Neo BB1EL: My New Laptop

I recently purchased a new laptop. It made possible by selling my more than a year old netbook and applied for a loan.  The laptop came from a local company named Neo and the model is Basic BB1EL.  So how's the new laptop perform in everyday scenario?  You'll find out after the break.

Before we go to the laptop, a brief description about the company.  Neo is a local company here in the Philippines in which they outsource their laptop from OEM manufacturer.  Here's the overview of the company from their site:

The Neo brand was launched in May of 2003 during the PLDT CyberMadness event, the biggest PC & Internet festival in the country. Neo notebooks followed later that year, establishing itself as the leading brand of Intel Centrino-based notebooks all the way to 2004.

Neo Manufacturing and Services was formally incorporated as a company in January of 2008. The same year also saw the birth of Neo’s targeted marketing strategy with the launch of its primary notebook product lines – Basic, Vivid, and élan.

Neo Manufacturing and Services Inc. (Neo) is a Philippine-based manufacturer of personal computers, primarily catering to the market's need for a hip and mobile lifestyle. - http://neo.com.ph/company/neo-profile

Below is the product specification of the laptop:
Model:  Basic BB1EL
Processor:  AMD E-450 1.65GHz, 1MB Cache
Operating System: Windows 7 trial edition (currently, the OS is Windows 8 Consumer Preview 32-bit)
Memory:  2GB DDR3
Screen:  14" LED Display (1366x768)
Video System:  AMD Radeon HD 6320 Graphics (built-in)
Hard Drive:  500GB
Optical Media Driver:  DVDRW Supermulti
Connectivity:  LAN (10/100Mbps), WLAN (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 3.0
Port:   3 x 2.0 USB, VGA, HDMI
Battery:  6-cell Li-ion battery
Others:  1.3 Megapixel Webcam

When I first saw this laptop on an exhibit, I fell in love with it because of the brushed finished in the overall appearance of the laptop.  The design of this model is really different from the previous model of the company.  I heard stories that the laptop from Neo is not durable or so they say.  I have this laptop for a month already and it didn't disappoint me.

The picture you see above is a screenshot from Speccy.  If you notice the motherboard is from Clevo and they are the OEM of Neo.  The laptop that I purchased came from them but branded by Neo when sold here in the Philippines.  As you can see the video card is embedded in the cpu from AMD with model number E450 and the embedded graphics card is Radeon HD 6320.

The embedded video can handle HD videos from 720p to 1080p.  I did not try to run any installed games yet but you can search the net to know what Radeon 6320 is capable of.  Below is the Windows Experience Index of the laptop.

The lowest score goes to the CPU with a speed of 1.65GHz with 3.8 but the rest of the component got 4.0 and up.  I also noticed that the temperature of motherboard is very low compared to my previous netbook.  The temperature of my previous netbook exceeds 80 degrees and the culprit there is the CPU which was  a AMD Neo X2 dual-core L335.  AMD really improved their APU from Neo X2 to E450 in terms of performance and handling common tasks.

With a price of Php14,500 ($348 US), this laptop is more than what you pay for.  It has a 1 year warranty from Neo.  Is it durable or loss it performance after a year or two?  Time will tell but right now I'm happy with my purchase.