If you've at any time listened to Nationwide Public Radio's Prairie House Companion, you could possibly have heard the host mention within a folksy way that "all the young children are above regular." Alas, some products are just average--neither setting the bar for excellence nor dismally poor. Micro Express' NBL26 is simply these an undistinguished item.
Obviously, "average" doesn't indicate "bad." If what you need is actually a able 15-inch laptop computer which is not also major rather than too expensive for working desktop apps, browsing the world wide web, and also other standard computing projects, the NBL26 suits that bill. Desktop efficiency is surprisingly robust for any dual-core unit. Intel's new Core i7-2620M (a Sandy Bridge CPU) scales up from a default 2.7GHz to a whopping 3.4GHz. That, plus the 4GB of DDR3 memory, pushed the NBL26 to a strong score of 126 within our WorldBench six test suite.
Alternatively, battery daily life looks a bit beneath common, at three hours, 15 minutes, but which is probably since Micro Express failed to stack the deck that has a maxed-out battery, therefore retaining the bodyweight down to a sensible 5 lbs, 9 ounces with out the ability brick. The 90W power brick adds only one pound.
Although desktop functionality would seem fair, gaming functionality is dismal. The NBL26 ships using a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 540M GPU, which includes a scant 96 shader cores. This means that gaming performance is rather constrained, though most likely much better than with integrated graphics. The NBL26 delivers a very modest score of 310 in 3DMark 2011. Far Cry 2 working in DirectX ten mode manages only a bit about ten frames per second. I lastly gave up on games when Just Cause two refused to reply to keyboard input. The bottom line: never assume to make use of the NBL26 as being a gaming program.
Visual fidelity although running desktop apps appeared very good, however coloration saturation in pictures looked just a minor muted. Within the plus side, the viewing angles with the LCD panel ended up much better than on most laptops I've tested. Video top quality, specifically when viewing DVD films at full resolution, is subpar. I took a close take a look at the Raiders from the Lost Ark DVD, which can be an excellent transfer, together with the DVD of Serenity. Equally exhibited substantial noise and just adequate edge enhancement to become irritating.
Audio high quality also falls quick. For Webcam and VoIP use, the speakers really should perform nicely, as they seem to get tuned in order that voice and vocal frequencies are enhanced, but bass and higher treble are nearly nonexistent. If you're preparing on listening to songs, you may wish to use headphones.
The keyboard is absolutely nothing unique, possibly. The great news is always that it isn't a Chiclet-style keyboard, and it offers very good tactile feedback. The bad news: The keys are not sculpted, and it's straightforward for fingers to slip off when touch-typing, resulting in much more mistakes than standard. Even though the keyboard does have a very separate numeric keypad, the Web page Down, Property, Stop, and Web page Up keys are overloaded--you'll need to turn Num Lock off if you would like to utilize these keys.
I did run into one irritating glitch: Soon after the NBL26 went into rest mode, the display would sometimes--but not always--remain dark once the unit woke. On these events, the laptop computer was nevertheless energetic (I could make the technique generate audible error seems), but only a tough reboot would carry the screen back.
Inside the end, the Micro Express NBL26 is a generic-looking laptop that is quite significantly as regular when you can get. It really is most likely to become a good unit for regular desktop use, but it's surely not a gaming or multimedia powerhouse. If which is all you may need, then it could be worth a closer search, but at its price stage, you can find much better units.
