2. Not Just Light, But Stylish, Too

In addition to being small and light, the AV1050 is also eye-catching, thanks to its coloring. While the underside of the laptop is silver-colored, the display lid of our review unit presented itself in a muted apricot tone. While tastes may vary, we're pretty sure that the female audience will approve of this color scheme. Therefore, it is all the more remarkable that the retail units are going to come with a burgundy display lid instead. The keyboard, wrist rest and display frame are all white, similar to Apple's iBook.

In our opinion, the case's build quality ranged between good and satisfactory. The stability of the case and the display lid is good, but the accuracy of the fit on some of the case's components wasn't up to the standard of other (usually more expensive) members of the small laptop class. For example, the protective lid that is supposed to keep dust and dirt out of the Firewire, Ethernet and modem ports was already worn out after a few weeks, and no longer closed correctly. On the other hand, whether Firewire, LAN and modem ports really need a protective lid is debatable anyway; many laptops do just fine without them.

Could use improvement: The protective lid on the left side of the case

Also, during our test, which lasted several weeks, the varnish on the bottom of the unit did not prove to be very scratch resistant. Finally, it should be relatively obvious that even small amounts of dirt or grit will be much more visible on a white keyboard and wrist rest than darker-colored ones.