Verdict: While the Precision isn't the laptop of anyone's dreams, in the real world, we'd be happy to give it a home
The number of budget laptops that will comfortably run modern games can probably be counted on two hands. The number of budget laptops that do so in a package that you could comfortably carry on a train could be probably be counted on one. So when we say the Aries Precision 1005 is a member of a rare breed, we're not joking. For £899, you get a laptop with a specification that won't get you laughed out of a LAN party, a certain sense of style and a decent screen to boot. In short, you get something of a bargain.
Opened up, the wedge-shaped Precision looks sleek, with a glossy black block above the keyboard and a matt silver finish that doesn't look too shabby. But then you close the laptop, and in a moment of madness all the good work is undone by the monstrous white stripes on the top of the case. Perhaps Watford wants to take part in a 1980s fashion revival, but the finish is a little too reminiscent of decor from the decade that taste forgot. If laptops had been around at the time of the Club Tropicana, this one would have found a place at the poolside next to Andrew Ridgeley.
Still, it's easy to forget the ugly top once the laptop's ready for business and you're looking at the screen. This display is distinctly better than average - no match for the X-black TFTs found in a Sony VAIO such as the FS115Z, but brighter and crisper than the displays employed by the majority of budget laptops. The 1,400 x 1,050 resolution is high for the 15in screen, but it's perfectly usable once you adjust the size of type and icons. The extra pixels are useful if you're working in Paint Shop Pro or a similar program, and despite the peculiar resolution, games look great. At either 1,024 x 768 or 1,280 x 1,024, you can be sure of a great visual experience, free of ugly blocks and fuzzy pixels.
As with the 1980s, things aren't so great on the audio front. The AC97 sound is piped through a Realtek chip and is bog-standard for today, but would do a decent job if it weren't for the awful built-in speakers. They're tiny, tinny and utterly lacking in bass or body. Playing Far Cry without headphones is like watching 'Commando' with background music from Culture Club - you just don't get the full impact.
Luckily, the Precision has many virtues to make up for this small niggle. Firstly, it has plenty of storage. With a speedy 60GB, 7,200rpm Hitachi Travelstar inside, there's ample room for games, photos, games, digital video, and possibly more games. Only the optical storage provision tells us that we're in bargain-basement territory with the same pitifully slow QSI DVD /CD-RW combo drive that we saw in the Alienware Area-51m 7700.
In terms of features, the Precision is a mixed bag. A 4-in-1 memory card reader is a bonus, but it would be nice to see a DVI connector or a digital output for the sound. Then again, that may be asking a bit much for the price. As it's based on Centrino technology, the Precision is WiFi-ready out of the box, so it's a cinch to hook up to your wireless home network.
One major advantage in the Precision's favour is that you could realistically take to the streets with it. The 2.8kg weight isn't prohibitive, and even running at full steam with SWAT4 or Far Cry, the base never became more than slightly warm. Listen up, men: for once, we have a laptop you can use on your lap to liven up a long commute, and still have a chance of fathering children in the future!
The Precision's real strong point - especially with the price in mind - is a very aggressive core specification. We didn't expect to see a 1.8GHz Pentium M 745 and 1GB of RAM for less than £900, and we certainly didn't expect to find a 128MB Mobility Radeon 9700 packed in too, but that's exactly what we found. Okay, in order to include this, a few corners have been cut, such as basing the motherboard on the Intel 855PM chipset and using old-school PC2700 DDR, instead of a flash new Intel 915PM and DDR2 combo. It's also a shame that the RAM is installed as two 512MB SO-DIMMs, so both of the Precision's slots are occupied. The Mobility Radeon 9700 is also an older chip than the GeForce Go 6200TC used in the Sony FS115Z, but all the same, just like a double album such as 'Use Your Illusion,' you can't deny you get a lot for the money.
PERFORMANCE
It's 'big bangs for few bucks' time again, though this doesn't extend to great all-round performance. This is partly due to the woeful CD/DVD drive, because the Precision's performance in our CD ripping test was borderline abysmal. MPEG-2 encoding is quite disappointing but the results in our image editing tests exceeded those of our 2.6GHz Pentium 4c reference desktop PC. Strangely though, despite having more RAM and a quicker CPU than the VAIO FS115Z, the Precision was slower in 2D overall.
In games, the news is better. You won't be playing Doom 3 at 1,280 x 1,024 at maximum resolution with AA and AF turned on, but if you're sensible about your expectations then you'll come away very satisfied.
Our Far Cry tests at 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x AA and 2x AF resulted in an unplayable 9.6fps, and even lowering the resolution to 1,024 x 768 only gave it a mere 18fps.
However, with AA and AF turned off at this resolution, things improved dramatically, increasing the rate to 25fps, and by dropping the detail settings to medium, we pushed that up to 51fps, and 33fps at 1,280 x 1,024.
The Radeon 9700 even has a little room for overclocking. With ATITool installed, we pushed the core speed from 450MHz to 488MHz, and the memory from 210MHz to 228MHz. It's hardly a shot of nitro, but it pushed the frame rate at 1,024 x 768 with medium settings to 55.7fps. SWAT4 ran smoothly at 1,280 x 1,024, and at 1,024 x 768, the frame rate in Need for Speed: Underground 2 was as rapid as the downward trajectory of Bros' music career.
CONCLUSION
A gaming laptop is always going to be a tricky investment. On the one hand, although this is a cheap laptop, you could get better performance for the same price from a small form factor system and a budget 17in TFT, and still have something portable enough to take to LAN parties.
On the other hand, if you spend a lot of time on the road, flit between two homes, are limited for space or share that space with someone who wouldn't appreciate a monstrous desktop and monitor in the vicinity, then the idea has a lot going for it. You're limited in terms of upgrades but, for £899, you get something that can play today's most demanding games at 1,024 x 768 or above, albeit only with medium-detail settings.
If that sounds appealing, then the Precision could be the laptop for you. It's undoubtedly good value for money and relatively portable. Although it's slower than the VAIO FS115Z, and doesn't have as great a screen, it's a lot cheaper, and overall, it beats the Sony in terms of specs. While the Precision isn't the laptop of anyone's dreams, in the real world, we'd be happy to give it a home.
