Laptops for less

Notebooks are slender objects of desire that free you from your desk. They let you send email to your friends and family while you're on holiday, and make long journeys more fun, giving you the chance to watch DVDs when you're stuck in the passenger seat of a jam-bound car.

The snag is that a notebook is invariably more expensive than a comparable PC. This is partly due to the battery that a notebook must have, as well as the extra engineering involved in power saving and cooling that most PCs just don't need. Then, of course, there's the display panel.

As a result it is quite easy to spend £2,000 on a notebook, which is a substantial sum of money. However, recent research from Romtec-GFK showed that 45 per cent of notebooks sold in the UK had a price ticket of under £999 and another 45 per cent were priced below £1,299.

So, with a £1,299 price limit, we set out to discover what you could get for your money, and were pleasantly surprised at the results. We ran our suite of benchmarks and tests on 15 notebooks to see what's on the market. With our help you can avoid the lemons and buy yourself a peach.

TOSHIBA SATELLITE 3000
Our Editor's Choice in the £999 bracket is the understated dark blue and silver Toshiba Satellite 3000. Styling isn't a crucial issue, but let's not forget that a notebook is frequently on show, and the 3000 looks good.

It is really a notebook for the home user, rather than the full-on road warrior, as it includes Windows XP Home and minimal connectivity. There is nothing too critical missing from the specification but, if you happen to need FireWire, local area network facilities or infra-red, this isn't the notebook for you.

Connectivity is the 3000's weakest point and it receives only two out of five for features as a result. But the rest of the notebook more than makes up for this.

Performance is excellent: in fact the Toshiba wipes the floor with the other notebooks using the same processor, and highlights the poor performance of the Hewlett Packard zt1151.

The IBM R31 has a very similar specification, but the Satellite 3000 is speedier. If the substantial performance boost is down to the chipset alone we are impressed and amazed.

In addition to decent performance you get plenty of memory, and the Satellite's battery life is the best of the group. Graphics performance is competent by notebook standards, and the Satellite 3000 was the only £999 notebook in the group to complete the graphics tests.

Toshiba gives you a lot of notebook for £999 and we feel that the cost cutting on the specification is entirely justified. It's a winner, and rightly so.

Price:£999 (£850.23 ex VAT)
Contact: Toshiba 01932 828 828
www.toshiba.co.uk
Pros: Good performance; good value; excellent battery life.
Cons: No FireWire or infra-red.
Overall: (4) The Satellite 3000 scores in all the right places.

IRIDIUM STARBOOK 510
In most respects the Iridium 510 fails to shine in this group. It has very few really bad points per se, although performance is a concern.

This is puzzling as the specification is very similar to the Hi-Grade Notino 2200. But the figures speak for themselves.

On the positive side, the construction feels solid, and the keyboard is good to type on. It is a little flexible, but it is significantly better than the Rock Sigma SI. The best part of the Iridium is its specification.

The only plausible ways to improve it would be a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and a serial port. It could also do with better design as the ports are all on the back. One of the strengths of the HP zt1151 is the headphone socket and USB port that are as close to hand as possible. That type of careful design is a sure way to win friends.

When you type on the Iridium your hands lie on the speakers and sound quality is muffled as a result. It is also a little disappointing that the Iridium includes the bare minimum of software. This is not a bad notebook, though, and it looks quite good on paper. It just doesn't perform well enough in reality.

Price: £938.83 (£799 ex VAT)
Contact: Iridium 0870 0660 222
www.iridium-uk.com
Pros: Fully featured; fair battery life.
Cons: Poor performance.
Overall: (3) A decent notebook, but there are better in this group.

MESH PEGASUS 1500+ 14.1in PRO
The Mesh should be a real contender in this group but, with an appalling 44-minute battery life, it has no chance. If you plan on your notebook spending most of its life plugged into the mains power supply, though, it is worth considering the Pegasus.

It is physically similar to a number of the notebooks tested here and has a decent screen and solid keyboard. The layout is uninspired, but then so is much of the competition, and all the ports are lined up on the back, along with the processor cooling exhaust.

Performance is decent enough, although we were surprised that the Toshiba Satellite 3000 managed to beat it in Sysmark tests. We were fairly impressed by the specification of the Mesh. The only glaring omission is its lack of FireWire, but we can't imagine using the S3 Twister graphics for video editing.

Connectivity is a positive strength here. FireWire apart, the Pegasus has the full set, and it would make a perfectly adequate portable workstation. Just make sure there's a power point close to hand.

Price: £999 (£850.21 ex VAT)
Contact: Mesh 020 8208 4706
www.meshcomputers.com
Pros: Good performance.
Cons: Terrible battery life.
Overall: (3) Strictly for use on mains power.

HI-GRADE NOTINO 2200
The Hi-Grade Notino 2200 stands out in this group with its 12.1in screen and tiny physical form. It's a lovely piece of design and steers clear of the faults we found with the Rock, Mesh and Iridium.

All the ports and sockets are on the sides and there is nothing on the back at all. Granted, the Notino is missing infra-red and serial ports, but those are rarely used at home. The only significant missing feature is the lack of a PS/2 port for a mouse. You are being forced down the USB route, whether you like it or not.

For such a slender notebook the performance is excellent. The SIS chipset and 1.06GHz Celeron combine to score well in Sysmark, and yet the notebook seems to generate no heat. As a result you get decent battery life and should just about be able to watch a whole movie on one battery charge.

The limiting factor is the SIS graphics, although they are certainly adequate for the job. Although the screen is smaller than the much more common 14.1in, it still has the same 1,024 x 768 resolution and is comfortable to use.

Hi-Grade feels confident about the Notino as it offers a two-year return to base warranty and free insurance against accidental damage.

Price: £999 (£850.21 ex VAT)
Contact: Hi-Grade 020 8532 6113
www.higrade.com
Pros: Excellent design; good performance.
Cons: None to speak of.
Overall: (3) A decent, small notebook.

ROCK SIGMA SI
Where on earth did all the performance go? The Sigma SI has a Pentium III and plenty of memory, yet its Sysmark score ended up between the Iridium Starbook 510 and Hi-Grade Notino, both of which use a Celeron processor.

This just goes to show that a decent notebook is more than the sum of its parts.

The specification is fair, although a CD-Rom, rather than a DVD-Rom is a touch mean as one of the uses for a notebook is to watch movies. We also didn't like the keyboard, which flexes and bounces quite alarmingly.

Battery life is shorter than we would like to see, and would barely be adequate for an hour's journey. Perhaps it's as well you don't get a DVD-Rom, as this battery life will never allow you to watch a whole movie in one sitting.

Those are the bad points out of the way, but sadly that leaves very little else. The main strength of the Rock is its connectivity. You get modem, local area network, infra-red, USB and FireWire. If you require all those features that's all well and good but, if you don't, we suggest you look at another option.

Price: £997.58 (£849 ex VAT)
Contact: Rock Direct 0870 9909 090
www.rockdirect.com
Pros: Plenty of memory; good connectivity.
Cons: Poor performance; battery life.
Overall: (2) We can't recommend the Sigma SI.

ACI POWERLITE
The first of the sub-£1,299 notebooks, ACI's Powerlite, has a very sleek design. It's not as small as the Hi-Grade Notino 2200, but it is one of the smallest and lightest notebooks on test. The touchpad is sensitive and the keyboard is a good size and fairly solid when typing, although the one on our review unit was prone to occasional mis-keying.

The SIS chipset gives good performance but, on the 3D graphics front, things are quite abysmal. This is no problem for day-to-day tasks such as email and office use, and the screen is a decent size and bright and clear, but don't expect to play games.

Similarly, the speakers are barely up to the job of music playback, but are fine for Windows sounds. ACI includes Lotus Smartsuite rather than the more expensive Microsoft Office, but it is good to see a full office suite included in the price.

The power connector sticks out of the right-hand side of the chassis and could be knocked while the ACI is on charge. But overall, this is exactly the sort of budget notebook you should consider as a backup to your desktop PC for use on the move.

Price: £1,287 (£1,095.32 ex VAT)
Contact: ACI 020 8357 1116
www.aciplc.com
Pros: Design; good battery life.
Cons: Performance isn't good enough.
Overall: (3) A decent notebook, but the Notino is better.

EVESHAM VOYAGER 5600
With its 1.8GHz Pentium 4 processor the Evesham 5600 storms to the top of the charts in this group. It completed its benchmarks well and has a decent battery life.

The graphics performance is less spectacular, but the ATI Mobility Radeon is a good chip and is only beaten here by the AJP 5600P with the Mobility Radeon 7500.

You can use this notebook, which sports a 20GB hard drive, for gaming, and it takes DVD playback and Powerpoint in its stride.

Mesh produces a near-identical notebook, the Discovery J800 14.1in Pro (not reviewed here), which is housed in the same chassis as the Evesham Voyager and uses the same processor, chipset and memory. The Mesh, however, has a 30GB hard drive.

We can find few flaws in the Voyager 5600. Perhaps the greatest is that it has no floppy drive, and Evesham charges £39 ex VAT for an accessory USB drive. That's a little mean, but the rest of the hardware is decent enough, and we feel the value for money is fair.

To its credit, Evesham gives a two-year warranty and throws in two years' accidental damage insurance.

The Evesham 5600 weighs in at 3.25kg, and is a full kilogram lighter than the AJP 5600P. Despite the similar model names, they have very different chassis. We would be happy to use the Evesham as a desktop replacement, despite its slightly flexible keyboard.

The overall package is impressive and so wins our Editor's Choice award in the high-end category.

Price: £1,291.33 (£1,099 ex VAT)
Contact: Evesham 0870 160 9500
www.evesham.com
Pros: Impressive Sysmark score; very good battery life.
Cons: The features list is rather Spartan.
Overall: (4) A very good notebook for less than £1,299.

HI-GRADE ULTINOTE M6400 C1700
This Hi-Grade is similar to Evesham's Voyager (above). Same chassis, different processor. Two large UK PC assemblers using the same chassis? It must be good.

Hi-Grade has opted for a 1.7GHz Celeron processor, rather than a full-on Pentium 4, but the technical differences are few and far between. The result is that the Hi-Grade demonstrated poorer performance than the Evesham, and graphics performance suffers too.

If the lower performance resulted in longer battery life we would have taken that into consideration, but the Evesham wins on that score too. Hi-Grade offers free accidental damage insurance, but so too does Evesham.

The Ultinote includes a USB floppy drive, which would otherwise cost nearly £50 inc. VAT. Hi-Grade also offers a 1.8GHz Pentium 4 model in the same chassis, but no floppy, and the price difference is also £50. Which do you value more: a floppy drive or a faster processor?

The software package should appeal to many, as it includes Microsoft Works Suite 2002.

Price: £1,291.33 (£1,099 ex VAT)
Contact: Hi-Grade 020 8532 6113
www.higrade.com
Pros: Good software; USB floppy drive.
Cons: Sacrifices performance for specs.
Overall: (3) The Evesham is better.

HEWLETT PACKARD ZT1151
When we reviewed the zt1151 in May we raved about its wonderful chassis. But we were less enamoured with the performance of its Celeron processor, and we are not surprised to see that in the £1,299 group it comes last in the Sysmark test. To its credit, though, it did manage to complete all of the tests without any problems.

There is more to a notebook than its outright performance, though, and we stand by all the positive remarks we previously made. The HP package is incredibly slick and professional and there is a small bonus in the shape of a voucher that entitles you to buy a USB floppy drive at the discounted price of £14.99 inc VAT.

We would have liked to see the floppy included as standard, but £14.99 is hardly going to break the bank.

The look and feel of the HP is very good. The CD buttons, volume control, headphone socket and one USB port are in exactly the right place. The DVD/CD-RW combo drive is on the side so it can be used even when the HP is plugged into a port replicator, and the touchpad is the best in the business.

Price: £1,299 (£1,105.53 ex VAT)
Contact: HP 08705 474 747
www.hp.com/uk
Pros: Well-designed chassis.
Cons:: Poor performance and 3D graphics.
Overall: (3) Style may outweigh performance for some.

TINY MEDIABOOK EXTRA 1200 CD-R
Tiny has managed to squeeze a fair part of this notebook's specification into its rather unwieldy model name.

Mediabook covers the DVD part of the DVD/CD-RW combo drive well. Despite the poor 3D performance of the S3 Savage4 graphics chip, DVD playback is fine. The latter part of its name, 1200 CD-R, speaks volumes about the 1.2GHz Celeron processor and the CD writing capabilities of the combo drive. If it makes life easier, think of the Tiny as a 1200 combo.

The Mediabook wins a Highly Commended award almost entirely on the strength of its feature list. Its design and performance are relatively uninspired. The colour and shape are inoffensive, and construction is more passable than rugged. If we were feeling generous we would say understated and leave it at that.

That sounds picky and negative, but the worst thing we can say is that the keyboard is slightly flexible when typing. The 1.2GHz Celeron is comprehensively beaten in Sysmark by the Toshiba Satellite 3000's 1.06GHz Celeron. Combine that system performance with the S3 Savage 4 graphics scores and you'll appreciate that gaming isn't really an option here.

The Mediabook is a weighty 3.3kg, but you do get the full set of features inside. Clearly the combo drive adds little or no extra weight over a more basic drive, and its inclusion along with a floppy drive is very good to see. Connectivity is a very strong point indeed with this notebook, although the physical layout isn't a patch on, say, the HP zt1151.

Price: £1,299 (£1,105.53 ex VAT)
Contact: Tiny 0870 8303 162
www.tiny.com
Pros: Chock-full of ports and connectors.
Cons: Sysmark and graphics performance are weak.
Overall: (3) A good combination of features lift this Tiny above the competition.

IBM R31
Road warriors use a T or X series IBM Thinkpad and that's all there is to it. Nothing else will do, particularly if your employer is picking up the bill for the privilege, and enhancing your street cred in the process. The R series is substantially cheaper, but you get the same look and feel, albeit with a much lower specification.

You get the usual IBM trackpoint and positive mouse buttons. More importantly, though, you get the killer matt black chassis with the usual IBM pair of catches to secure the clamshell lid.

From a short distance it looks far more expensive than it is. The R31 case may be made from ABS plastic, but it looks the part. The spec is skewed to the professional user, so you don't get FireWire or PS/2 ports, or a DVD-Rom. Gamers should look elsewhere as 3D graphics scores are also weak.

IBM loads the R31 with Windows XP Professional and a number of its own utilities, including Thinkpad configuration. If you want a floppy drive, it will set you back £46 ex VAT as an extra. In short, you get very little for your cash, but it looks great.

Price: £1,209.08 (£1,029 ex VAT)
Contact: IBM 0800 015 3378
www.ibm.com/uk
Pros: Ergonomics; construction.
Cons: Mediocre performance and graphics.
Overall: (2) The poor man's entry to Thinkpad land.

NEC VERSA PREMIUM
The NEC Versa Premium is a notebook that is more for the business than home user, but it is worth consideration for home office use.

There are a number of reasons for this, as a quick look at the specification will reveal. It has modem, infra-red and Lan but no FireWire. It is also one of the few notebooks in the group to have Windows XP Professional installed, rather than Home Edition.

Battery life is at the lower end of the acceptable scale and the NEC weighs 2.45kg which is heavier than we would like. All in all it is not very portable.

It has a basic shape and is an unpleasant silver colour. Styling can work for or against a product, and here the NEC misses the mark.

The keyboard is good, but when you type on it your hands rest on the speakers. This is poor as the speakers are quiet anyway, even at full volume. The hard drive is also rather noisy and combines with the speaker position to make them almost useless. Beyond its connectivity options, the NEC has few outstanding features and is bettered in almost all areas by other notebooks in this group.

Price: £1,251.38 (£1,065 ex VAT)
Contact: NEC 0870 0106 322
www.nec-online.co.uk
Pros: Good connectivity.
Cons: Poor performance and sound quality.
Overall: (2) The NEC has little to recommend it.