss black and silver inside. It looks quite classy, but best invite your friends round to look at it rather than taking it out on the road. Build quality seems good with the machine feeling sturdy and well put together. No rattling parts or flimsy plastic here which you can sometime find in cheaper laptops.
The big, widescreen display gives you plenty of space to work in at 17.3 inches, and it is pretty sharp and crisp although the colour rendition seems a little too pale to my untrained eye, and this seems to be something other reviewers have noticed as well. Turning the brightness down helps a bit, but nevertheless it isn't quite right.
I won't talk about the operating system particularly on this review, except to note that although this computer comes with Vista Home Premium Edition, you can, for a fee of £19.95 upgrade to Windows 7 through the manufacturer. The Windows 7 Compatibility checker does not foresee any problems with the upgrade and I will report back when I install the upgrade.
For me, important considerations in a laptop are the ease of use of the keyboard, and I do quite like the one included here. The keys are responsive although fairly light and it is comfortable to use, even when touch typing. I do like the inclusion of a numeric keypad as well. It makes entering figures into a spreadsheet much easier. I'm not as keen on the track pad and particularly on the silver bar which serves as the left and right click buttons. It simply isn't as responsive as others I've used on other laptops and I think is a case of style over substance. There are a few other controls as well, notably the touch buttons across the top of the keyboard which allow you to control volume, wifi, backup and to deactivate the track pad. It would have been to include a few more of these, perhaps to switch on Bluetooth or to quick start Windows Media player for example.
There are four USB ports which should be ample on a laptop, even a desktop replacement like this one, a webcam which performs well even in low light, a multi-format card reader, and a multi-optical drive which can read Blu-Ray discs, as well as CDs and DVDs. It also functions as a CD/DVD writer. There is also an HDMI port so you could hook this computer up to your widescreen TV etc if you wanted to.
The included software is nothing out of the ordinary, although Magic Desktop is worthy of note. It creates a safe environment in which children can use the computer, with their own desktop and programs, including safe email and web-browsing. Whether you'd let any small child with sticky fingers anywhere near your computer is entirely up to you!
There is no question that this is a high end machine. It's got an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.10 GHz, a massive 500GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM and great connectivity. However, lots of people buy laptops for less which don't have all this, and you should ask yourself if this machine has more than you need for your purposes. This is a good machine, but it isn't the cheapest, and I'm not too keen on the display or the trackpad. However, if you like the look of it, and you need a laptop with this sort of specification, it certainly has many good points too, so is worthy of your serious consideration.
| | Turn it on and it 'works'!! Simple!: Rating: 5/5 |
One of the things I dread about a new gadget is opening the box to find reams and reams of paper to read. This has a single 'quick-start' sheet that tells the user everything they need to know to get started. There is nothing complicated about unpacking and installing this laptop, even a total beginner could do it without any problems.
It is not often that you can take something out of the box, remove the protective covers, connect the battery, plug it in and (after a little charge time) switch it on to find that everything works. This is what I was able to do with this, it really was THAT easy. The other thing I did and would advise you do (if you have the facility), connect it to your router using a LAN cable for the initial setup. I always find this much easier than trying to set up the wifi security at this early stage. The laptop runs through it's install, asks a few questions and you will be up and running in no time. I had this running like clockwork (and connected to our secure wifi network) within an hour. Nothing has ever been this easy!
The graphics are fantastic and it has HDMI output from the dedicated HD graphics card. The graphics card itself is an ATI Radeon HD 4570 with 512MB of graphics cache. This is an awesome card for online gaming and worked a treat when I tested it out on the Second Life Virtual World (with windlight environmental controls turned on). The full 17.3" 16:9 ratio HD LCD display combined with the Blu-ray drive and Dolby sound make this an ideal media centre, and if that's not enough, the Blu-ray drive doubles up as a DVD recorder and CD-RW drive.
The laptop itself is very stylish looking with the added bonus of being jam packed full of the latest hardware. Still not enough? it's packed full of software too! This would be an ideal choice for someone looking to switch from a bulky desktop machine to a portable device, or someone who wants a really powerful system but doesn't have much space for a traditional full size PC. The screen size is great for most users, but has the ability to connect to a stand alone monitor if required. It features a full keyboard with dedicated number pad, making this perfect for someone who uses numbers a lot. The extra keys require extra width, so beware the size when purchasing a bag/case for carrying or storing, I have 4 generic bags but none are big enough for this.
Running Windows Vista Home Premium is no problem for this machine. Vista is known to be a system hog, but with all the power in the EasyNote LJ65 it is not an issue. Other software in the package include: a 60 day trial of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, this was very easily upgraded by entering the registration code on first use (since I have recently purchased a 3 PC licence version for the other two machines in the house). 90 days Internet Security from Norton (not my preferred supplier - proven when I tried to download an exe file that was immediately deleted without asking). Full version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for all your graphics and photo editing needs.
More goodies packed into this machine include built-in webcam and microphone, bluetooth and Microsoft Works 9 SE. The magic desktop makes this great and very safe for children because it runs a child friendly desktop over the windows desktop so that they can work, play games and access their own email without the danger of changing the windows setup by accident. The touchpad (pointer device) needs a little getting used to because it is positioned slightly off centre to the left and has multifunctions such as scroll that can be accidentally activated, but with daily use this becomes easier to handle. Overall, this is a great system that I can highly recommend for just about any user.
I also have a nice tip for anyone who does what I did... touching the LED icons along the top (powersave, backup, wifi, touchpad lock, mute, volume up, volume down) activates/deactivates them! I accidentally disabled my touchpad by running my finger along it to clear the edge of dust (the black surface is a magnet for dust!!) and it took me 20 minutes to realise what I had done. The downfall of an online manual is being unable to navigate easily using the keyboard to find out why the touchpad isn't working. But please note... this was not a fault, it was just me not realising how good the machine actually is!! | | Neat deal, but not without flaws: Rating: 3/5 |
What we have here is an extremely well equipped little (or, should I say wide) machine that boasts flattering specifications. Though needless to say, the benchmark for reaching optimum results with such an un-efficient operating system as Windows Vista has required hardware to reach significant levels, but this EasyNote model does just the trick. And I shouldn't expect any less for the price! The question is, where is this laptop aimed at in the market?
Interestingly enough, this EasyNote features a slightly less powerful version of the fabulous ATi Radeon 4850, but judging by the performance on many 3D games I've played it would appear their is little difference, saluting the amazing improvement you can have from a dedicated GPU rather than some frustrating integrated models on notebooks. 512mb are dedicated to this module, though you have the option of eating into the 4GB of RAM available, though unfortunately Vista decides to use 1.5GB of this even when idle. 4GB seems to be a good amount to have however, and I can only laugh at the PC World adverts that sell cheap Vista based laptops with 1GB of RAM.
Perhaps this is a problem with Vista. Despite running very well on this machine, I can't help but ask why it needs so much system resource. It doesn't help either that my printer wouldn't sync due to the lack of drivers, only to find out that I would have to trial and error other drivers from HP until one eventually worked. Certain features of Vista are quite blatant rip-offs of features Apple developed almost a decade ago, from the new Search box on the Start Menu (with better indexing, I must confess), right down to the 'Chess' game that is almost identical. Vista works - the hardship is that it requires a laptop of this calibre to make it zoom. The processor however does it no favours, and I would expect a higher clock speed than 2.1GHZ for such a price.
Blu-Ray is something that, without a doubt, has transformed the way I watch films and media. In particular, a personal area I love is Disney films and I've been blown away by the results of the latest Platinum Edition restorations. Up to now these have been played on a Playstation 3, but this EasyNote offers somewhat mediocre results.
Problem 1 is that the screen is not full HD because it only supports 1600 by 900 pixels at max. This itself is questionable marketing these days with laptops, though one could argue that few companies actually use the term "..in full HD". The bottom line however is Blu-Ray or not, this screen does not deliver full HD, rendering the 'Demo' dvd included rather pointless unless you're outputting on another screen.
Problem 2 is that even if it did, the screen appears particularly washed out. Calibrating it with various settings I've used for graphics work does help, but my guess is that the backlight is simply too bright. Many will not take too much notice of this, but if you are doing colour-work, its as accurate as a bent rifle.
The CPU is a modest Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1 GHZ, great for daily tasks, but not up to Adobe creative packages or anything too intense. Contrary to popular belief, programs like Photoshop require more CPU resources than GPU ones, and 2.1GHZ you don't get too much freedom rendering wise. Don't let this put you off less intense activities, but I would have expected a higher clock speed for the price. Once again, the information is not advertised on the box or the product listing page, leaving the less concerned customer with no idea how fast their machine is.
A lot of attention has been paid to smaller details, such as the 'restore button' on the keyboard incase Vista decides to go AWOL, and a lovely sunken keyboard that types incredibly well. At the top of the keyboard are touch sensitive buttons for volume, locking the trackpad and more which is a great idea, through the volume works on a different level to the volume control in Vista. Their are also USB ports on either side of the unit which is a descent idea if one side is blocked. HDMI is available and is an alternative to using the included screen, excellent for hooking up to a HD TV. The laptop has quite a bit of depth and weight to it, probably putting me off carrying it around town to Uni, but their are few Windows based laptops slimmer than this for the screen size. The most important thing is that its particularly well made, if a little over over-dosing on the use of plastic.
Overall, this certainly isn't a bad machine but it all depends on what you want it for. General use? You could save a few bob on the RAM and graphics alone. Gaming? Surprisingly great, though the small track-pad does this no favours unless you have a separate method of control. Pro Graphics? I need not mention the screen. This is a potentially excellent product that just has an odd mix of specifications, yet a MacBook that costs slightly less performs similarly, if not better in some areas. My advice is to weigh up what you want, then decide carefully. | |
