Micro Express NBL5125 is a basic, almost-a desktop-replacement laptop. This all gives an excellent performance with a nice and bright screen, laptop, but its speakers and keyboard leaves to be desired.
Our review configuration ($ 799 as of June 28, 2011) is packed with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5-2520M processor, 4 GB of installed RAM (upgradeable to 8 GB) and a 320 GB hard drive. 15.6-Inch unit also contains a Nvidia GeForce GT 540 M discrete graphics card with 1 GB of memory, a built-in webcam and microphone and a multitouch trackpad and it runs 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium. NBL5125 is the decent connected with 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a gigabit Ethernet port.
In our WorldBench 6 benchmark tests earned Micro Express NBL5125 a score of 123, an excellent result for such an affordable laptop. AVADirect Clevo compared number P151HM, which are two of our list of top all purpose laptops, reached a score of 132, while the number three model, Gateway ID49C13u, posted a mark of 106.
NBL5125 also did quite well in our graphics tests. In our Unreal Tournament 3 tests produced NBL5125 96 frames per second (high quality settings with a resolution of 1024 768 pixels). Asus N53SV is generated by comparing 101 fps with the same settings, while Gateway ID49C13u handled only 72 fps with the same settings.
A robust plastic chassis house in NBL5125. The unit's cover, made of shiny black plastic, sports a tapered edge and a subtle dotted design. Unfortunately, the shiny surface attracts fingerprints like nobody's business.
In other respects, the laptop is fairly unspectacular, with a brushed black wrist rest and a glossy black bezel surrounding the screen. NBL5125 is completely brand free on the outside, but inside is a small Micro Express Tag during the 15.6-inch screen.
Apart from the power switch, located on the top right and illuminated with white light, some other "convenience" buttons are available, including a Web camera on/off switch, a mute button and a Wi-Fi on/off switch. Above is in the upper-left corner a VGA button, where you can turn off the discrete graphics card to maximize battery life.
As regards ports, offering NBL5125 a good selection. It has a total of four USB ports and two of them are USB 3.0, which is always a nice touch. NBL5125 also offers VGA and HDMI output ports, gigabit ethernet, one eSATA port, headphone/microphone jacks and a multiformat card reader. As for optical drives, you will receive only a basic DVD-RW drive, which is roughly what I expected.
The laptop is a little on the heavy side, considering that it has just a 15.6-inch screen. The whole thing weighs 5.8 pounds into himself, adding power brick, and it is a massive 6.9 pounds. NBL5125 measuring 14.7 with 9,9 of 1.6 ", which is bulky but not unmanageable.
The big keyboard takes up much of the Interior, on the grounds that it included the numeric keypad. The keyboard is an "Island style" keyboard, which means that the keys are discreet and widely spaced. I like usually, Island-style keys, but I found this keyboard is difficult to write about: keys were small and hard to press, and the combination caused my fingers sliding out the whole time.
Multitouch Trackpad is matt black, making it easy to distinguish from brushed wrist-rest surface. Under the touchpad is two unobtrusive mouse buttons, which are easy to press but give little feedback. A fingerprint reader is stuck between the two buttons.
The NBL5125 15.6-inch LCD, Matt-surface has an LED backlights and a resolution of 1600 900 pixels. The screen is large and very bright, you can make this baby outside in direct sunlight, and you get no problem that makes your work. The colors look good, the contrast is decent and off-axis angles are acceptable (horizontal angle is slightly better than the vertical angle).
If you like music, or sound or hear things in General, do yourself a favour and don't try to even listen to a speaker at NBL5125. This machine has frankly the worst speaker I have ever listened to, even for a laptop. The speakers are located on the lower front of the system, and their effect is worse than your usual "tinny" or "not comprehensive enough", the audio sounds as if Micro Express took some cheap headphones that airlines give away, shoved 'em in your computer, and then turned the volume all the way up.
The sound has no fullness to talk about, and it is oddly distorted. Of course, absolutely, you need to plug some headphones into this laptop if you want to listen to anything at all.
