Finally, a fully featured ultraportable laptop that won't cost you more than $1500. It's easy to use, has plenty of ports and expansion options and it can last a long time away from an outlet. Sure it's a slow performer, but for sending e-mail, writing documents, viewing pictures and videos, it's ideal. It's almost the perfect laptop.

The Sony Vaio SZ15GP/B is a great entry level unit for people who want to get mobile but don't need a monster laptop.

It's not perfect, but its portable size and relatively powerful specifications make this notebook stand out. It's well-suited to anyone who wants a compact device that doesn't sacrifice features.

Well built and full of features, this lightweight laptop is perfect for professional users who need good speed and ease of use while on the road.

It runs Windows Vista, has a large hard drive and is basically a full-blown computer that's about twice the size of a smartphone. It's perfect for anyone who is after a small tablet PC for under $1800.

It’s good to see that Toshiba has improved this notebook and rectified some of the small performance flaws we noticed in the earlier M800. Overall the upgrade has seen small performance gains primarily in the graphics department. It's a great ultraportable notebook that offers strong performance despite its small size, and it is a joy to use on the go.

The U400 is a good size for travellers, has plenty of connectivity and good speed, and it's also well priced, but its battery life is short.

The Fujitsu LifeBook S6311 is a professional notebook with some nice features. It performed well in our tests and it's fairly priced for it's quality.

The Sony VAIO VGN-G811GN/B is a very nice option for people who expect to be on the road a lot. The battery life is good and for such a small unit it's nice to see an internal optical drive.

Although the Toshiba Portege R500 is clearly not a power user's choice, its lightweight frame, small size and good battery life make it an excellent choice for simple tasks such as email, Web surfing and simple office applications while travelling for business.

Although there's a notable premium on the solid-state hard drive and ultra-portables don't often come cheap anyway, this is a good little buy. It's got enough power to handle the most basic tasks and its implementation of flash memory should please those wanting to be on the cutting edge.

The MacBook Air is a superbly crafted notebook, but this niche product isn't for everyone. Its lack of optical drive, FireWire and Ethernet ports deem it inadequate for power or everyday users. Regardless, it functions well as a secondary device for frequent travellers, or those who require basic, hassle-free computing.