If “middle of the road” were to be exemplified by the use of a notebook then the Compaq 615 would be it. But middle of the road is not always an insult. There is another factor that must be weighed up here; price.

And that’s where the user scores with the Compaq 615, it’ll cost you less than R5000, which piqued our interest immediately. We’re impressed with the 15.6\", 16:9 Anti-Glare (1366 x 768 resolution) screen. Although not 1080p HD, it’s still HD enough, for something under five grand.  The rest of the specs are pretty standard fair really: AMD Athlon X2 2.1 Ghz Dual-Core Processor, 1GB RAM and a 138 GB hard drive and ATI Radeon HD 3200 Integrated Graphics.

Looks-wise we rate the 615 better than what you might expect. It’s a neat looking notebook and we like the matte black exterior and ultra-simple styling. Even though it’s quite cheap, we’d have liked to see better build-quality.

R4500 incl VAT from Phase2 on 011-444-5956