Acer Aspire 1700+

Weighing over 7kg, notebooks don't come much larger than this. The Aspire 1700 uses primarily desktop components in a huge chassis that combines a 3GHz desktop processor with a 17in TFT screen.

The 3GHz chip is of the Northwood B variety, so has a 533MHz front-side bus (FSB), and is coupled with 512MB of DDR memory on a Sis M650 chipset. Performance is not quite on a par with desktop PCs using the same processor and memory, but is pretty decent nonetheless, giving 244 overall in Sysmark 2002.

Despite the large screen, there's not much to shout about on the graphics front, as they run on the embedded Sis M650 engine and scored just 1,183 in 3Dmark 2001. The screen is pretty good quality, running at 1,280 x 1,024, and is bright and clear even to the edges.

As you'd expect from a beast like this, it's laden with nearly every accessory and port you need. There's a CD-RW/DVD combo drive and a floppy; the chassis is so big that the two can comfortably sit on top of each other. There are also four USB ports, two Firewires, network, modem, serial and parallel, a PS/2 port and S-Video and VGA-outs. We were slightly surprised by the lack of Compact Flash or Secure Digital card reader though.

Battery life is quoted at one and a half hours, which is correct give or take a few minutes and more than enough considering you wouldn't want to carry this around very much. The size is the real concern but, if you treat this like a compact, stowable PC, it's convenient as well as good value.

Contact: Acer
www.acer.co.uk

Specifications:

• Intel Pentium 4 3GHz processor
• 512MB DDR memory
• 60GB hard disk CD-RW/DVD combo drive
• Sis M650 graphics chip
• 17in 1,280 x 1,024 TFT screen
• Windows XP Pro