The Omega Viewmaster Portiva 5Z71 is another notebook comprising of tradeoffs; the blistering Pentium-M 2GHz processor offset by an NVIDIA GeForce Go660 graphics card with only 64MB of video memory, accompanied by the smallest hard drive of the bunch. This isn’t helped by a mediocre gaming benchmark – it was one of only two to run Doom 3 at the lowest setting by default. Even so, excellent contrast and colour reproduction sees this notebook ace the DVD playback tests – the picture is sharp and clean and we can see the darkest colour shades which were invisible on every other notebook.
 
HD audio with a digital audio output, along with front multimedia buttons, also serve it well in the entertainment stakes. When it comes to work, the locally built Omega is one of the lightest notebooks in this roundup and also returned respectable work application benchmarks.
 
The touchpad is blessed with vertical but no horizontal scroll and unfortunately four of the generous five USB ports are located on the back. Local system builders have a reputation for quickly incorporating new technologies and Omega has continued this by offering one of the new PC Card Express expansion slots, the new PCMCIA standard which will enable users to move modules between desktop and notebook computers (see www.expresscard.org).
 
The Omega also comes with one of the most substantial software suites on offer, including Microsoft WorksSuite, Word, Money and Encarta. Unless you are drawn in by the Acer’s speedy gaming benchmarks, the lightweight Omega would be the 15.4-inch notebook of choice.