Philips Freevents x59

First impression: I was really excited! It's tiny and feels great in the hand and on the lap I was fairly surprised at how solid and genuine it felt. Not crappy and flimsy, as it is a cheap laptop and not a leading brand but it feels like it has a suitable amount of quality to it.

It was packaged very well and securely. The user manuals are quite informative and in several languages. There's a manual for health and safety, troubleshooting, laptop manual and Windows Vista.

Laptop Info
Model: X59
Price: £599
Where I bought it: Currys but you can also buy it at PCWorld, Dixons Digital and Pixmania.co.uk


Spec:
CPU Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 (1.66GHz)
Chipset Mobile Intel® 945PM Express chipset
Memory 1GB DDR2 PC2-4200 (2 x 512MB)
Hard Drive 100 GB, Serial ATA notebook hard drive
CD / DVD Drive Dual layer DVD±RW
Video/Graphics Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (up to 224MB)
Monitor 12.1" TFT (native resolution 1024x768)
Modem Motorola SM56 modem
Sound Card Realtek AC'97 audio
Network Card Realtek 8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet (Onboard)
Network Card Intel® Pro 2200BG wireless LAN
Firewire Card OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 host controller (onboard)
PC Card 4 in 1 card reader
PC Card 1 x ExpressCard/54 slot


Build & Design
It's quite sturdy. When I got it out of the box I was impressed of how solid it felt. Nice silver finish and feels durable. Even though it hasn't got a catch to keep it shut, the hinges are spring loaded so it snaps shut and is quite firmly held in place. It looks quite simple, not as fancy as say a Sony but at £599 I think its a decent laptop with a decent design. The keyboard is a fair size and responsive; a little cramped when it comes to the arrow keys, ctrl and alt, but I have small hands so thats ok for me at 12.1" I think the screen is excellent. Crisp and clear. Any smaller e.g. 11" or 10" would be too small. I think that 12.1" is perfect. The mouse pad is responsive, a little smooth to the touch, maybe could have been given a slighlty different texture to differentiate from the rest of the laptop. But it seems ok at the moment.

Performance
The battery lasted 2.5 hours. I was using Word, the internet wirelessly and doing a few other things. So I feel for the tasks I was doing it lasted well. You also have settings to make the battery last longer (not tried that yet) i.e the screen would be less bright or the depth of colours would change. Also, I know that if you turn the wireless off it doesnt drain the battery so much. So I'll try that today and some of the other settings. No crashing yet, starts up fairly quickly.

Customer Support
Heres the crunch. Its a Philips but made by Twinhead and supported by DSGI (Currys, Dixons PCWorld group) Techguys. So its not great for supporting you if you have a problem.

Good and Bad points
Good points: size, fairly light, solid build, excellent screen, EXCELLENT value for money
Bad points: tech support, battery is good but hasnt blown me away yet (may have to play with settings)

Summary
I like it! Very very much. When I've played with it a bit more, I will be able to write more here. But currently I think it's excellent value for money and very good for home use and on the move generally e.g. office and home. A good all rounder at an attractive price. Perhaps a good option for students or those on a tight budget... oh... and of course, impulse buys!

Please see photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/atinuke

 

What is the battery capacity (check the label for volts and Ah - I can'tr quite read the info on the photo)?

Can you report the mainboard type. The mainboard page of CPU-Z should tell you.

Do you have some scales for checking the weight?

John

 

battery capacity is 4.4 ah, 11.1vDC
weight 1.9kg (spot on!)

not sure about the mainboard type

 

Thanks. That battery is 48.84WHr (watt-hours) which is about average for a 6 cell.

You can get CPU-Z from here. It provides some information about the hardware. The motherboard details should be on the mainboard page - the middle part of the attached example.

John

 

ok, couldnt get an image online, but i can tell you the following:

Motherboard:

Chipset: intel i945GM Rev. 03
Southbridge: intel 82801GHM (ICH7-M DH)

Hope this helps??? Why is this useful?

GH
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