Packard Bell EasyNote TS44-HR-035UK review

Packard Bell’s new EasyNote TS44-HR-035UK looks very much like previous models, and the only clue to its novelty is the new Intel sticker on the wrist rest. Unseen inside is a new Intel Core i3-2310M processor running at 2.1GHz, along with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard disk, which makes the TS44 look like great value at £450.

This is budget territory, but the TS44 certainly isn’t ‘cheap’. Its 15.6in screen has a glossy finish, which adds a little vibrancy to colours but can distract you with reflections of lights and windows. The backlight is even but not the brightest, which makes images seem a bit washed out and reduces contrast, but our main problem was with the tight vertical viewing angles which forced us to adjust the screen’s tilt carefully. The 1,366×768 resolution is standard.

Design-wise, the TS44 looks similar to previous models such as the TM99, although thankfully the blue wrist rest has been replaced by a more subtle silver. The touchpad had a smooth surface and our fingers glided easily over it. It has a vertical scrolling areas and a single see-saw button which has a reasonably light action.

The keyboard has separated keys with a light action that provides adequate feedback for touch-typists. The keys’ flat tops mean you fingers can sometimes slip off them, and they’re slightly wobbly, but overall we found it comfortable to type on. There’s a numberpad to the right with four columns, but the top row is taken up by shortcut keys, so page navigation keys and the function keys themselves (F1-F12) are relegated to Function key combinations. Those used to using shortcuts such as F5 or Alt-F4 have to press the Function key as well, which is a pain.

There’s quite a bit of flex in the lid, but otherwise the TS44 feels well built. There are only three USB ports, but surprisingly for a budget laptop, one of these is a USB3 port, which you can use to attach fast external storage. You also get both VGA and HDMI outputs, so you can easily connect an external monitor.

We weren’t expecting earth-shattering performance from the new Core i3 models, but when you consider that the i3-2310M is the slowest model of the new range, it’s impressive that it scored about the same as the top-end Core i3-380M from the previous generation. Interestingly, although it was slightly slower in our image-editing test, multi-tasking performance was much improved, which is a good thing as most people like to have multiple windows and tabs open at the same time.

In our Call of Duty 4 test, the i3-2310M’s integrated graphics chip managed 13fps. This isn’t great but you might just be able to play older 3D games with low quality settings. 2D games, of course, will run fine. There’s one other problem, though: battery life. It lasted just over two and a half hours in our tests, which is poor. At 2.6kg, though, the TS44 is a bit too heavy to carry everywhere.

All in all, the TS44 is an impressive budget laptop, but it’s pipped by the Dell Inspiron 15R, which has better expansion potential ports and is slightly better built. If you prefer the TS44’s styling, however, it’s still great value.