Everybody, who hasn’t already got one, wants a decent laptop.

Is Centrino 2 the leap ahead that Centrino was? Zara Baxter investigates.

From budget laptops to ultra-tiny netbooks, ultraportables and high performance, we explain the tricks to finding out the ultimate laptop at the right price.

The Centrino platform has just received a major revision. Tim Dean peers inside Sonoma and takes a look at what we can expect.

With the slow Australian take-off of the Centrino platform, higher spec, slightly larger form factored units are making their way into the marketplace. Intel's Pentium-M processors are ramping up in speed, now available in 1.7GHz values and still impressing.

Can’t decide between an Eee and a Wind? A Mini note or an Aspire One? Believe it or not, there’s a bunch of old school smaller laptops that may do the job for less money. We took a look at 7 old school ultraportables.

Simpler brand selection for business and consumers, claims chip firm.

Although the mobile marketplace has been changing in the face of Centrino and the slow but gradual tablet PC adoption rate, large form factored (greater than single spindle) notebooks are still the order of the day.

Slightly less sturdy than previous Dell models we have seen, the D500 is finished in attractive silver bezel housing, the keyboard is comfortable to use and offers all the functionality of standard-sized desktop keyboards.

Intel’s push on Centrino notebook branding has only made it so far in the six months since its introduction. So far prices have been high for Centrino notebooks, although Emagen looks set to change this mindset, now offering the N1000 model as a cost-effective alternative option to top of the line name brand notebooks with all the bells and whistles.

Powered by an Intel Pentium-M 1.6GHz, the Modtech Civic Diamond 1600W Centrino notebook has a decent core specification, including a useful 512MB DDR RAM, 40GB of disk space and an ATI Mobility RADEON 9000 card offering 64MB of non-shared memory.

Intel has been banging on about Centrino 2 lately, so it was good to finally get a chance to test the claims courtesy of a spanking new mid-range Centrino 2 M51 Va courtesy of ASUS.

Looking quite a lot like what I imagined the son of Apple's Titanium and Powerbook lines of notebooks would turn out, the AStone notebook features both the Titanium's solid matte silver magnesium-alloy body with the Powerbook's white limned styling. From the very outset this makes the AStone one visually appealing notebook.

Here's our quick guide to buying a cheap laptop that isn't a pile of junk - from CPUs, to graphics, to price and other specs.

Despite not being the smallest or lightest notebook, this veritable speed demon packs a 3.06GHz desktop Pentium 4 processor and is matched with an ATI Mobility 9000 graphics adaptor and quarter gig of PC2100 DDR RAM. Another notebook to dispose of legacy parallel, PS/2 and serial ports, it boasts a pair of rear mounted USB ports, S-Video output and FireWire connectivity. Also included are 10/100 Ethernet, a 56K modem and single PCMCIA slot for card expansion.

The first Dothan notebook to roll off the rank, we were interested to see exactly how much real-world gain Intel is offering in its revised Centrino platform.

Sixteen notebooks under $2500, we've separated the winners with the goods from the less impressive performers.