Advantages: Brilliant first / budget bike, sporty all rounder, mid-range grunt, cheap
Disadvantages: Budget suspension, budget feel

...I passed my Direct Access test in 2002, and was looking for a newbie friendly bike to get some miles under my belt, and do the commuting to work. Having no prior experience, I needed a user friendly bike with a bit of poke to keep me interested. The logical choice was the Suzuki SV650. Dubbed by RiDE magazine as the best first bike ever, and lauded by many other mags as a great budget bike, I had to find out more. The bike is light 170kg, has 70bhp, and a good spread of torque from low down. It comes as a naked bike the SV650 and a half faired 's' version. These differ slightly in foot peg and handlebar positioning, the former having normal bars, the latter clip-ons and rear set pegs. Both have good ground clearance. I bought my SVs (half faired) used, a W plate with 8k on the clock. Over the next two years I put on 22k miles... Read review

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Advantages: Fast and Furious meets MR smoothie
Disadvantages: Not a lot

...I own a 2002 SV650s and i must say that the bike cant be praised enough in my opion. The SV650 is the new kid on the block and you wont go far wrong if you buy one.The SV650 is fast becoming one of the best middleweight bikes around and deservedly so. With the V at an angle of 90 degrees there is plenty of torque on tap and plenty of acceleration when required. The SV650 produces about 70BHP at the back wheel at it lays it on the tarmac with greatest of ease.The best part of the range is from 3rd gear thru to 5 th gear when you can really feel the bike getting the power down and hear the roar of the exhaust at full bore. The SV650 weighs 165kg(363lbs)so it is fairly light compared to other bikes in its class.The ground clearance is 140mm(5.5in)so you REALLY can get your knee down if you want. The SV650 is only 750mm(29.5in... Read review

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Advantages: Fast, Fun, Economical Silly plaything!
Disadvantages: It hurts if you get knocked off!

...... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, easy to ride, insurance friendly, great first bike
Disadvantages: Build quality, when you park it next to a 900 or 1000cc, you'll want rid

...As a 22 year old who has always been into biking i decided to do my full test last september. I passed 2nd time (had trouble with a u turn in the wet on 1st!) and set about looking for my first 'big' bike. On a budget of about £2500 i had a fair few choices - the insurance companies managed to cut these choices down to 3 or 4 for me! In the end it came down to a choice between a 51 reg SV650S for £2400 or a R reg Yamaha Thundercat for £2300. I rode both and for me, the SV won hands down - so i bought it! As a first bike, you dont have to worry about squeezing the brakes too hard and locking wheels (although they are good enough to feel safe) as its a V twin. This was my first V twin and i was impressed how easy it was to ride, barely any power was needed to pull away and the low down torque was unbelievable! It was easy to throw... Read review

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Advantages: Price, looks, power, easy to ride.
Disadvantages: Speeding tickets, you'll want another one to park beside it!

...After spending far too long admiring other peoples' motorcycles and wondering how great it would be to finally learn how to ride one myself, I decided this was the year I was finally going to learn to ride. Okay, seriously, I turned 30, almost had a nervous breakdown, and decided I needed a little more excitement in my life so I bought a bike. There, honesty works every time. After passing the local motorcycle safety course and getting my licence, I decided to research everything I could on a good first bike. Initially deciding to go with a Kawasaki EX500 (good first bike, nice handling, brakes, suspension etc.) but it looked a little out-of-date looks-wise. For about a $1,000 more I wound up getting a deal on a pretty blue 2005 Suzuki SV650S (Canadian model) from my local dealership. The bike is far more modern than the Kawi... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent Roadholding, ecconomical, comfortable
Disadvantages: very slightly underpowered

...Riding a motorcycle is a very personal affair. What one person loves, others will hate and vice versa. At first glance, the Honda NT650V - Deauville may not be everyones cup of tea. As more and more people get in to biking, or return to biking after many years away, the demand for stylish, high powered performance bikes is the driving force behind most of the major manufacturers. For the last 8 years or so, the king of the large touring section has been the Honda Pan European (ST1100). This reliable, comfortable shaft drive bike has found its way in to the highly competitive market of big tourers, even dominating the market as the choice of most of British Police forces as their main traffic response bike. However, many people have found the Pan to be too big and heavy for day to day commuting, with fuel effeciencies not that much... Read review

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Advantages: Small, versatile, multi-functional, high-quality, user friendly, simple.
Disadvantages: Video and picture quality, menu format, complicated to connect to PC.

...The Panasonic D-Snap SV-AS3 is an MP3 player, a digital camera and a digital video camera. It has a compact, smooth and simple design with five buttons on the back and two on the side. The tracker ball on the back provides quick and easy access in the menu and makes the D-Snap very durable. It has no moving parts and so can stand a little rough handling. The pictures are of medium quality, if viwed on the relatively large screen they are perfectly visable but when enlarged to a computer monitor size they become quite pixelated. The video quality is much the same and I recommend only viewing the videos on the D-Snap screen. The menu leaves much to be desired, although simple and quite user-friendly it lacks style. A major drawback is that the music lists cannot be edited on the D-Snap nor can they be accessed while music is playing... Read review

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Advantages: Sound
Disadvantages: None

...The pioneer sv-50 satellite speaker/subwoofer package, each of the five channels of satellite speakers produce 100Watts and the subwoofer punches out a very nice thumping 110Watts of power. Onto the speakers... here we have 100Watts x 5 all five channels produce an excellent crystal clear sound, you will hear every crumb dropped in a film and every ding in music when listening to these astonishing speakers. Not forgetting the subwoofer, the subwoofer included produces a very nice clear, clean, thumping bass sound perfect for all those action movies and all those bassy songs. These speakers sound great but they dont only sound great they also look as good as they sound producing a very modern new millenium kind of look, they are very stylish to suit your other stylish equitment you may want to hook these speakers up to... Read review

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Advantages: Small, lighweight, extremely fashionable
Disadvantages: The download software only worked with OS's up to Windows ME. Screen is hard to see in the dark

...This Mp3 player is small, lightweight and sounds great. The actual player works by using a small SD chip. SD stands for Secure Data, which basically means that it never loses data unless told to by the computer that it was created on. THe Mp3 fits easily into the palm of your hand and roughly speaking is about half the size of a debit card in diameter, in depth it is probably a CD case. The screen on the Mp3 makes it looks stylish and modern, perhaps futuristic. THe screen is called black screen, this is because the writing is white and the screen is black. The sound quality on the mp3 is excellent, it has a wide definition field (what you can hear) and the highs sound crisp and clear, the lows rumble away without a problem. The SD SV75 runs on AAA batteries, the really small ones, used for some tv remotes. It has a long life... Read review

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Advantages: Engine, chassis and price
Disadvantages: Soft forks

...The best budget middle weight bike out there. The engine produces good power throughout the rev range. It may be a few bhp down against the four cylinder opposition but it more than makes up for this in lowdown and midrange grunt. The engine also loves to rev, especially for a twin. The handling is excellent for a bike of this price. The forks are far too softly sprung and can bottom out under braking, but the chassis is soo good that you do not use the brakes that much anyway. The brakes are at best adequate, but anything better would just overwhelm the forks anyway. Comfort is good for the rider, but acording to the wife just OK for the pillion, and the extra money spent on the faired S version is a complete waste of time as unless you are flat on the tank the fairing does nothing. The best thing about the SV though... Read review

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