PC World Advent 8001

This Advent is a mover and a shaker - a smart little unit that concetrates on the basics.

Price: £1799

Manufacturer: PC World

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Verdict

The Advent 8001 is a smart little unit that keeps its size down by concentrating on the basics, and it has powerful computing potential hidden inside.

Andy Gordon, What PC? 02 Aug 2002

This Advent notebook uses the latest mobile processor, so shoppers on a tight budget should look elsewhere.

The 8001 is well-priced when compared to notebooks with similar specifications.

At its heart is a 1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 Mobile processor, the 'Mobile' suffix distinguishing the chip from the desktop equivalent.

Intel's Mobile chips include a technology called SpeedStep, which reduces processor speed when a computer is not plugged into the mains. The 1.8GHz Pentium 4 Mobile drops to 1.2GHz, preserving battery life when on the move.

The 8001 has 384MB of Ram and a large 40GB hard disk drive.

This Advent is a mover and shaker, and it looks good. Inventive use of the available space produces a compact, well-designed, smart silver unit that is comfortably portable at 2.7kg.

The dark-grey insides complete a pleasant two-tone finish, along with the silver-bordered touchpad controller. The keyboard is a bit small, but is well set out and comfortable to use.

Serial and parallel ports, along with the floppy drive, have been dropped, but plenty of alternatives are dotted around the edge of the case. Three USB ports for peripherals reside on the left and right, along with a modem connection, networking port, VGA for an external display and PC Card slot, while mini-FireWire, infrared and short-cut keys reside on the front.

The optical drive is a combined DVD-Rom and CD-RW. The 14in display replete with (basic) built-in speakers and headphone socket make movie-watching a possibility, and an S-video out is included for connecting to a TV.

Price: £1,799 (inc VAT)