Acer's Aspire 4920G is a good all purpose notebook. It doesn't excel at any one thing, but for users wanting a little gaming, movie watching and general desktop PC activities, crammed into a stylish package, it is a strong contender.

Not built for those constantly on the road, the Pro P100 is nonetheless a great desktop replacement. The big screen combined with impressive graphics capabilities make it a great all purpose unit for business users who also want some entertainment options.

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.

If you don’t mind your laptop attracting more attention than you, the HP DV5-1010TX_01 is a fast but heavy unit that comes with a built-in TV tuner and Blu-ray player for a reasonable price.

Sony's VAIO FZ17G is a great multimedia notebook which offers a HDMI output and couples it with solid performance and a nice array of features.

Although the Toshiba Satellite Pro P300 (PSPCDA-00L00D) is a fast system with Toshiba's noteworthy Sleep and Charge USB ports and plenty of hard drive space, the unattractive design and lack of features when compared to similarly priced units mean that you're better off looking elsewhere.

If you can't fork out the extra $500 for the fully featured ASUS F8Va and still want decent performance in an attractive design then the BenQ Joybook S42-PE01 is worth looking at. It might not have all the bells and whistles, but for this price point it certainly has a lot.

This is a value-priced power notebook that's well geared towards multimedia use.

If you can fork out the cash and don’t mind the design, then the Sony Vaio VGN-FW17GU is a well-performing unit that features a Blu-ray burner.

The MSI MegaBook EX600 is a solid, but far from outstanding unit. It will handle most basic tasks with ease, but will struggle with more demanding applications.

This is a powerful mid-range all-purpose notebook that is well worth looking at, as long as you can stand carting around a 3kg laptop.