Stylish and packed with features, it is not the cheapest 12 inch notebook available. This said, if you simply must have the features on offer inside this 'book, then this notebook does it all with style.

For such a high specification machine with a large display, we didn’t have high expectations of battery life. We were wrong. Not only is this one of the best looking and functional notebooks we’ve played with in some time, but this notebook managed to stay operating at full load with a looping productivity test for well over three and a half hours – enough for students, road warriors and home users.

This pre-production notebook was shipped to us in a professional looking silver lockable briefcase. We were expecting to see top secret government papers rather than a slimline ultra low voltage (ULV) notebook.

When it comes to notebooks, there are a few different flavours with their own specialties.  The trick to purchasing the right notebook is to know your needs and the intended purposes of the unit so you can properly match the correct machine with your requirements.

Another notebook to embrace the entertainment market and sell units with widescreen 16:10 aspect ratio displays, this PowerNote packs some serious hardware under the hood, pushing not only AMD's Mobile Athlon 64 3200+ processor, but also ATI's Mobility RADEON 9700 a 60GB, 7200rpm hard disk drive and a multiformat 4-speed DVD burner for disc creation on the go.

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.

This notebook has been designed with classic Sony style: rounded edges, hidden IO inputs and a sleek widescreen footprint. From a connectivity point of view, this 'book has it all, boasting front-mounted Memory Stick Pro port, iLink 4-pin FireWire port and three USB ports.

While we wait with bated breath for the imminent (or was that eventual?) release of Microsoft Media Centre into Australia, the number of companies cashing in on the media functionality of next generation consumer electronics is growing quickly.

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.

If you're after an ultra portable, this isn't the notebook for you. If you're after a large form factored portable desktop replacement, this could be the ticket. This behemoth of a notebook features a 17-inch widescreen display and a footprint to match.

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.

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.

Absolutely jam packed with features, this notebook isn't your run-of-the-mill basic-function productivity laptop. At every turn we found hardware above and beyond the call of duty including a 64MB FX5200 graphics card, sexy widescreen display, 80GB hard disk drive and DVD-RAM/DVD-R/RW slot mounted drive for all your backup and home movie-making needs. A hybrid somewhere between legacy continuation and dismissal, this notebook features three rear-mounted USB 2.0 ports and parallel connectivity.

Widescreen is still one of the flavours of the month for notebooks and plenty of users are opting to banish boring old 4:3 aspect ratio LCD panels to the land of wind and ghosts.

Designed with portability in mind, this notebook is slim, sexy and versatile, enabling basic office usage, DVD playback or even some weekend gaming.

Wrapped in an attractive silver chassis, this sexy looking notebook is easy on the eye, and features all of the latest gadgets. The left-hand side of the machine features the usual legacy parallel and DB9 monitor out for use with an external monitor, although both are hidden beneath a rubber cover so as not to ruin the smooth clean lines of this housing.

The D400S packs the usual gear, and offers well-thought out front-mounted FireWire along with 802.11b on/off controls for the optional WLAN device. We were surprised the right-hand side of the chassis contained absolutely no connectivity options – a shame given the inclusion of only a single PCMCIA port. Three USB ports are present – two rear-mounted and one on the left-hand side.

Designed from the ground up to cater for all computer users, this notebook is a great all round performer.

A fantastic specification notebook with all the trimmings you'd expect to find on more expensive notebooks, the Joybook 8100-V13 has a 15.4in widescreen WXGA with native 1280 x 800 resolution. With ATI's Mobility RADEON 9600 graphics, boasting 64MB dedicated video memory, it's great for DVD playback or gaming -- the unit returned 9,502 marks under 3DMark01SE Pro, more than enough to provide comfortable gameplay with a decent number of fps even in recent games. BenQ has gone as far as to include not just a DVD-ROM for DVD movie playback, but an optical DVD writer, capable of 2-speed DVD+R media writing, ideal for both business archiving or for personal backup.

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.