Though it's not the fastest notebook you can buy and its battery life was dissapointing, the media center functionality and the price of this unit makes it a worthy purchase.

A solid ultraportable ultimately let down by poor battery life.

While this notebook hasn't excelled in anything particular, it shows enough aptitude in the key area's of business usage to do the job well.

The attractive Sony Vaio VGN-C25G/B can comfortably handle general computing tasks and multimedia applications. However, if you are looking to play modern games, you should look elsewhere.

The Toshiba Satellite A100 is a solid notebook for the casual home user. It doesn't top the charts with its performance, but it offers just a little more than the core components.

The Aspire 5634WLMi has proved to be a good overall performer and a nice introduction to Acer's Core 2 Duo notebook range. For the price, you're getting an excellent deal.

A mixture of smartphone and notebook, this stylish ultraportable from HTC lacks the strengths of either category and will not satisfy business users on the go.

The ASUS M51VA-AS045G is mid-range laptop with a fantastic array of connections and strong processing performance. Unfortunately the screen’s default dimness may prove annoying for novice users and the lack of Gigabit Ethernet at this price point is disappointing.

Although we were disappointed by the screen and battery life, this system offers some great media functionality and looks stylish at that.

It's hard to agree with this format as there is little benefit for a lot of work and considerably more noise. It's not that it hasn't been well engineered or that it doesn't produce good results, it's just that it doesn't seem worth it. For the same price you can get an equal performer with less of a heating issue and less bulk. As a desktop replacement it's fine, but as a notebook we're not impressed.

The entertainment is sweet on the HP Pavilion dv4000, a great consumer laptop that serves up DVD movies and CD music without requiring you to boot up.

The Fujitsu Lifebook U1010 3.5G is a great example of the increasingly popular ultra mobile PCs. It's easily held and is comfortable to use while also being extremely portable. If the size and weight weren't enough to get you excited then the addition of 3.5G HSDPA speeds of up to 7.2Mbps should help.