Dell’s long-awaited netbook has much to recommend it, but it’s far from the perfect product.

Dell's long awaited entry into the Eee-class notebook market is a top effort, though not perfect.

Great for executives on the move thanks to size and decent battery life, but the missing optical drive disappoints

Great for executives on the move thanks to size and decent battery life, but the missing optical drive disappoints.

Dell’s first foray into using AMD processors is a modest performer, but fair value.

Not great value for money, but the XPS 700 offers plenty of power and striking looks.

Small but perfectly formed, the D420 has hours of battery life and loads of features and great ergonomics.

Dell's 6400 is a great value mid-range notebook with very few weaknesses. The support is the icing on the cake.

Luxurious extras and design make this a highly desirable machine. It’s ideal if space is at a premium at home.

Whisper quiet, well built and well designed, but a lack of power and expandability will keep enthusiasts away.

World's Fastest Notebook.

Not perfect, but the best all-rounder.

Seriously powerful mobile gaming grunt with all the bling, from Dell. Yep, Dell.

The Inspiron 630m is Dell’s first 14-inch widescreen notebook.

The 9300 is reminiscent of its predecessor, the Inspiron 9100, which was pitched squarely at power users and gamers looking for plenty of grunt. This product refresh takes it one step further by using a mobile processor rather than the desktop CPU found in the 9100.

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.

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.

On receiving this unit, we were impressed by the mammoth 15.4in widescreen display. Although sceptical of its ability to perform given its monster display size, we were proven wrong at every turn, with the 8600 performing similarly to the more expensive Toshiba Tecra S1 Notebook (July 2003 page 40). Absolutely bursting at the gills with features, this Notebook boasts an array of connectivity options including side mounted FireWire and IrDA, while on the rear of the unit we find two USB and legacy serial, parallel and S-Video ports.

Dell's new Inspiron 5100 delivers a truckload of performance thanks to a 2.8GHz P4 processor, which even managed to outscore the 3GHz Hi-Grade we tested this month.

Dell is never one to be outdone when it comes to cutting edge tech