Packard Bell Butterfly XS 11.6in notebook

The lepidopterist's laptop?

Thu 15 Jul 2010 // 13:02 UTC

Under PCMark Vantage, the EasyNote Butterfy XS returned 1622 overall, which is an odd mix as it beats, for example, the Turion version of the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge, packing a 1.6GHz dual-core chip, but is sat on by the 1.3GHz Pentium SU2700 in Toshiba’s Satellite T130.

Even so, screen playback of an HD clip is clean at 720p and 1080p, with no visible artefacts. There’s not a lot of point in playing 1080p video on the XS' screen, but don't forget that HDMI port.

Reg Hardware isn’t kind when specifying its battery life test: turn off all screen dimming and hibernation and run a looping standard definition video, full-screen, for as long as the machine has life. Under this regime, the XS lasted just over four hours, which is just about enough for two feature films. Under a more lenient regime, using the notebook for general office tasks, I don’t think Packard Bell’s claim of seven hours use is far-fetched.

There’s a better software bundle with this machine than you get with many of its rivals. There’s a full copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 7, as well as Microsoft Works 9, Nero 9 and PowerDVD 8. They may not light your fire, but they do provide basic tools for everyday use. They all sit on top of 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.

Verdict

If you want a small notebook, but need more than a typical netbook can provide, particularly DVD and CD playback, the EasyNote Butterfly XS is a good all-rounder. While it’s not going to win any performance awards, it handles 2D entertainment better than the raw figures suggest. ®