I've just read the IT Review mentioned above and noticed that games were mentioned. I bought an X51 a few months ago and its great for many games. The games I have found successful so far are :- Black and White, Trainz, Serious Sam, Sim City, The Sims, Industry Giant 2, International Superstar Soccer 3, IL Sturmovik Series, and Lego Digital Designer. Not the latest, but absorbing none the less. The screen detail is excellent and so is the speed of play. Perhaps a list of games that work well on these machines would turn it into a Playstation competitor !

I've had my x52 now for about four months, and so far its handled everything Ive thrown at it, (photoshop runs ace), with speeds that are impressive for such a little machine. In hindsight I wish Id waited for the x56 now, which is essentially the same machine but with a core 2 duo, but Im still very happy with it. Glad to see IT Reviews got around to checking the series out, their review appears fair, and accurate (although Ive read theres a group of people attempting to get linux to boot on the machine, I wouldn't hold your hopes of that happening).
When I was looking for an ultraportible laptop it came down to this, or the more expensive Vaio, and I can say (even without the shameless plug of sony's vaio in Casino Royale) that this laptop is well worth the money.

In the instuctions they recommend you calibrate the battery straight away, this can be done from the bios.

my only critisism would be that the track pad isnt quite as friction free as it could be, although thats not to say its unusable,

A lot of support can be found on www.pcservicecall.co.uk, which is the dixons group's it support site. You can find drivers, as well as specifications for the machine and other useful info.

I would re-iterate the point that philips as a brand do not make laptops(they told me this themselves before I bought it) and this is more likely a brand tie in with a pc world sourced machine, hence why support looks a bit short on the ground.

Ive not really pushed the graphics cabailities to the limits yet, however I was thinking of trying Avid on it, to see if it can handle video, and I intend to try a few meatier games on it when I get the chance, if anyone has any further info on the following points Im sure the community would thank them;

Vista capable? not sure yet, but since it can be upgraded to xp pro, Id say its probable, can someone confirm this please.

Hard drive, are there any repercussions with blowing away all partions completely and starting again (albeit noting that you'd probably need an oem version of windows, or a usb floppy drive with sata drivers if your install doesnt work) Its the hidden partition Im worried about, I dont need it, but maybe the computer does, any thoughts?

linux - Anyone cracked this on it yet? Im more intrigued at the prospect than wanting to do it, but always nice to have the option

(incidentally for an earlier post) the plastic info on the palm rests comes straight off, it just needs a little perserverence, but they do peel off. Havent tried the windows badge, but I kind of like that anyway

I have an Philips X53 Laptop but no recovery DVD. (My hard drive no longer has the recovery partition either.) That's a long story...

Is anyone prepared to create a recovery DVD for me if I send them a DVD-R and a pre-paid envelope?

Ideally, it should be someone with an identical model (X53), who has not put any extra software on (since new) and who is running XP Home (my licence is for XP Home, not XP Pro).

Failing that, can anyone tell me what the size of the recovery partition should be (in MB and/or cylinders)?

As a matter of fact, the Philips freevents are made by Taiwanese Twinhead.

Latest software I've used on the X51 is Aquazone. A virtual aquarium in your computer, it is fully customizable, loads of different fish available and you can even feed them, zoom in and follow one fish around the tank automatically, and it can be used as a screen saver. Awsome, Magic, blew me away. The X51 runs it like a dream. I think I'm in love !

Hi there, I have a problem with my X52 I tried to wipe everything and start afresh with windows XP it blue screens everytime halfway through an install, then I find out my recovery CD and partition is fubarded.

Can any kind person provide a a copy of the recovery CD or point me in the right direction of the SATA drivers of this particular model? my email is chino_1_1999 at yahoo.co.uk

much appreciated

Hi, had my philips x56 about 4 weeks now, the first week the touchpad had a white spot silver paint worn now it is the size of a pound coin it looks very unsightly, just wondering if anyone else has had the colour come off on there touchpad?

cheers steve

my email stevewalt@ntlworld.com

Phillips Freevents X-51

A word of warning to anybody thinking about NOT using the static discharge tube for the power supply cable which comes loose with the PC. On my daughters X51 I threw it way as over-kill. Now she gets big audio feed back when she places her hand under the machine or near the speakers.

Hi Steve,

I have a 6 month old X52 which now has a big white / black (depending on the angle you look at it) patch in the middle of the touchpad and on the left button. This started to appear quite quickly from fairly light use. I have contacted PC World but they are not interested - just kept telling me that wear and tear is not covered under their warranty and therefore there is nothing they can do.

It seems to me that this is a result of inadequate manufacturing rather than normal wear and tear. I'm still trying to get them to sort it out but I'd be interested to hear if you have had any success. The more people have the same problem the better I guess.

Robert robert.decastro@gmail.com

Have to retract a post I made about feed back noise on my X51. I put it down to not using the clip on the power cord. Turns out after a trip to Dixon's that the feed back was due to the microphone speaker being turned on in the sound setting control panel. I felt a fool but at least the X-51 is back working smoothly and without the feed back. Sometimes it's the simple things.