Review: GIGABYTE N512

The laptop market is heating up and it seems like every one wants a portion of the action. Not to be outdone, Taiwan based Gigabyte has introduced several new laptops to their existing broad range of products. The N512 laptop features a powerful Intel Pentium M 1.7GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 graphics adapter. Let’s see the company’s first launch this fiscal.

Design

N512 shown on Gigabyte’s website do not do it honesty; In fact shows the system look thicker and blander in facade than it really is. This just isn’t the case. With the exemption to the back of the system where the battery is located, the whole system is dressed in a shiny silver paint giving it a very expensive look. And with the system barely being about an inch tall it looks like it may perhaps be made by Apple from a distance. Of course the Apple PowerBooks come with a genuine magnesium case and a wide-screen display but Gigabyte does a good job duplicating the styling.

Performance

Powering the N512 is Intel’s latest Dothan based Pentium M CPU running at 1.7GHz and Intel’s Centrino chipset. N512 comes with 512MB of DDR memory you can choose to upgrade the system for a sum of 2GB of RAM – more than most notebooks. Gigabyte chose to conduit the Intel integrated graphics chip in favor of ATI’s Mobility Radeon 9600 graphics adapter which we think is an elegant decision.

The N512 also comes loaded with 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 FireWire port, a PC Card and MMC/SD media card slot and a DVD/CD-ROM combo drive. 2 things we were very happy to see on this system is the dazzling 15-inch SXGA+ TFT display with a max resolution of 1400x1500, and the integrated 802.11b/g WiFi.

The disappointed was to see no DVD writers or gigabit Ethernet as an option though. The N512 comes with only a few software programs which is what we like. Included are Power DVD, Easy CD Creator, Xpress Recovery and Norton Antivirus.

The touchpad and scroll buttons labor very well and we did not have any issues with how they performed. The keyboard arrangement and key size is also pretty nice, not too large nor small and the keys give a pleasant click feel when they are being used which is comparable to the way an IBM ThinkPad keyboard feels. There are only 2 hot buttons on the system with one going to the evade e-mail program and the other to the help section of Windows. Some cool little things we institute are audio controls as the secondary function on the F keys.

Overall

Gigabyte has done a astonishing job giving the user all they need to get going. They incorporate an attractive laptop bag as well as a diminutive wireless laptop mouse. The instruction manual is easy to read and they provide a warranty that appears to rival the competition, even though the tech support phone number is not toll-free. If you are willing to smash the cast and try a system from a company not known for its notebooks, the N512 is definitely a system worth checking out.

Pros

+ Very fast;
+ System memory is upgradeable to 2GB;
+ Very reliable

Cons

- Does not have a widescreen display;
- DVD writer or Gigabit Ethernet is not an option