Labs

Laptop design is a bit of a minefield. You can build in plenty of great components, but all it takes is a dodgy keyboard, an unresponsive trackpad or a poor display to turn a great deal on paper into a disappointment. The Zoostorm navigates this minefield with aplomb.

Like the HiGrade, this is a desktop replacement laptop with a big 17 inch widescreen. That means it's not primarily designed for carrying around, and at 3.25kg you wouldn't want to very often. When it comes to coping away from the mains, though, our battery life tests surprised us. We could have forgiven a laptop with such a large screen for expiring long before daintier models, but in fact the Zoostorm went on the longest. In light use, it kept going for just over four hours, and even when playing a DVD movie it managed two and a half hours. It did take a relatively long four hours to charge, but that's not such a big deal. So, while this is the kind of laptop that will probably spend most of its time near a power socket, you've got considerable freedom to wander if you want.

Its not a bad-looking beast, either. While the HiGrade's silver exterior and black interior look a little tacky, the Zoostorm goes for the reverse colour scheme and looks better for it. The huge expanse of black lid looks smart, and with this closed the 4-4703 is unexpectedly thin. Twin catches hold the lid closed when not in use, protecting the generous 17 inches of glossy display.

Flip the screen back on its strong hinges

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and the Zoostorm continues to impress. The keyboard is framed by a silver plastic surround, which looks a touch cheap but provides plenty of wrist rest. And when you sit down to type, you'll be glad of the fine full-size keyboard. The Zoostorm is the only laptop here that manages to squeeze in a proper numeric keypad, and it also boasts by far the best key action. The well spaced keys feel wonderfully positive, making typing for long periods more pleasurable than on many portables. The trackpad doesn't let the side down either: it proved responsive and accurate. Best of all, its sensible size meant we didn't find our palms interfering with the mouse pointer while typing.

Making the running

The Zoostorm's list of specifications is excellent at this price. The Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 rockets along at a heady 2GHz, and with a reasonable 1GB of memory it produced the highest score in our 2D application benchmark. While other laptops here make do with integrated graphics or at best wimpy chips, the 4-4703 has a capable nVidia GeForce 8600M. Playing the latest games at the screen's full resolution of 1440x900 might be a bit much to ask, especially at high detail settings, but a score of 46% in our benchmark shows the Zoostorm is well ahead of the competition.

Our only criticism is that the display could be better. It's bright across its 17 inches, and at this size the native resolution of 1440x900 strikes a good balance between legibility and a spacious Windows desktop (compare the 1280x800 squeezed into the 12 inch screens, for example). But, and it's a fairly big but, we did find it a bit grainy-looking. Still, that wasn't too distracting in day-to-day use. DVI and HDMI ports are provided to connect an external screen if you want to.

As the most expensive laptop in this affordable bunch, you'd expect this model to have a slightly improved specification. But it wasn't just the specification that impressed us. The combination of good build quality, great performance and an excellent keyboard make the Zoostorm a Best Buy.