Acer TravelMate 4223WMLi

The Acer TravelMate 4223WLMi proudly states that it is "Windows Vista Premium Ready" with a sticker on the monitor bezel. A good sign to start out with, it was backed up with reasonably good performance in our tests. However, this result is not as good as you would think as its Core Duo processor is an older technology and purchasing the newer Core 2 Duo would offer better performance for a similar price.

The Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz CPU used in this TravelMate isn't quite as impressive as systems built using Intel's Core 2 Duo CPUs (released towards the end of 2006) but it's still a good performer nonetheless. A total of 1GB DDR2 667MHz RAM has been installed, which is fairly common for a notebook and will be plenty for many peoples needs. The TravelMate scored 87 in our World Bench 5 test. This score shows it should easily handle the most commonly used software packages on the market and run applications like Web browsers, email, word processors and accounting software without any problems.

We also ran MobileMark 2005's productivity test, which gives an indication of how well and how long the notebook will run when powered from its battery. The test score of 175 over 194 minutes was quite impressive. This indicates that, while running multiple applications the notebook still managed to run for over three hours and did so while still maintaining efficient productivity.

An ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 graphics card has been used to meet the requirements for Vista, but it is only suited to be used for basic tasks and won't support any new or taxing games as the score of 2816 in 3DMark 2001 SE suggests.

The 15.4in (1200x800) screen has limited vertical viewing angles and needs to be positioned at the optimum angle for comfortable viewing. However, the contrast and brightness levels are reasonable and overall it delivers a clear image. The build quality is not as sturdy as other notebooks, including many from Acer's range. Some flexibility in the chassis and the LCD panel can in some ways protect your precious hardware, but it can potentially allow for damage to the unit, such as cracking the LCD screen.

The design of this unit is in keeping with the current TravelMate range and comes with an integrated 5-in-1 media card reader that allows you to transfer data from your SD, MMC, MS, MS-Pro or xD media card and store them on the 120GB hard drive. There's also a PC card (type II) slot available, a VGA port and three USB ports. A 10/100 LAN port allows for wired networking capabilities, while wireless networking is possible using the WiFi 802.11 a/b/g or Bluetooth 2.0 connections. Acer has used a curved keyboard design to help follow the natural position of your arms and wrist as you type which we found fairly uncomfortable as it took some getting used to.

The Acer TravelMate 4223WLMi performed well in our tests, had some good integrated features and was reasonably comfortable to use, once you get used to the keyboard design. However, at this price point you can get notebooks with notably better performance and newer technology (such as Core 2 Duo CPUs).