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

A decent notebook but too expensive for the features on offer.

A good first stab at the semi-ruggedised laptop market. It isn’t up to the tough standards of others, though.

A remarkably tough machine that will endure almost anything thrown at it, although this comes at a price.

A good laptop for business, with superb design touches but some unfortunate omissions.

A flexible and powerful livingroom PC that ticks almost all the right boxes, as well as being great value.

A good-looking, ergonomically excellent laptop with a wealth of multimedia capabilities for home users.

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

An adequate Media Centre PC, but Asus’ competitor blows it out of the water.

Despite some welcome additions and good components, this Acer notebook is left wanting.

Fast and good value. Gamers and power users will like it.

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

It's the return of the twin graphics chip powered laptop, but this time Core2 Duo power is under the hood.

Very powerful and, with few features missing, it’s good value at the price.

Impressive quality, considering the bargain basement price. We're talking sub $1000 here.

Very fast, but the top-end components offer poor value in the face of competition.

A good, basic notebook that’s specifically designed with the accident-prone user in mind.

An impressive attempt at a good-value portable PC, but the ergonomics let it down.

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

Amazingly good value for what you get: a fully-featured, dual-core, ergonomic notebook.