The good: Inexpensive for a Core 2 Duo system; solid build; low maintenance finish.

The bad: Heavy and large for a 14.1-inch machine; no Webcam or Bluetooth.

The bottom line: For just over S$1,000, we found the Truenote S7Q40 an adequate performer with a competent feature set.

Read full review of the Truenote S7Q40 »

By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
May 27, 2008

It might be an unknown brand in most of Asia, but Hasee had been producing low-cost PCs for the Chinese market since 1995. The Truenote range has since been brought out to the rest of the region at a price point which is hard to beat. Buying a relatively unknown brand naturally brings about questions regarding reliability and aftersales support. After all, cheap and good is a cliche which rarely comes true. The Truenote Hasee S7Q40 has a price lower than most UMPCs in the market, while offering a full feature set and Core 2 Duo performance. Other portables at this price range, like the Acer Aspire 4520 and Dell Inspiron 1525 uses the older AMD Turion 64 X2 and Pentium Dual Core chips, respectively. We put this portable through our labs to see if the any major sacrifices were made to keep the price down.

Design

The Truenote Hasee S7Q40 is hardly one of the sleekest or lightest thin-and-light machines around. With a weight of 2.4kg and a footprint of 336 x 236 x 34mm, this 14.1-inch notebook almost crosses the border to midsized laptops. However, we were quite impressed with the solid build of our review unit. The dull black plastic body does not creak or flex, and the hinge does not feel loose and holds the screen angle well. There is a small area of rough plastic (textured to resemble leather) that provides a non-slip surface for the palm when transporting the unit.

The Chinese company did not skimp on dedicated buttons in this machine, offering five shortcut keys that activate the wireless radios, mute speakers, starts up the mail application and controls the system fan. The latter is interesting as the mobile platform automatically switches the cooling fan anyway when the core temperature goes beyond a certain point. We suspect that the additional control allows the user to silence the whirling device while watching movies.

As per the norm for laptops this size, the keyboard is large enough for comfortable typing and we like the fact that the two-button touchpad has a rough texture. This provides excellent tactile feedback and the response was quite good.

Features

If you expect to use the laptop right out of the box, think again. Though the operating system was already installed, the company did not put in the necessary drivers for the components. A driver CD was included and we had to spend about half an hour getting the machine up and running. We spoke with the distributor who did not give any reason for this oversight, but promised to look into making future models functional from the onset.

At just over a grand, this Truenote offers a competent feature set that should satisfy the needs of all but the most advanced users. Though modem (which should hardly be a matter of grief for most users) and Bluetooth are missing, 802.11b/g and 10/100 Ethernet are supported for network access. External peripherals can be used with three USB 2.0, mini-FireWire and a full-sized ExpressCard/54 slot. The built-in media card reader can accept SD/MMC, Memory Stick and Memory Stick PRO standards. The stereo speakers are adequate for most needs and nothing to write home about.

The 14.1-inch widescreen display has 1,280 x 800-pixel resolution, expected for machines with this screen size. Some companies go with the older and cheaper Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics chipset to save cost, so we were quite glad to find the latest Intel GMA X3100 under the hood. With the latest video drivers installed, this machine should have no issues playing high-def content as well as older games. For hooking to external displays, VGA and S-video ports are available. The integrated DVD writer can read and write to any flavor of DVDs and CDs save for DVD-RAM.

Performance And Battery Life

For S$1,099 (US$792.19) you get a Core 2 Duo 1.66GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 120GB storage space and Windows Vista Home Premium operating system. The Linux edition knocks S$100 (US$72.08) off the price, though only users familiar with the opensource program should consider this option (the license for Vista far exceeds the discount given).

The Windows Experience Index scored a 3.2 for this machine, with the processor receiving 4.1 and the graphics 3.2. Playing with productivity tools is not issue for this laptop, though gaming and video editing may be a little too much to ask for this budget laptop.

For a Core 2 Duo system running on an integrated graphics chipset, we expected the laptop to complete a full movie without requiring a recharge. The Truenote S7Q40 manages 2 hours of video time before switching off, which is adequate though not awe-inspiring.

Service And Support

The laptop comes with a standard one-year warranty for parts and labor. However, there is a little twist to the coverage terms. The battery and LCD (the latter being the costliest component in a laptop) is covered only for six months. There is no replacement for LCD panels with two or less dead pixels, so make sure you check your unit at the point of purchase. Should a hardware issue arise, the laptop has to be sent to the authorized service center for repair. On the support Website, system drivers can be downloaded and a support email can be sent to the distributor. No online FAQ, troubleshooting guide or telephone support hotline is available.

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