ACER TravelMAte 2300

The Acer TravelMate 2300 certainly doesn't look like a $699 laptop. This sleek system is decked out in a metallic silver-colored shell that tapers slightly at the edges to give it a refined look. Just as important is what's inside the attractive case, including a sharp, widescreen display, 802.11g Wi-Fi, and a DVD/CD-RW drive. While this Acer is far from being a barnburner, it delivers a surprising amount of bang for your buck.

When you open the lid, you'll find a 15.4-inch LCD that offers the WXGA resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. That works out to an aspect ratio of 16:10, perfect for DVD movies. Better yet, this screen displays some of the sharpest images we've seen on a budget laptop. The panel is also quite bright, making it a tremendous find in such an affordably priced laptop.

There are sacrifices to be made in order to hit a sub-$700 price tag. While we love the Pentium M, which offers great performance at clock speeds under 2 GHz, we can't say the same for its little brother, the Celeron M. This CPU runs at slower clock speeds than the Pentium M, features just half the on-chip cache memory, and eliminates some power-saving features. With a 1.5-GHz Celeron M 340 processor, a 4,200-rpm hard drive, and just 256MB of RAM, the TravelMate 2300 handles most applications fine, but doesn't exactly plow through them.

The system stalled a bit when we tried to run two or more relatively advanced applications, like Photoshop and Excel, at the same time. Programs are slow to load, and performing tasks like photo editing can be fairly time consuming. For more basic tasks like word processing and Web browsing the TravelMate 2300 performed perfectly well.

The PCMark04 productivity benchmark reported a score of 2501, which is low but not heinous. This score is actually about 10 percent higher than what the two 1.4-GHz Celeron M-based laptops in this roundup were able to achieve.

The 2300 is definitely not for gaming. With the video adapter integrated into the Intel 855GB core logic chipset, the motion of gameplay in Far Cry was choppy even at the lowest detail setting. The 3DMark2001 benchmark backed up our experience, registering a mark of just 2249.

The system's width might already preclude it from use as a frequent traveling companion, but its limited battery runtime confirms that. We were able to play our Shrek 2 DVD for just 1 hour 22 minutes before the TravelMate 2300's battery gave up the ghost.

This short battery runtime was especially disappointing since the movie played flawlessly on the 2300, with smooth motion and crisp detail thanks to the system's sharp widescreen display. The integrated front-panel stereo speakers are also rather good, yielding sound that's fuller than what you'll get from the typical laptop

Although the TravelMate 2300 doesn't offer a DVD burner, we weren't expecting one in a system priced at just $699. For that price, we were glad to see a combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, which can burn CD-Rs at a speedy 24X.

We were also glad to find three USB 2.0 ports on the system, with two of them placed on the right side and one placed right up front beside the headphone, microphone, and line-in audio jacks. Unfortunately, the system doesn't offer a FireWire port to connect a digital camcorder.

The system's wide chassis allows for a particularly comfortable keyboard that angles the keys outward. Meanwhile, the touchpad has a smooth, responsive surface that has the same length-width ratio as the screen. A four-way directional rocker switch placed between the touchpad's buttons allows you to scroll up, down, and from side to side.

Another perk you might not expect at this price is an internal 802.11b/g connection, which means you'll be able to get on the Web wirelessly without springing for a PC Card or USB adapter.