Advent Monza E1 review

Keenly priced and well made, but sadly underpowered

Advent Monza E1
The poor battery life drastically limits this laptop's mobility

TechRadar Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Eye catching design

  • +

    Sharp and colourful screen

  • +

    Generous storage

Cons

  • -

    Poor performance

  • -

    Battery life

  • -

    Flawed usability

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Advent's Monza E1 is an eye-catching laptop aimed at first-time buyers. Despite offering a decent specification for the price, though, it is undermined by poor performance and flawed usability.

With its bright red lid and palm rest, the chassis looks great and the textured plastic finish and mock brushed-aluminium panels set it apart from the glut of plain black laptops on the market. The lid and main panels all feel firm and there are no noticeably weak points on the chassis.

At 2.5kg this is a laptop built for use at home, rather than on the move though. This was highlighted by the awful 107-minute battery life, meaning there's not even enough power to watch a full movie.

That's not to say that this is not a decent laptop for enjoying photos and videos, though. The 15.6-inch screen is sharp and bright and delivers gorgeous colour reproduction. Images pop from the screen and are rendered with stunning clarity, so as long as you're plugged into a power point, this is a decent entry-level media machine.

Poor performance is the Advent's Achilles heel. The dual-core AMD E-450 processor struggles with even the simplest tasks; applications run sluggishly and the laptop is brought to its knees by basic multitasking.

Graphics are equally poor and there's little power on offer for media editing. The integrated AMD graphics card is fine for viewing photos or even watching high-def videos, but it shows its weaknesses as soon as you try to edit videos or run 3D games. If you're after a powerful media laptop, there are far better machines available.

TechRadar Labs

tech labs

Battery Eater '05: 107 minutes
Cinebench: 2305
3DMark 2006: 2706

Noisy keyboard

advent monza e1 detail

When it comes to usability, the Advent is a mixed bag. While the wide isolated-style keyboard is suitably responsive and functions well, it is not very well fixed to the chassis and bounces a lot when typing. This makes it a noisy board to use and we quickly found the rattle of the keys both distracting and ultimately annoying.

The touchpad fares better and proves accurate and responsive to use. It's not quite as large as we'd have liked, but it is fine for quickly navigating the screen. The mouse buttons are slightly less functional and you have to press at quite specific points for them to register, which can get a little frustrating when trying to work quickly.

Where the Advent really stands out is its fantastic storage. The 640GB hard drive offers a truly staggering amount of space for such an affordable laptop and is only bettered by the Lenovo B570.

The built-in DVD rewriter lets you save files to DVD and CD and create your own music, video and photo discs. A 4-in-1 media card reader is also in place for quickly sharing files from your digital camera and smartphone. Located at the front of the chassis, it is easy to access and supports the most common media card formats.

While the gorgeous screen, fantastic storage and eye-catching design make the Monza E1 a decent entry-level laptop for those on a budget, the poor performance, flawed usability and awful battery life are just too prominent to ignore. There are far better laptops you can buy at this price and so the Advent is very hard to recommend.

Follow TechRadar Reviews on Twitter: http://twitter.com/techradarreview

Latest in Laptops
Three angles of the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M4 laptop above a desk
Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review roundup – should you buy Apple's new lightweight laptop?
Person using a laptop.
How to check battery health of a laptop
Microsoft Surface laptop 7 on the left side versus Apple MacBook Pro M4 14-inch on the right side, TechRadar vs background
Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 vs. Apple MacBook Pro M4 14-inch: Mac and Windows go head to head once again
Apple MacBook Air M3 on yellow background with lowest price text overlay
Need a new MacBook Air? Well I've found 9 discounts you'll not want to miss, including a MacBook Air M4 Amazon deal
Assorted Apple and Asus laptops on orange background with big savings text overlay
These are the 16 laptop deals I'd recommend to anybody in the spring sales – including MacBooks and gaming laptops
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M2) on a pink background with text saying Big Savings next to it.
Trust me – don’t bother buying any other laptop while the M2 MacBook Air is at this incredible price for Amazon’s Spring Sale
Latest in Reviews
Product shots for the Xiaomi Poco X7 Ultra review
I spent a month testing the Xiaomi Poco F7 Ultra, a top-end mid-ranger that masquerades as a flagship
The Kiwi design K4 Boost Battery strap being worn by Hamish
I test VR headsets for a living, and this affordable headstrap is the first Meta Quest 3 accessory you should buy
Both Kiwi design G4 Pro Performance Controller Grips
I thought VR controller grips were pointless until this Meta Quest 3 accessory proved me wrong
The Kiwi design H4 Boost Halo Battery Strap
Want to upgrade your VR headset? Look no further than my new favorite Meta Quest 3 headstrap
WithSecure Elements EPP and EDR main image
I tested the WithSecure Elements EPP and EDR - read how I rated this Endpoint Protection for small business
The RIG M2 Streamstar.
I wanted to love the new RIG M2 Streamstar, but this pricey gaming microphone fails to deliver