With all of the boastful stickers BenQ has covered this notebook in you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a top-of-the-range unaffordable model. Yet you can buy it for under $1400. Something’s not right, surely!
The dark, silver-with-a-hint-of-purple chassis manages to make a purple notebook look good and a bit classy. It’s also very well built: no surfaces flex or feel flimsy and the lid will protect the 15.4in screen from many knocks. The screen is notable for having a quoted response time of 16ms. Normally, notebook manufacturers don’t quote these figures but BenQ seems to have found a marketing niche. As such we didn’t see much lag in our video tests and though colours could be a little washed out, despite the glossy, colour-enhancing coating, we had few complaints. Vertical viewing angles are modest but horizontal ones are good enough for friends to share a film.
That said, we’re not sure we’ve ever heard quieter or more-tinny speakers. If you want to watch films, use headphones or make use of the extra 3.5mm line-out jack (which doubles as coaxial S/PDIF out) with some external speakers. Other ergonomics were much better: the keyboard is crisp and solid (if a little stiff) and the trackpad mouse and buttons all work well.
The R55U’s innards are distinctly non-budget. BenQ includes a Core Duo T2050 CPU, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard disk. These combined to score 0.78 in our benchmarks: fine for all tasks this notebook would be used for. Gaming is out of the question however, as the Intel graphics can’t support it.
In addition to the generous hard disk size the R55U punches above its weight with other features too. A dual-layer DVD writer is included along with Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. Other connectivity comes from a Type II PC card slot, four USB 2 ports, a media card reader (which supports Memory Sticks and SD/MMC cards), mini FireWire, VGA and S-Video out. There’s very little missing. Note, however, that all ports are on the sides as the screen covers the rear when open (it won’t open all the way back).
At 2.7kg it’s not too heavy to lug around all day and battery life is respectable too: one-and-three-quarter hours under intensive use and four hours under light use. BenQ includes Windows XP Home and one year of Trend Micro antivirus. The warranty is a good two – years onsite which is the icing on a cake. At $1366 this notebook is better than some rivals twice its price. A steal.
