Zepto Znote 3415W review

Graphics-friendly laptop with plenty of zip

Its glossy black casing looks good, but picks up fingerprints easily

TechRadar Verdict

There are trade-offs, but in essence the 3415W offers good value for the asking price

Pros

  • +

    Powerful

    Good graphics

    Decent battery life

Cons

  • -

    Flimsy keyboard

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Zepto is a Scandinavian manufacturer offering laptops that are packed with features. The 3415W is fitted with a speedy graphics card, and offers a host of extras for the home user.

Its glossy black casing looks good, but picks up fingerprints easily. Open the lid and you'll find a 15.4-inch screen. It's fitted with a Super-TFT coating, and colours are accurately reproduced. However, it's not the best panel around, and has a slight graining effect if you view the screen from any angle other than straight on.

Nvidia's GeForce 8600M GT graphics card is fitted, making this one of the most powerful machines around for the price. Multimedia tasks were handled with ease, and the latest games ran without trouble. Despite the dedicated GPU, the battery lasted for a reasonable 192 minutes, under test.

Most of the machine is sturdy to the touch, but it's let down by the keyboard. The large keys are well attached, but the board is flimsy and flexes under pressure.

The chassis itself is strong, and is more than capable of everyday use. Weighing in at 3kg, it's slightly heavier than most rival laptops, and it wouldn't be our choice for the daily commute. The chassis also warmed up under use, a side-effect of shoehorning a powerful graphics card into the compact casing.

It's not the cheapest laptop around, but it's easy to see where the extra costs have gone. A fingerprint scanner adds security and the DVD rewriter features a technology that burns images on discs.

Fast, fully featured and with a good battery life, the Zepto offers a lot for its asking price.

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