Amax Elite 6053M-15

WHAT'S HOT: Pleasingly slim, especially for a full-size notebook with a 15-inch screen, the Amax Elite 6053M measures just over an inch tall with the lid closed. Our unit came with built-in 802.11b wireless networking, including an on/off switch for the wireless adapter nicely located near the left front corner of the notebook. (Amax also offers 802.11a/b wireless for $49 more.) The 6053M's optical drive, a DVD-ROM and CD-RW combination unit in our test machine, is conveniently positioned on the front of the notebook instead of the side (where most notebooks have it). Another small bonus with this portable is an SD memory card slot.

WHAT'S NOT: Notebook audio is rarely good, but the sound that emanates from the 6053M's side-mounted speaker ports is especially weak, as it's tinny and hardly audible, even at the highest volume. Weak also describes the included documentation. One sheet of paper identifies the main parts of the notebook. A comprehensive manual comes on a bundled CD-ROM, but it lacks the hyperlinked contents and index pages found in the PDF documentation many other notebooks have.

WHAT ELSE: Though the 6053M weighs a reasonable 6.3 pounds without its power adapter, it makes room for a full set of features, among them a 15-inch display and most of the expected ports (including parallel, monitor, FireWire, TV-out, and three USB 2.0 connections).

Swapping out the hard drive or adding memory is easy. Removing one screw releases the hard drive; the memory slots sit behind a bottom panel that's held in place by a couple of small screws. The optical drive bay is modular, but Amax sells only two devices for it: the combination drive we received in our review unit and a CD-ROM drive. No secondary battery, hard drive, or other add-in is available.