Since the release of the Eee PC 701, the 'Notebook' has dominated. Easy to use, cheap and able to be left on the coffee table next to the remote, Notebooks are true appliance computing. The choice of which one to buy comes down to personal preference, but it's hard not to prefer those with the best usability. Our rundown of your options covers their performance, battery life, and design.

'Absolute consistency' are the words we'd use to describe the performance of the Aspire T310. A solid all-rounder, this machine is just as at home gaming as it is doing 2D tasks, such as productivity applications, anti-virus scanning or media decoding. And, as shown by its impressive 4,271 PCMark04 score, it's not short on horsepower.

Slick looks and astonishing battery life make this the pick of the bunch for travelers, especially for the business person on the go.

Love or hate them, the Netbook is here to stay in 2009. We take a look at five new models: some are contenders and others are likely to be quickly forgotten.

The usual Bose feel-good glow and (mostly) great sound too – but at a price

If you're in the market for a new laptop, one of the most important, and tricky considerations is battery life. We've bench tested 10 ultimate laptops in our latest issue, and here are the results

In an unusual combination of styles, DigitalStar has used a silver Cooler Master Centurion full size ATX case, but coupled this with a black optical drive and floppy disk drive. If you're finicky about that sort of thing, there are additional face plates available that attach to the front to keep the colours consistent.