Hi-Grade Notino W5900 review

We aren’t usually impressed by the design of Hi-Grade’s laptops, as they tend to be off-the-shelf designs with acres of cheap-looking black plastic.

The W5900 bucks this trend with its glossy black lid with an unusual design on it – the silhouettes of four women on an abstract pattern. Unfortunately for Hi-Grade, we can’t see this appealing to its target audience of women, and it’s certain to be a show-stopper for men.

Opening the lid reveals a rather smart silver keyboard panel, with square white keys with flat tops separated from each other by a small gap.

Keyboards are usually the weak point of budget laptops, but Hi-Grade has done well with the Notino W5900. Despite a bit of rattling, the keys are firm in their moorings, have a light action and adequate feedback. There’s even a numberpad that doesn’t mess up the layout. The touchpad is nice and big, too, but the buttons are flat and have little travel. Overall build quality follows the lead set by the keyboard; we found the lid to be rigid and the case sturdy.

Performance is nothing special, partly due to only 2GB of RAM, but it’s still much faster than some netbooks on test here. The SiS Mirage 3+ graphics chipset couldn’t handle our 3D benchmarks, so the W5900 isn’t a gaming laptop. Battery life isn’t great, either, at two hours and 30 minutes.

Hi-Grade has opted for a 1,366×768 widescreen display, which has vibrant colours and decent contrast, but a slightly uneven backlight. There’s a shortcut button to turn off the backlight, which helps extend battery life while you’re listening to music, for example. Like other budget models here, there’s evidence of skimping on features to reduce costs, such as the blanks filling the slots where HDMI and eSATA ports should be.

We applaud Hi-Grade’s excellent keyboard, but performance and features are no better than other budget laptops here, despite the much higher price. There’s no reason to choose the Notino W5900 over cheaper laptops here.