Mesh Neo 10″ Pro SP review

The Neo is the first netbook we’ve seen from Mesh. The model we tested is immediately eye-catching thanks to its lurid neon red case, but more sedate white, black and blue variants are also available.

The Neo is rather chunky and a little heavier compared to some of the other netbooks, weighing 1.4kg, but it’s still light enough to be carried around all day. It doesn’t feel fragile, but its creaky plastic case feels a little cheap. Another irritant is the whiny fan. It’s not loud enough to be heard in a train carriage or airplane cabin, but is audible in a moderately quiet office. The constant noise, even during simple tasks that don’t tax the processor, can be distracting.

One of the reasons for the Neo’s chunkiness is its large battery, which also props up the keyboard at an angle. It lasted just over four and a half hours in our light usage battery test which is impressive and good enough for half-a-day’s work away from a power socket.

We were disappointed with the Neo’s keyboard. The keys are small, tightly spaced and feel very spongy. The space bar is especially difficult to press; it’s very small in order to fit in the second set of Start menu and Alt keys on its right-hand side. This can make touch-typing a frustrating experience, as we kept on missing the space bar. In contrast, the touchpad is large, feels accurate and has a pivoting button that feels just right.

We were initially pleased with the very bright 10in widescreen display. Images looked a little grainy and viewing angles are tight, though, so you’ll need to sit directly in front of the screen to get the best picture. This isn’t likely to be a problem, though.

Like many of the other netbooks here, there’s a 1.6GHz N270 Atom processor, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard disk, so performance is similar to the majority of netbooks here.

Mesh’s Neo has good battery life, but MSI’s similarly priced Wind lasted even longer in our tests. Better yet, the Wind suffers from none of the Neo’s design flaws, making it the better netbook at this price.