Thread: sahara laptop S-NB826431-HK01

Introduction

IN THE LAPTOP world, there are sprinters that can give some desktops a hard time and these typically cost over Rs 60,000. And then there are the crawlers using antique Celeron M, 256MB RAM and with no OS, costing under Rs 25,000. What we have today is a laptop that is slotted in between at Rs. 36,000.

Performance

POWERING THE RATHER cryptically named Sahara S-NB826431-HK01 is the older generation Core Duo archi tecture C P U, Tn 5 0 that is clocked at 1.73GHz with a FSB of 533MHz. This generation is older than the current Core 2 Duo architecture, but when paired with 1 GB of RAM, this configuration managed a score of 58 in WorldBench 6.0. This is not the highest score we have seen from notebooks but is not something to belittle.
Battery life is a huge disappointment - one of the lowest we have seen so far. MobileMark 2005 's Productivity test ran for a meager 107 minutes.

Features & Design

THE S-NB826431-HK01 IS a machine for those who want portability without draining their wallets or having to make do with tortoise speeds. Add-ons are not a factor here - in fact there are none. There are no media card readers, nor is there a webcam. Similarly, expansion slots are also omitted, but most people would not find it a handicap as almost all notebook peripherals are now USB based.
This Sahara includes a DVD writer that can handle all formats and is rated at a maximum read / write speed of 24x. Connectivity is via a 10/100 LAN and a/big Wi-Fi. Sahara has thankfully opted for a 120GB hard disk.
It was indeed a pleasant change to see the a non glossy display with this Sahara. Most laptops these days have a glossy finish that produces irritating reflections (the display can sometimes

Verdict

WE FIND THE Sahara's performance good for its price, while at the same time it is very spartan on features. Combined with a sub par display and touchpad, the price is a tad high. It would have been a far more sensible buy had it been about Rs 4,000 cheaper