At 5.8kg, it’s meant to sit on a desk. Battery scores of one hour 22 minutes and one hour 33 minutes respectively in our intensive and light-use tests further limit portability. It’s based around the Athlon 64 X2 4800+. Clocking in at 2.4GHz, its two cores are faster than those of the quickest Core Duo, so despite inferior power efficiency it’s an appealing option in the world of desktop replacements. But a benchmark score of 1.06 makes us question whether it’s worth the bulk. This is fast but it should be rivalling similarlyspecified desktop PC scores of around 1.2. Last month’s Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi managed a groundbreaking 1.11. Although only sporting a 15.4in screen, it was nearly 3kg lighter.

Every aspect is upgradeable but Pioneer’s choice of two 100GB hard disks and a dual layer DVD writer will keep most people happy for some time. (Note, there’s also space for a second optical drive for disc to disc copying). The GeForce GO 7800 GTX chip tore through our 3D tests, scoring 61fps in Far Cry and 76fps in Half-Life 2 - both of which looked great on the glossy 17in widescreen 1680 x 1050 monitor.

If the benchmark scores rivalled the equivalent desktop PC, we’d be happy to recommend it - for now Macron and ITC’s powerful Pentium M offerings look more attractive. But if you require the mother of all laptops to provide desktop power and features on the move, the price is worth paying.