The Bottom Line
The eMachines m5312 is a surprising thin and light laptop system that has a lot of outstanding features at a very low price.
Pros
- Very Inexpensive
- 15.4" Wide Aspect Ratio LCD
- Large Memory and Hard Drive
Cons
- Lower Battery Life
- Large Dimensions Due to LCD Size
- Lesser Integrated Graphics Solution
Description
- AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ (1.8 GHz) Processor
- 512MB PC2100 DDR Memory
- 60GB Hard Drive
- 24x CD-RW Combo Optical Drive
- 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) LCD and ATI Integrated Radeon Mobile Graphics with 64MB Shared Memory
- AC'97 Audio
- v.92 56Kbps Modem and 10/100 Ethernet
- 802.11g 54Mbps Wireless
- Three USB 2.0 Ports, One FireWire Port and One Type II PC Card Slot
- 14" x 10.6" x 1.4" @ 6.6 lbs.
Guide Review - eMachines m5312
11/10/09 - So many of the thin and light systems use the Intel Centrino package that they all generally have very similar performance and costs. eMachines bucks this trend by instead using an AMD Athlon XP-M processor to power the m5312. This system sets a lot of precedents for this market segment. It was one of the first systems to offer 512MB of memory, 60GB hard drive, CD-RW combo drive and a wide aspect ratio LCD panel. What makes it even more surprising is the amount the system sells for compared to similarly or even lesser equipped notebooks. eMachines has even added an 802.11g high-speed wireless adapater on the system. All of this adds up to an amazing system. There are a few downsides to the systems. First, the AMD processor is not as optimized for power consumption as the Intel solution so battery life is lower. Second, the integrated ATI graphics are below average especially when considering the large 15.4" LCD display. Finally, the system dimensions are a bit larger than average due to the large LCD screen.
