Packard Bell EasyNote TS44-HR-035UK review

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.