The Prowire 153 is the latest no-nonsense, corporate laptop from Elonex. While it's not as slim and sylish, nor as well put together, as some business notebooks, it makes up for this in performance and battery life.

It's not the lightest laptop either. Weighing in at a hefty 2.8kg, it's right on the edge of being comfortable to carry around all day. There are other 15-inch screen notebooks in this market segment that are lighter. The screen on this particular machine has a native resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels and, although it doesn't have any form of special coating, seems brighter than other similarly-sized standard panels.

At the heart of the Prowire 153 sits an Intel Pentium M 740 processor rated at 1.73GHz, allied to Intel's i915GM chipset and 1GB of DDR333 memory, helping it along to a Sysmark04SE score of 140. That's pretty good for this class of laptop, but as you might expect for a business machine, the graphics performance isn't going to get anyone excited, based as it is on Intel's GMA900 integrated solution that shares system memory.

The keyboard is well postioned and the large wrist rest areas allow for comfortable typing. Although the keys do feel a little vague at times, they shouldn't pose too many problems once you get used to them. The trackpad is responsive and good to use.

As you might expect, the Prowire 153 has all manner of ways to connect to the outside world: 802.11a/b/g Wireless (which can be switched on and off to save battery life), integrated 10/100Mbps Ethernet, 56Kbps V.92 modem and - quite a rarity these days - an IrDA port.

Elonex provides an 80GB hard drive for storage and a dual layer DVD drive for backing up data. There's also a 3-in-1 card reader that supports MMC (Multimedia Card), SD (Secure Digital) and Memory Stick formats, plus a PC Card slot. Along with the four USB 2 ports, there is a FireWire port and, rather surprisingly, an S/PDIF socket.

Elonex equips the Prowire 153 with an 8-cell battery which, when tested with the MobileMark 05 DVD playback test, gave two hours and 40 minutes of use. The Productivity test squeezed three hours and 35 minutes out of it. And should you want to carry around a spare battery, Elonex will sell you one for just £35 (plus VAT).

Windows XP is installed, along with WinDVD 4 and a collection of Nero applications for multimedia work and disc burning. A carry case is included in the price but there's only a one-year RTB (Return to Base) warranty.

Verdict
It's not stylish or light, but where it's postioned that doesn't pose a problem. The Prowire 153 is a straightforward, no frills, corporate laptop with enough power and battery life to maintain the mobile user.

Company: Elonex

Contact: 0870 780 1010

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