Champion Slim 13160 Netbook

While netbooks are popular for their light weight and tiny form factor, the Champion Slim 13160 goes a step further with its slim design. Less than an inch in thickness, weighing merely 1.5 Kg, and despite the 13-inch screen, this netbook is super-convenient to carry.

The slim design and light weight are the two strong points of this netbook. As far as the features and performance are concerned, keeping in mind the hardware and benchmark scores, this laptop will suffice for basic applications and light entertainment on the go. So casual Internet surfing, office applications, movie-watching and such are smooth sailing on this machine.

Design and build quality
This is where the Champion Slim 13160 really scores, mainly because it sports a slim form factor. It is mainly the thinness, the curved edges and the unobtrusive ports that make this netbook, available in two solid colors black and white, look good. We tested the former. The all-black body will attract professionals and people who want a non-nonsense color scheme. The lid is glossy with a ‘Champion’ logo in the center. The interior, such as the wrist rest, keyboard and such, is matt. It is a good attempt to make the machine look stylish, but, since the overall finish is just about average, style isn’t one of its assets. A notable plus point is the ergonomics. The keyboard is comfortable to use, thanks to the large and correctly placed keys. Considering the slim design, the average build quality is justifiable.

Hardware and features
The hardware in this netbook is identical to what standard netbooks used to offer earlier. An Intel 945 chipset with an Intel N280 processor, clocked at 1.66 GHz, 1 GB DDR2 RAM and a 160 GB hard drive is what you get in this package. So, as far as the hardware is concerned there is nothing special about this netbook. Similar is the case with features, except that the feature set in this netbook is slightly tweaked. For instance, instead of a VGA port, there’s a slim display port which can be used with a VGA dongle (not bundled). This is done perhaps to maintain the slimness. Then, there are only two USB ports, out of which one of them, along with the headset jack and display port, is part of a collapsible port flap at the left-hand side.

The other USB port and a memory card reader are at the right-hand side. The netbook comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows XP (SP2). Finally, there’s one accessory that bundles with this netbook, and sets it apart from others, an IR remote controller. You’ll find playback controls for the media, for volume levels and for other trivial tasks. However, you need to bring the remote really close to the laptop to use it, which totally defeats the purpose. Nonetheless, it’s an option worth mentioning, and that sums up the feature set.
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Performance
We ran the standard synthetic and real-world benchmarks such as SiSoft Sandra, Cinebench R10, audio and video encoding, and so on. The overall performance of this machine is just like any other netbook that features the standard netbook hardware. So if you’re looking for only basic computing and light entertainment on the go, there’s good reason for you to buy this machine. But, we’d like to point out a drawback, the continuous humming sound made by the cooling fan at the rear of the machine. If you’re using the laptop in a room with pin-drop silence, this sound will be painfully annoying. Otherwise, there isn’t much to complain about with regard to the performance. Overall, at the price of Rs. 17,500, it’s a decent pick, but if budget is no constraint, there are other more stylish netbooks out there.

Specifications:

• Weight: 1.50 Kg
• Processor: Intel Atom N280, 1.66 GHz
• Memory: 1 GB DDR2
• Hard disk: 160 GB
• Screen size: 13-inch
• Connectivity: 10/100 Ethernet and Wi-Fi b/g