My first impressions of the Advent 4211 netbook were very positive indeed. I particularly liked the solid feel, the good keyboard and screen, and the snappy performance. I’ve been living with the Advent for a while now, so I thought I’d wrap the review up and give some more thoughts on this impressive little machine.

To recap, the Advent 4211 that I am reviewing comes with XP Home Edition preinstalled, the Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, an 80GB mechanical HDD, and a 10″ widescreen display.

We took the Advent to the Eurogamer Expo and used it exclusively to post our write-up and create our videos of the day (because the HP Mini-Note failed us miserably, but that’s a different story). It handled video creation brilliantly, as well as preparing our photos in free Photoshop alternative The Gimp (not included). It also connected to the wireless network in the press area without any major issues, in fact, you’d expect a machine of this price to have a very ropey wireless card indeed, while I found that the complete opposite was true.

Battery life is reasonable (if not brilliant) while doing the tasks mentioned above, and we found that it lasted around 3 hours on the included battery with a more moderate load.

The Good

• The screen is excellent, and is crisp and clear with a nice matte finish.
• The machine feels solid with good build quality.
• There is a good selection of ports, with 3x USB, an SD card reader, VGA and audio in & out ports.
• Keyboard is great, feeling solid to type on and with good-sized keys compared to the competition.
• Wireless connectivity is very good with a fast, reliable connection in all of our tests.
• Touchpad is responsive and has a good feel to it.
• The 1.2KG weight makes the machine very portable while still feeling solid.
• Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom processor is very capable, handling video and photo editing tasks and making Windows a joy to use.

The Bad

• Battery life is around 3 hours on a moderate load which is slightly below average for this class of machine, and demanding processing tasks will reduce that considerably.
• The single button on the touchpad feels odd, and looks more fragile than it is.
• 3G networking and/or an ExpressCard slot would’ve been nice.

Conclusion

This is a fantastic machine and great value for money. If you’re only into web surfing, word processing, and managing the photos from your digital camera, this might even make a capable desktop replacement machine. Where it really shines however is its portability, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it as a travelling companion for email and web surfing duties. It might be wise to invest in a higher capacity battery for heavy use, however.

There is also a little brother to the 4211 available now, known as the Advent 4489. It’s a slightly lower spec and comes with a screen which is an inch smaller, however it should be a great alternative for the budget-conscious buyer.

Portability: 9/10
Build Quality: 8/10
Spec: 8/10
Value For Money: 9/10

Overall: 9/10

The Advent 4211 is available from DSG stores (Dixons, Currys, and PC World) for £279. Recon units are also available for £249.

Other TTB Posts Like This One

• Review: Budget Gadgets ‘Small White Dog’ Webcam
• HP Mini-Note 2133 Review: First Impressions
• Netbook Buyers Have No Love For Linux?
• Review: Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360)
• Review: Demon’s Souls (PS3)