Evesham’s Voyager C550 may be one of the most expensive notebooks here, but those extra pounds have gone a long way to boosting its speed and specifications.

At a clock speed of 2GHz, the Intel Core Duo T2500 is the joint fastest processor here and, with 1GB of DDR2-677 Ram, allowed the Voyager C550 to rip through our benchmark tests.

Its final figures were 3,971 in PCmark and an overall rating of 198 in Sysmark 2004 SE, which were by far the speediest results we encountered in this group.

Graphics are also top notch, thanks to the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics chip pushing polygons faster than anything else here.

A 3Dmark05 result of 3,371 and a zippy 62.92 frames per second (fps) in Far Cry means this notebook will hold its own at gaming parties and with other graphics-intensive applications.

The 15.4in WXGA X-Bright screen displays a native resolution of 1,280 x 800 and is incredibly composed – the lack of horrible tearing or distortion when knocked is testament to how far notebook displays have improved over the past few years.

The 80GB hard disk is one of the biggest here and the DVD writer supports all disc formats bar DVD-Ram.

The Windows MCE (Media Center Edition) operating system and a few other pieces of software are included. There’s a mini control panel on the front for media navigation.

No TV tuner is built in, so to make full use of MCE you’ll have to factor this into the overall cost. A DVI port and 5.1 soundcard are welcome attributes, as is the high-quality voice recorder built into the lid.

However, at two hours, 15 minutes before needing a recharge and weighing 3.2kg (almost as heavy as the 17in Toshiba), it’s by no means the most portable notebook on test.

This article is part of a group test on dual core notebooks: Other articles include:
Intro and Editor’s choice
Acer Travelmate TM4202
Evesham Voyager C550
Other reviews can be read via our PDF downloads above