At first glance, the BenQ Joybook S42 looked just like a normal notebook but closer inspection showed that the exterior now comes in Victorian style insignias. The Joybook S42 is one of the latest notebooks from BenQ sporting different designs on their enclosures.
Flip the lid up and you’ll be presented with a glorious 14.1 inch screen, one of BenQ’s pride and joy. The screen is one of the best in its class. Texts are crisp and picture quality is superb. Above the screen is a 2.0 megapixel webcam which BenQ calls the QEye.
Like the other Joybooks we had, the trackpad had a rough texture to it, giving more tactical feedback to the users. The trackpad button is actually two buttons in disguise. The design made the Joybook sleek and uncluttered. The keyboard is of standard size and tactical feedback was great.
There are four USB ports, two on each side of the notebook, a VGA port and a HDMI port. BenQ is one of the few manufacturers to have HDMI port on most of their notebooks.
One thing that amazes us was the quality of the inbuilt speakers. It’s so loud that we had to turn the volume level to about 50%, unlike the other notebooks where we usually have the Volume on 100%. Audio quality is good and classical music is crisp from the speakers.
The Joybook S42 is powered by Intel’s Centrino 2 platform with a Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, nVidia Geforce 9600M GT GPU and 1GB of DDR2 RAM. Our review unit came preinstalled with Windows Vista Home Premium. Daily operations were good enough with the 1GB memory but when it comes to games, it lacked the speed that we were expecting.
The Joybook S42 is a great for those who are planning to upgrade their existing ones to a Centrino 2 based notebook. The Victorian styled insignia will give you a bit more “up class” feel. We really liked the rough texture on its trackpad as well as the tactical feedback on its keyboard. If only it had more memory instead of the puny 1GB.
Pros : Centrino 2 platform, cool Victorian styled insignias
Cons : Only 1GB memory
BenQ Joybook S42 Specifications :
CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz
RAM : 1GB DDR2 SDRAM
OS : Windows Vista Premium Edition
Display : 14.1 inch UltraVivid widescreen
Hard Disk Drives : 250GB
Connectivity : Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 4xUSB, LAN, 56k Modem, Firewire
Extras : 4 in 1 Flash Card Reader, 2.0 Megapixel camera, HDMI
Dimensions (W x D x H) : 337 x 248 x 26.6 - 38.7mm
Weight : 2.05kg without battery
Popularity: 10% [?]
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