Zepto 6224W Review

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by Jessica Gardner

Zepto of Denmark is best known for producing affordable high performance notebooks in the 15.4 and 14.1” form factors, especially the latter as few offer such gaming performance in such a small package. Following on from earlier models, specifically the 6214 with the Geforce go 7600, the 6224W jumps on the latest bandwagons of including Intel’s Santa Rosa processor platform and the latest Nvidia 8000 series graphics cards, famously compatible with DirectX 10. Choices are limited, it’s an 8600M GT or nothing, but few gamers will complain about this.

What consumers might complain about is the rather limited choice of possible configurations. Processors are limited to a 1.8GHz Celeron-M 540, 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo T5250 with 667MHz FSB and just two of the new 800MHz FSB Core 2 Duo T7000 range, the T7100 and T7300 at 1.8 and 2GHz respectively. That said, RAM choice fares much better and the user can choose one, two or four gigabytes in either 667MHz or 800MHz RAM (not available as 4GB). Hard disks range from 80GB to 250GB, 5400rpm and 7200rpm and a rather pointless 32GB SSD option, although it’s good to see it offered even if few will choose it. Batteries are limited to a 6-cell for now, unlike the previous model which could be equipped with a 12-cell, but other options like optical drives and wireless offer the user much to think about.

Zepto notebooks don’t necessarily come with an operating system installed, which is a great option for those of us with a spare XP key sitting unused. Fortunately, unlike many of the new models, Zepto offers the 6224W with Windows XP, which would suggest XP support is still available for those who don’t want to make the switch to Vista yet. How well the new hardware features will work under windows XP is yet to be found out.

System Specs

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The above spec is complemented by an 80GB 7200rpm Hitachi Travelstar hard disk with 8MB buffer.

Build and Design

The initial impression that is given by the 6224W is that of a classy, sleek and uncomplicated design. While it’s not the best looking notebook on the market it’s certainly no pig. The mix of straight lines, flat surfaces and matte and shiny plastic make it feel uncluttered and unimposing.

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The screen may not be to everyone’s taste. It’s mounted high up in the lid with the speakers underneath. I find this gives the notebook a feel of being unbalanced. A more centrally mounted screen could reduce the footprint of the notebook but this might create issues with fitting all this hardware into such a small space. It certainly feels smaller and lighter than 15” laptops, the surprisingly thin chassis doing itself no favors with some rather gargantuan rear feet, making it appear much thicker than is the case. In fact, the chassis is barely thicker than the DVD re-writer at the sides. Build seems of good quality at first but the base of the laptop does succumb to some overall flex when twisted which is a feature more indicative of budget machines. The DVD drive is not flush with the side of the machine and sits slightly in from the top edge of the base. This coupled with a fiddly DVD drive eject button means that one usually has to peer to the side of the laptop when opening the DVD rather than doing it by touch as on most other machines. This also makes it awkward to close the drive without slamming it shut.

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The Zepto is designed with a mind for having very few external working parts that can go wrong. Is this just fluidity of design or a pointer towards uncompetitive build quality? As a mobile gaming solution this appears to be a good choice, but for mobility in general the laptop seems slightly lacking against competitors with a large footprint for a 14” machine and a heavy weight. The gaming prowess unfortunately adds to the weight, which is similar to that of a 15” machine.

Screen

The screen in this review unit is an anti-glare (matte) finish at 1400x900 resolution. First impressions are that it’s slightly grainy and one would prefer something with a much sharper picture for such an expensive machine. When light from a small source (in this case a light emitting mouse) is cast onto the screen one can really see how grainy the surface is. The screen fares no better than other recent matte offerings on other laptops at dispersing light so the name ‘anti-glare’ just means matte and little else. Where a matte screen would be useful this choice is OK but a glossy screen would certainly give better image quality and probably color too, which would benefit a notebook designed primarily for gaming. The position does seem strange at first but after use seems to have been a good thought. Such a small machine might make the user look down when the laptop is placed on a desk, but the high mounted screen means your eye level is at a more comfortable position.

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For what the screen lacks in surface it makes up for in brightness and color. Few matte screens can match it in either of these aspects, both being much more like a glossy than a matte screen, with an overall brightness greater than that of competitors and a pleasing color neutrality which isn’t often seen on matte screens: colors being pure and bright unlike others which often have a slight yellow tint.

Sound and Speakers

The speakers offer impressive performance for such a small machine and the reason behind their position becomes quite clear. They are not tinny in the extreme like many notebook speakers and have impressive volume and definition. However, the lack of bass can make the extreme of treble somewhat annoying.

Performance

With a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of ram and an 8600M GT no one could call the Zepto slow. Day-to-day performance is sprightly even with Vista Home Premium, which feels rather sluggish at first but then perks up a bit. Needless to say with an 8600M GT this is a gaming machine so the performance tests will be done with this in mind.

The common super pi benchmarking tool has now been superseded by wPrime, which being multi-threaded can test performance of dual core CPUs as well as single in a more realistic way.

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CPU benchmark: wPrime 32 million digits of pi

Laptop	Time
Zepto Znote 6224W (Core 2 Duo T7300 2GHz)	45.788s
Lenovo T60P (Core 2 Duo T7600 2.33GHz)	38.200s
Toshiba P105 (Core 2 Duo T7200 2GHz)	42.428s
Helwett Packard DV6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 2GHz)	45.703s
Apple iMac (Core 2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz)	47.046s
Samsung Q35 (Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz)	50.264s

One would expect the T7300 with its higher FSB to fare better than the T7200 but this Zepto would not post a time better than the one above. Benchmarks are not 100% reliable but one might expect slightly better. What it is that limits this notebook is anyone’s guess.

CPU real life test: DVD shrink

DVD shrink is an application that can backup film DVDs to smaller 4.7GB discs. To do this however requires a lot of CPU power over an extended period of time. My own personal machine that is powered by a Dothan Celeron-M 380 (1.6GHz) completes this task in around 40-60 minutes depending on the content of the DVD.

The Zepto encoded a DVD with 2 hours of video and a small menu in 25 minutes. This is quick enough to be less of an annoyance than older processors, which will take longer. Also, with the dual cores one can do other tasks on the laptop while it is encoding, something one cannot do effectively on a single core processor unless you are OK with the encoding time being increased.

No limitations are found graphics wise. The 512MB Nvidia 8600MGT is the most powerful mobile 8000 series card available at the moment and it shows. The 3DMark06 score for the new card is far in advance of the previous 7600 model, gaining a staggering 1000 points or about 30 percent over the previous Zepto model, although the previous model had a Core Duo processor rather than Core 2. The best results for the Geforce go 7600 are around 2800 in 3DMark06, and the 8600M GT eclipses this by around 500 points or 15 percent.

Graphics benchmark test: 3DMark06

Laptop	Points
Zepto Znote 6224W (Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT 512MB)	3273
Dell Inspiron E1520 (Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT 256MB)	2984
Samsung R70 (Nvidia Geforce 8600M GS)	2782
Dell Inspiron 9400 (Nvidia Geforce 7900GS 256MB)	3603
Asus Z96JM (Ati Mobility Radeon X1600 256MB)	2067
Zepto Znote 6214W (Nvidia Geforce go 7600 512MB)	2203

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Again, 3DMark06 is not 100 percent reliable in terms of judging real world performance. Those who have experienced the 8000 series Nvidia cards suggest their 3DMark scores are high compared to their real in-game performance. This test is next for the 6224W.

Graphics real life game test: FEAR combat, Battlefield 2

At full settings and native resolution of 1440x900 FEAR combat achieved 23-28fps on online play. With the settings turned down one may expect better but there was no lag at all and the FPS during play were pretty constant.

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Battlefield 2 is older and less complex graphically than FEAR, yet still a formidable graphics test purely in the realm of dedicated graphics cards. On full settings Battlefield 2 achieved between 60 and 90 frames per second during online play. This I found very impressive for a mobile card.

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Graphically the Zepto is not lacking in any power. The move to the 8600 series from the 7600 does seem justified due to the increase in performance in regular DX9 games. How it will fare in full on DX10 games is yet to be seen.

During games the grainy screen seems to be a lot less of an issue. The image is sharper and better defined during gaming than on the Windows desktop and the screen doesn’t detract much from the gaming experience.

Windows Experience Index

The 6224W scores a total of 4.6 on the Windows Vista Experience. See the rundown below.

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Noise

The fan at its loudest setting is rather intrusive. After receiving the machine I had to go into the BIOS and restore factory settings to allow the fan to go to anything other than full speed. Even with the fan on variable speeds it is still rather loud. At idle the fan seems to be always on at a lower speed, even this eclipsing the fan noise of the two laptops I own which have been situated on the same desk. The fan is usually at full speed during games and at this speed is clearly audible over the brute of a fan that cools the Athlon 64 in my own Mitac. It would seem the trade off for high performance in a small size such as this is noise. However when using external speakers or headphones during games this is not going to be much of an issue. Where it becomes a problem is the constant noise during more basic tasks.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The touchpad takes some getting used to. Unlike many laptops today the Zepto’s touchpad is not in a slight recess but is flush with the case and is made from the same slightly course plastic. I found this to be a mild annoyance as the result is that the user has to apply slightly more pressure than is normal on other machines. This coupled with the slightly grainy plastic results in a rather tired and worn finger after a couple of hours use. The pad does feel solid however and the buttons are well made and placed, however the scroll function could be better defined and is the source of much of the above problems. I would certainly recommend an external mouse with this laptop.

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The keyboard fares much better. It has a pleasant action and is perfectly good for fast typing. That said there is a noticeable flex of the keyboard even under normal use and it does not feel solid. The layout has been compromised over a regular 15.4” laptop keyboard with a small size enter key and the # key has been moved to the row above normal, which might be infuriating for programmers. I feel the design could have been slightly better. The common kink at the bottom right accommodating the arrow keys is not present and would have afforded more room. Also the presence of the home, end, pgup and pgdn keys in their full glory is strange considering the compromises made elsewhere in the layout. I would have preferred such keys to be left as functions of other keys so a full size enter key and otherwise normal layout could have been achieved. The function keys are easy to find and use but no verification of actions such as volume and screen brightness appear on the screen.

The buttons above the keyboard (power, internet and email quick keys and ‘P1’ and ‘P2’ are a pleasure to use with a pleasing action and stylish blue and orange lights within to denote status (blue power on, orange standby etc.).

Input and Output Ports

The 6224W has all the ports of a fully laden 15.4” laptop. Conveniently none of these are located on the front, a personal preference of mine as I find it can get in the way. The only port at the front is the (obviously non-wired) bluetooth receiver.

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The left hand side features a modem port to the rear of the fan vent. On the near side of the vent are a wireless on/off switch, one of the four USB ports, firewire and the card reader. There is also a space for what looks like an optional PCMCIA or ExpressCard slot which was not installed on the review machine and was blocked off.

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On the right side is the DVD drive to the rear with the headphone and microphone ports to the front, split by another USB port.

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The rear is typically conservative for laptops these days with the two remaining USB ports, wired Ethernet, s-video and VGA clumped together at one side, the battery taking up the rest of the rear edge.

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There are all the ports one would expect on a gaming laptop here, but the lack of a PCMIA or ExpressCard is slightly strange. One might presume this is for possible further expansion to offering these ports but there are no options for these I can find on the Zepto website.

Wireless

The Intel 4965AGN wireless distinguishes itself by giving little to comment on. The connection is strong, does not drop and provides excellent speed for downloads and games alike.

Battery

The Battery for now is just a 6-cell. Zepto will gladly sell you a spare but this lacks the flexibility of the previous 6214, which was available with a 12-cell option. The 6 cell will power the Zepto for just over two hours on power saving mode doing basic tasks such as browsing the internet, office and instant messaging. More demanding tasks start to sap the battery with a full film (around 2 hours) not being possible on one charge. Also gaming drastically reduces the battery life and should not really be attempted without the machine being plugged in.

Operating System and Software

With Zepto the operating system is purely your choice. This is an excellent feature not forcing the user to shell out for a copy of Windows when they already have one spare they could use. Options are Vista Home Basic, Premium, Business and Ultimate and also XP Home and Pro. There are drivers on the Zepto website for XP and this is one of the few machines released exclusively for Santa Rosa and DX10 which does support XP fully. Not forcing the user to upgrade and even allowing XP support is a fantastic move by Zepto.

This machine came with Vista home premium installed. As with any laptop the initial boot took ages, around half an hour with the laptop not being usable until the second boot. It handles vista very well, with the OS feeling as lithe as XP would on most modern machines. This is likely due to the 2GB of ram and the top end CPU. Also pleasing is Zepto’s complete lack of bloatware. There is nothing installed like Norton free trials, AOL, not even manufacturer programs or utilities. As with most things, software is optional and there are limited options on the website for useful software such as antivirus, Microsoft office 2007 and DVD playback and writing software.

Conclusion

As one 14&quot; laptop to rule them all the Zepto 6224W has little competition. For the gamer wanting a reasonably portable machine it makes a lot of sense. It is majestically powerful and offers staggering performance in even the latest games. As a gaming machine has simply no competition in the same form factor. I do not know of a 14.1” laptop with such power available.

As a gaming machine the Zepto 6224W makes great sense. However, for other applications there are offerings from other manufacturers that would win over this machine. The grainy screen is the biggest annoyance for me and the build quality does not lend itself to being chucked around and abused the way that a Lenovo might. There are no specific areas in the overall structure that present worry, but a few pieces that lend themselves more to style than to function ... such as the keyboard and touchpad.

Overall gaming is the name of the game. For this use the Zepto is pretty much tops, with only the screen letting it down. For other uses, look elsewhere.

Pros:

• Only 14.1” laptop with 8600M GT 512MB graphics
• Great resolution for such a small laptop
• Looks fantastic
• Wonderfully powerful in all aspects
• Great customization options

Cons:

• Matte screen is grainy
• Keyboard feels cheap
• Touchpad can be tiresome with extended use
• A few minor design issues (such as the lip over the DVD drive)
• Noisy

 

Additional Pictures

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An awesome review! We've been waiting for this.

 

That's a effing nice laptop. I'm honestly thinking of getting one.

 

Thank you! Very well done, insightful, and balanced review. Thank you for taking time from your schedule to do this review.

 

For a 14"er it has the perfect specs for gaming and mobility .

Too bad about the cons and issues ( that are well pin pointed in this solid review ) as well as the somewhat dated styling .

 

Nice review.

I didn't notice it in your review, but what are the dimensions and weight of this? And for the WPrime benchmark, my iMac (its the bench used for comparison) has a T2400, not a T5600. A slight correction, but a T5600 would have cut the time by over a second.

 

Thank for all your effort!!

 

Thank you for the much anticipated review! Patience is a virtue. ^^

Dimensions come in at
1.1" x 13.4" x 9.7"
5.2lb

(Completely puts the F8Sv to shame)

Talks about bring Zepto notebooks to North America here!

 

Unbiased review that is well worth the wait, and quite informative around issues like builds or keyboards. BTW, did you notice "light leaking from back of lid" problem? Also, at what resolution did you run 3Dmark? If subsequent reviews here are to use 3Dmark06, please list the resolution its done with, so we can actually compare results.

The laptop itself is bit disappointing, though...It sounds like it is yet another "budget laptop with good GPU"..At least, its form factor is attractive, and upcoming 14.1 inch ASUS F is going to be even larger than this.

 

Very nice review! We have to wait for a little time, but the result is very nice!

But I have a couple of points I'm not agreeing with you:

You can choose the T7500 and T7700 in a couple of other countries!?
Just like the Netherlands! And that's why I have a T7500 processor in it

They will come back in September

About the touchpad --> Which notebook-user will use a touchpad very intensive for a couple of hours...!? I never use it, it's allways locked

About the noise --> That's really really weird. My Zepto was also constantly blowing (cold) air what was very irritating, after putting the BIOS defaults back that problem was gone and it is as silent as my when I'm sleeping

And a link to my own Zepto Znote 6224W review:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=138975

So people can compare my and your opinion on this nice notebook!!

And the last thing: I't s a pity that they've send you just this config :-(
And I miss some pictures of the screen with games/ movies and so on...!?
There is only one picture of the desktop and that's it... A little bit shabby!

 

8600gt and no hdmi output? Sooo close.

 

The only time most people care about the HDMI port is when there is a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive. Since this config only uses a DVD-RW drive I'm not too concerned.

This isn't bad at all compared to some other manufacturers' configs that are shipping with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray and no HDMI port.

 

This long awaited review is very welcome.

I will add a few points arising from a week of using the 6024W (physically the same except for the X3100 GPU).

1. I use the touchpad a lot and I've got used to it after putting the sensitivity to maximum. However, it is a shame that they didn't include a wider touchpad (such as provided on the Samsung notebooks - both are Synaptics).

2. The keyboard has longer travel than on the Samsung notebooks I have been using and I am still getting used to pushing the keys down further. It is also slightly noisier.

3. The size is 341mm x 245mm x 32 - 39mm (for people who think metric) and 2.35kg. Those dimensions include the "feet" (which are smaller than on some of the Samsung notebooks". Having the display mounted high in order to put the speakers in the lid gives the impression that the notebook is unnecessarily large, but the other 14" widescreen models are of similar overall size.

4. I think the "grainy" display is a consequence of the anti-glare coating. In reality, its a very usable display.

5. There is an Express card slot above the media card slot. However, one has to get quite forceful to remove the rubbery filler. The eject button doesn't appear to be effective.

John

 

Very well written review, I think the only thing I don't agree on is the screen being grainy
I think it's a very good display.
Tt shows that it's unbiased, very well done!

 

Thankyou for the kind comments and feedback everyone.

As I said in the review, I was impressed by the colour and brightness of the display, but the 'anti-glare' coating fares no better than any other matte screen in dispersing light.

 

Great review, I have ordered mine, not going to hang around for the F8 which I dont even know will be released in England. I dont think there is any other competition as you said. Glad to hear that the screen is ok.

 

Good to hear CLB-NL that you can make it so the fan doesn't run all the time, that would be very annoying!

Nice review, it was fun to read.

 

I realize that this is not a really "good" benchmark, but the WEI score perplexed me. Your lowest was 4.6 for the graphics - but the same graphics card in the Apple Macbook Pro got a 5.9...

Anyone know why this might be?

 

WEI is baffling and clearly depends on various factors known only to Microsoft.The humble X3100 in my 6024W gets a WEI of 3.4 which is higher than the 3.2 managed by the Samsung Q70 with its 4200M G. Both of these scores are for the desktop graphics. In all the other tests the 8400M G outruns the X3100. Clearly Microsoft reaches the parts not touched by the other test software packages!

John

 

I got an email from zepto saying those options were being taken off all the other websites.

Whats wrong with the spec? Its pretty much the highest you can order from zepto now, you were lucky to get over 2.0ghz when you did.

I dont know why the review kept saying theres no 12 cell available for the zepto where there clearly is, look under accessories when ordering the laptop.

I agree with clb-nl about the mousepad, considering this is a gaming laptop, gamers would use a mouse and not the touch pad, theyre small enough to carry around with a laptop these days and you can get wireless or bluetooth ones too to save on messy wires.

That point about putting the bios back to default/factory settings to make the fan less noisy, by going back to default what else are you changing. Have zepto altered the bios in other ways required to run the system well, or was the one and only alteration to put the fan on max speed?

This review is almost convincing me NOT to buy a zepto, according to this review the build quality is rubbish, its heavy for a 14 inch laptop, its bulky, its expensive, the mousepad is rubbish, the keyboard is rubbish, the screen is rubbish, the dvd is awkwardly positioned. Are there any good points other than it has an 8600m gt gpu in a 14 inch laptop therefore its a good gaming machine? The overall size and weight make it seem like a 15'4 inch laptop, with a 14 inch screen on it. Am i missing anything else out? Wouldnt it make sense to get a 15'4 inch screen so you have a bigger screen, seeing as the weight and dimensions are practically identical?

CLB-NL's review seems to have a positive spin to it, Moon Angels just seems to be downing it all the time.

I dont see why to have an unbiased review of something means you have to point out all of its bad points and minimize the good points. It defeats the meaning of being unbiased and assumes if you had positive thoughts about a laptop, then you are being biased.

Overall i was pretty disappointed with this review, but i didnt have high hopes for this anyway, It was VERY short, plain and simplistic and offered minimal new information. Alot of info in the review has already beein pointed out in these forums about 100 times, and imo this wasnt worth the wait. CBL-NL's review is MUCH better, has more pictures and was posted months ago.

Matte screens are definetly the way to go, even if they are grainy, people could tolerate slight grain that glary reflectoins any day of the week. I personally think the reflections on glossy screens render the whole laptop useless, due to how irritating it would be to position and use day by day.

All that being said i will probably still get this laptop just because there is not much else out there in way of competition, and i need a laptop soon so i'll have to settle.

 

I think these options were removed because you needed to upgrade the bios for them to fully work (for the T7500 and T7700).

The 12 cell are not available for the 6x24w yet. ZeptoUK mentioned this in a thread in the zepto forum. they will be available in mid september i think

This i don't really know but if you don't want to set the bios back to default you can just go into cpu settings and turn "DTS calibration" off

You could wait for the asus A8. Or you could just get a 15.4" screener because you are comparing the 6224W to one.

 

There is currently no 12-cell battery option with the 6*24W series listed on Zepto's UK website.

 

That is a good review. Cons are just the same with my Zepto. But the most important thing is the fastness and power. Applications are running with amazing speed and working is much faster now. Compared to that cons are nothing.

 

Posting resolution (in 3DMark06) should be made obligatory by administration.
There's to much "chaos" regarding this benchmark on Forum...

 

I agree. I actually asked Zepto UK if i could keep the machine, it's performance (as stated in the review) is very impressive.

Thank you all for these nice comments!

The original review stated that the T7500 and T7700 options would be available later. Iann from Zepto UK asked me to remove that part however as he informed me that there is no garuntee of these cpus being made available in the UK on the 6224W for the time being.

Re: 12 cell batteries: The same applies to the above reasons for not including any possible spec released later. The option is not currently available at the time of the review so this is ow the review was done, by request of Zepto UK.

To my mind this is a multitasking pc, it must have a mix of mobility and gaming prowess, otherwise the user would have bought a 17" machine or a desktop. The mobility part might require the use of the touchpad.

I have been told one can adjust 'DTS' settings, but the solution you and I used was recommended to me by a Zepto user and seemed to work.

The config is pretty much max available in the UK right now. As 800MHz ram isn't fully utilized yet the config they sent was pretty much tops. It was certainly very powerful in my mind.

As for pictures, I can only apologise. Being a recent graduate and having no money my digital camera is old and left wanting and does not lend itself to good pictures of the things you mention. However, I will certainly endeavour to take some of the pictures you reqest for the review of the 6625WD I will be doing soon.

 

Nice review. Good to see something fair and unbiased.
On the whole, the machine seems to have come off quite well. Though, I did cancel my 6224w order a few days ago in lieu of a ASUS V2S. But that's more to do with the fact I'm an ASUS fanboy and less to do with Zepto or the 6224W itself .

 

great review and nice specs, but what's with the design? It looks like Compal CL56 that I had 3-4 years ago

 

Ohh, there's even a link to this review on Zepto's website:
http://uk.zepto.com/Shop/Notebook.aspx?notebookid=644
Well done .

 

Please appreciate that Moon Angel took the time to write the review.

 

Just a quick piece of information:

All the 6224W's (and 6024, 6324) comes with a Express Card slot.
All you have to do is press the actual plastic spacer that fills the hole and it will release, just like when you place a memory card in the card reader and need to get that out.
You don't need to take anything apart to get it out of fiddle a lot with it to get it removed.

 

It resembles the famous Dell white bumpers. They get a 3/10 for design aesthetics.

 

So than it's quite weird that the Zepto of Moon-Angel couldn't do that

Because the Apple Macbook Pro has got a DDR3 videocard and the Zepto got DDR2?
But the benchmarks I've seen don't show so much differences... It was just a CLB-thougt!

I can't imagine why.... There are no heat-problems so
And if they only have to manually put in the T7300, change the bios and put in a T7500/ T7700 again they can still do that I think!? The T7500 and T7700 are in the Netherlands so much higher priced, that a hour more to assembly a laptop easily can be paid of that prices!

Only a T7300, the memory is one module so you haven't got Dual Channel
And why should I be lucky!? Because I have a T7500 2,20 GHz!?

I can imagine that, and I really can't believe why Moon-Angel note all this points

If you want some other build info, check some reviews of the Zepto Znote 6214W!

PC Pro
Hardware Info
PCM
Trusted Reviews
What laptop?
Notebookreview
Notebookjournal
Komputer for alle - Testvinder
Geizhals
Alt om data
Århusstiftidende
Hardware.no
Tweak.dk
Laptopworld.dk
Cowcotland - 6314W

Don't think so:
Zepto Znote 6224W: 341mm x 247mm x 27-39mm, 2,35 kg
Zepto Znote 6625WD: 355mm x 262mm x 27-39mm, 2,70 kg

Quite weirdish haha

Hmm you have a point with 'short, plain and simplistic'...
But that are the main-points of the Zepto and they are explained very good!!

And I haven't got paid for it Just kiddin'

Just my humble opinion!!!
My 6214W had a glossy screen and the 6224 I have at the moment has a matte screen! The matte screen is so much better! Normally my screen stood to the window, so if a car drove in front of our house I could see it in my screen!

Don't be so negative! It is a very very nice laptop, that's really true!
Everybody that has bought a Zepto... said 'wholy hell this is quite nice'

3D Mark '06 Scores:
nVidia driver: 101.08
Resolution: 1280x800
'06 Score: 3329 points

nVidia driver: 158.45
Resolution: 1280x 854
'06 score: 3339 points

You deserved them

Okay there you have a point! But gaming with a touchpad...

I've read this method before here on NBR

My fault! Didn't know that... I only look at www.zepto.nl so excuses moi!

You don't have to apologize, but I loveeeeeee pictures

That's true and it was in the Datasheet of the Zepto Znote 6224W

It was even in the Zepto Znote 6214W review:

On the left side:

AC adapter plug, 56k modem, exhaust (I see copper!), WiFi switch, USB 2.0, Firewire, Express Card, 3 in 1 card reader

How could you miss that Moon-Angel

 

Thanks Moon Angel for the great review. I was planning on buying this model for a while, but in the end I decided to go for the new MBP. Seeing your review I'm actually quite happy with that decision.

I do find it strange that everybody in Holland is so pleased with the 6224 and you were not that pleased.

@ CLB:
Ik dacht wel dat je hier op zou reageren en terecht misschien ook wel.

 

I must add that while the performance is impressive, this is one of the least attractive laptops I have seen in recent times. With the questionable quality and highly bland, even ugly, design of the 6224, the extra 0.5lb of the Asus F8 is probably worth putting up with in exchange for better specs (comes with the T7500 standard), better quality, and better styling.

 

Wow nice review. I don't know if this has been asked before but how's the heat management?

 

True, that is why.

On the zepto uk website, under the 6224w accessories tab, under power, you can order a 12 cell battery for £70. Granted it states its for 6*14/6*15, but dont they use the same chassis and batteries? And if not, why put them as an option under the 6224w accessories tab?

Eh, thanks, but im after a laptop with a decent graphics card.

Ive heard from zepto that they wont be adding those to the 6224w in the future.

I agree for simple internet browsing and office work, but not for gaming.

I googled pics of the compal cl56 and it looks nothing like it at all.
Unless you consider the fact that they both have keyboards and screens then they do look similar.

Bad move zepto, shouldnt you be promoting reviews that are in favour of your products, sure theres a couple of good points about the laptop in the review, but these are hidden amongst the wealth of bad points pointed out. As i said earlier, this review is convincing me NOT to buy a zepto now for the reasons stated above. Im currently rethinking and looking around for other alternatives.

No i dont have to appreciate anything. Just because someone wrote a review doesnt mean i HAVE to like it, stop being such a facist.

Ive grown to like them, it think it makes the design have a good contrast in comparison to the all black 6214w.

Sigh, i know i know. Ive mentioned this arguement about 100 times, its so simple and i think its zepto being lazy as ive said before. They wont even accept taking more money to do this job, its crazy.

I dont know where your getting that info from, you can order dual channel ram on the zepto website. We have that option.

Yes, you are lucky you had the option.
How would you feel if your laptop had come with a 2.0ghz instead of the 2.2?

I cant understand why zepto would advertise the review on their own site. Another crazy move by zepto.

Dude...what do you mean you dont think so, you've just prooved my point.
there is 0.35kg different in weight, 1.4cm difference in width, 1.5cm difference in depth, identical height.
Like i said, thats pretty much identical.

I know, i have a point with everything i say, its all true :-D

Don't tell me Moon Angel got paid for doing that.

Yup, like i said, glossy screens are irritating.

Lol i was being sarcastic with the settling part, based on all the bad points stated in the review.

Really...? :-/

Exactly

I said earlier this is the max spec u can get from zepto (ok i didnt say uk but still).

And zepto are advertising this review on their business website.

I said weeks before this review sounds like it will just down the zepto because its not for "fanboys"

Not really, ive seen tonnes worse, and few better. People confuse classy and simplistic with plain dull and boring. I think glary designs make laptops look tacky.

It looks ok, but i would call the asus f8 just as bland, even ugly, theres nothing great about the design. The graphics card in the f8 is rubbish, why even consider it as an alternative to the 6224w? Better quality..you could be right there as asus have a good rep for build quality.

 

I can imagine MBP's are really nice and this review is not so positive

Just because it's a very nice product

100% correct ;-)

Just like mine
Better quality and better styling is just subjective...

Of this picture:


Offcourse I know you can order DC-RAM, but I think it's a little bit strange that Zepto gives a review-model with 1 RAM-module so there isn't Dual Channel!

That was never the question, because I've ordered a T7500 ;-)

Your opinion! Every size difference is in advance of the Znote 6224W

You get paid for every 'official' review you put on NoteBookReview ;-)

Reviewers are compensated at least $40 for their work and up to $60 if benchmarks and pictures are included

Yes!! She has taken the time to make pictures/ reviews and benchmarks!!

You're right ;-) I've made my excuses!

If people don't gonna buy a Zepto because of Moon Angels review I'm just happy ;-) I am a little bit more exclusive with my laptop that is 99% relaxed imo.

Just subjective... I like the design and others say: 'pff looks like ****'

Just like the Zepto's, only Asus is a couple more years on the market ;-)

 

Thanks for the input everyone. I'd rather this didn't turn into lots of posts cross-quoting and replying as it gets very complex very quickly, let's stick to some simple points.

Zepto obviously appear to like my review, so thanks very much for that, Zepto.

All I will say on the 'downer' accusations is that if you read the review carefully, I give out praise and condemnation is pretty mcuh equal measure. I praise the performance, the input/output ports, the brightness and colour quality of the screen, the stylish design (there seems to be some pretty split opinion there) the comfortably mounted screen( nicely at eye level), the speakers, the high res of the screen, the media buttons and lighting....


So quite a few things I liked there. If I were in the market for one single laptop with a mix of gaming power and mobility I would certainly consider the 6224W. That said I usually split mobility and power between two machines, one for each.

Re: expresscard, apologies. I have not come accross a setup such as this before and the smaller piece of rubbery stuff to the right of the slot where one might usually find an eject system threw me off.

 

Not everyone likes the idea of buying two machines.

My point is the bad points heavily outway the good points in your review, and thre are 2 or 3 other people who posted messages on this thread agreeing with me.

 

Yes it was the question, u asked if you should feel lucky you got a t7500, and i said yes, because you had the option at the time and people now dont.

Well no, its not my opinion its just fact. I think that everyone would agree that the same height, and 1cm less wide and less deep, for a screen size 1.5 inches diagonally smaller, is pretty much identical to a 15 ich laptop.

Quality isnt subjective that can be measured, design is subjective.

 

There's far too much discussion about the negative aspects of both the notebook itself and the review. Any review which is worth reading is going to be more than a statement of facts decorated by some photos and include the reviewers own opinions. Give 10 reviewers the same notebook and you will get 10 different reviews (give 10 economists the same economic data and you will get 10 different interpretations) which reflect the individual preferences and expectations.

The prudent reader will search for all the reviews and identify the areas of consensus, good or bad and then relate them to their own requirements and preferences.

If this review has identified some deficiencies then it is doing a favour to potential purchasers for whom those aspects are important. A bad review is one which overlooks any obvious short-comings in order to please the readers and (when a notebook has been supplied only for review purposes) the supplier.

John

 

So you are saying that the two notebooks in this photo are pretty much identical? (On the left is the Zepto 6024W and on the right is the 15.4" Samsung X60 plus).

You are welcome to your opinion, but to me they are significantly different in size. Size is not a matter of just the screen diagonal but of the total volume (length x width x thickness).

John

 

We were just kiddin'

The people now have, but only in the Netherlands
This forum is more Zepto UK related than Zepto NL,
so that's why everybody says that you can't go for a T7500/ T7700 or for 800MHz memory

95% here is checking the site of Zepto UK and only 5% other Zepto sites

Not agreeing
How could you measure quality!? If I grab a hammer I could destroy all laptops, so that won't say nothing... A keyboard with travel in it is subjective as hell, even as the build-quality!
I like it and Moon-Angel don't...
That will be because I only know Zepto's build-quality for my own and Moon-Angel knows the build-quality for several other notebooks (because she reviews them) I hear everywhere that the Lenovo notebooks are tanks but my Zepto has quality enough for taking it in a postbag every day to go to college!

 

Therefore, its not unbiased, if its including the reviewers personal opinions now, is it?

Economics data is not really relevant to this topic either.

I agree, thats what anyone with a brain would do, collect as much info from as many different sources as possible then relate that to their own needs and decide for themselves. Doesnt change the fact that this review is very negative, im not saying thats good or bad, im just saying the way it is.

Therefore..this is a bad review. Its hardly an in depth detailed review, as i said its very simplistic short and basic, and doesnt offer that much new info i havent already read in these forums. If anythings its missing out a lot of info. One point at the beginning of the review questions how well the laptop of drivers woudl work on xp but was untested. Why was this test not done. One of the excuses given for the laptop review being delayed for 5 weeks is because it takes time to run tests, which obvisoulsly werent done? A 3dmark06 test was done on this laptop (about the millionth time ive seen this), except the pic given in the review doesnt even show how the test score relates to other computers. If you check CLB-NL's review, he has screen shots of 3dmark06 showing this.

Get a clue, were comparing the 6224w against the 6625wd, no ones talking about samsung so its ridiculous to put that in the arguement.

Are you serious? How about the materials used, the manufacturing process used. Are you saying that you cant measure the difference in quality between one screen and the other? Keyboard flex can be measured.

Companies "quality test" products all the times, they do that with electronic components, cars, plastics, chemicals, anything and everything.
As i said, quality can be measured.

 

Nice review Jess. I think the laptop looks good and having the screen higher up might be a good thing for ergonomics.

The cooling solution is disappointing, I agree, especially since this laptop has a lot going for it. It's nice to see that an 8600M-GT works in a 14" form factor though. Now if only that cooling system could be improved . . .

 

Yes ;-)

Says nothing! Zepto uses a aluminium chassis!
Whoooot that sounds nice and Moon-Angel said the build-quality was ****ty!

Yes how would you do that
Open and close the screen 2000 times with every review-laptop!?
Keyboard flex is subjective! I like my keyboard, others say it's too flexy...

Every company will say that they will have the best/ nicest/ hardest/ thoughest product in the market... That are not only quality tests, that's marketing!

Why!? Temps are good! Maybe a little bit higher than normal, but not risky!

 

There are, but there are many more than 2 or 3 who thank me for the review and say how good it is.

Many thanks to them.

 

Whiejaaaaa Moon Angel scored the 1-0

 

In your opinion, this review points out too many bad things, but it is a bad review because it glosses over the bad things? You are contradicting yourself.

The vast majoity including Zepto themselves liked the review. Zepto even posted it on their website. It's not a bad review, you just don't like me.

Re: Windows XP test. I would like to see Windows XP working on one of these new Zeptos to test how well the hardware works, however wiping a hard disk and re-installing the OS or installing dual boot is beyond what one is allowed to do with a laptop that one does not own.

 

Eh? A review that doesn't state negatives would be about as helpful as a PC without any OS. I don't know about you guys, but for me, the choice of choosing a laptop is a matter of compromises. I am going to choose from likes of 6224W, V1S/V2S, FZ, MBP based on which have the least amount of weakness. Because we cannot build one ourselves, there's no "perfect" laptop - I just choose the most acceptable one, and for that, I need to know all potential pitfalls. After my bitter experiences with 1520, I'd rather not jump in blindly. I want to know everything I can for 1500$+ decision.

Besides, I didn't find this review overly negative. Also, as we can have a good estimate of performance by parts its using, IMO it is more important to have impressions about things like builds or display than how much FPS it gets in Oblivion or something (exception of this would be for a card that is unknown as of now, such as mobile HD2600).

Oh, and, I think Zepto's attitude towards this review is very respectable.