The metallic blue lid being a breath of fresh air compared to the silver and black seen almost everywhere else. Toshiba has also made an effort with detailing. The black speaker covers and flush media buttons all look as though considerable effort has gone into its design.

It's the only 17in widescreen this month and is the biggest by quite some way, despite not being overly heavy at 3.6kg. The resolution of the screen is 1440 x 900 giving you a great deal of desktop to play with. It also has a glossy coating to further enhance colours which already look richer than all others this month. Viewing angles are also good enough for a friend or two to share a movie. There was also minimal lag.

The speakers were also the best - the Harmon Kardon's offered a distinct and wide dynamic range and got impressively loud without distorting. Toshiba also includes a remote control which can be hidden in the PC Card slot. It's just a shame that a TV tuner wasn't included.

We liked the keyboard, except for all the half-size buttons surrounding the (small) Enter key which we kept hitting these accidentally. The trackpad was also the best on show. Not just because the pad was smooth and responsive but because the buttons felt good and didn't click too loudly. We also like the illuminated shortcut zones that the trackpad displays allowing you to perform a task just by tapping in the right place.

It wasn't the most powerful on test with its 1.67GHz Pentium M T2300 chip and 512MB of RAM managing 0.88 in our benchmarks. It wasn't much chop in the 3D department either: its GeForce Go 7300 chip only managed 5.6fps at Far Cry and 12.7fps in Half-Life 2. Even if you turn the settings right down low, it won't play many games.

Connectivity options are good too. 802.11a/b/g WLAN is included, there are three Audio jacks (one of which doubles as S/PDIF) and a memory card reader (for SD/MC, MS and xD). An ExpressCard slot sits above the PC Card and next to these is a mini FireWire port. Four USB ports are spread around and a DVI port sits next to the VGA and S-Video.

Add to this Toshiba's finger print security, hard disk shock protection, networking utilities, security applications and backup capabilities along with the one year onsite (or international RTB) warranty and you've one desirable notebook. If the Acer and Samsung notebooks feel restrictive in their size then it's a great choice. However, the price is high and performance relatively low, so it just misses an award this month.