As the crazy race of netbooks continues and as more and more companies try to give out a perfect netbook, there are some interesting and less popular netbooks to be found. By less popular I mean that they are not frequently heard about but, to my utter surprise, I found the Packard Bell dot zg5 to be one among the contenders of a reliable netbook! While I was busy in having a look at what it has to offer, this is what I found: The netbook is not the only thing in the packet. The other residents include an adapter, a protective case and a complete stack of paperwork.

Notable Features

The first thing that strikes me is the bright screen of the netbook and with a diagonal size of 8.9 inch; the netbook is not super small. The Packard Bell dot zg5 will partly compete with the Eee PC from Asus because it is loaded with a normal 160GB HDD instead of SSD. The other specifications are pretty consistent and I will take you through them as we continue.

On the downside are the mouse buttons on either side of the touch pad and the rubber buttons on the top of the screen. I am probably a bit cynical as I say this but it is true that it looks like someone has expressed cigarette on your netbook!

Specifications

For a small netbook of this category, it seems that the specifications are very impressive; especially the hard disk is a big example. The reason for a single SD slot is not known but it seems to have a simple logic: “How often is it that you’re two tickets simultaneously?”

Benchmarks

There were a number of tests that gives a bit of idea about the utility and the capability of the netbook.

3DMARK06

After a (slow) 3DMark06 scan it shows that the Packard Bell mini laptop is not made to gaming. The final score is on a disappointing 105 points.

HD Tune

Because the internal storage of the netbook is a normal hard disk, I do not expect that they will perform better than the SSD in the ASUS Eee PC.

Experience

As far as the experience is concerned, the point where Packard Bell dot zg5 beats the Asus Eee PC is the keyboard. The keyboard is quite useful and unlike the Eee PC, the keys are wide enough to make sure that the multiple keys don’t get pressed at one go! Yet another thing that took me by surprise is that Photoshop can run smoothly on the Packard Bell dot zg5. Though my expectations never reached the cloud 9 for Photoshop, I found that the elements of this software come bundled with the Packard Bell dot zg5. The only problem is the small screen size. I had to scroll again and again to use the software.

Packard Bell dot zg5 is best suited for typing letters or browsing the internet for small news updates and other small Web-based works!

Conclusion

In case you are looking for some reasonably powerful netbook, the Packard Bell dot zg5 is not a bad choice for you. Along with a nice elegant look, this netbook inevitable some leeward characteristics but has enough elements to catch my admiration!