Labs

Building a laptop to a tight budget is always a challenge, but this diminutive offering from PC World's own brand, Advent, impressed us in all the right areas.

Pluck it from its compact box and the first thing to astound you is the size. This is one seriously tiny laptop. The 8212 fits firmly in the ultraportable category, making it perfect for slinging in a bag and taking with you on public transport. And size isn't the only impressive thing about the Advent: it's light, too. In fact, it's the only laptop on test this month to sneak under the 2kg barrier, and really is impossibly light for such an affordable machine.

Yet it doesn't feel flimsy. The lid flexes a little,

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and firmly prodding it did reveal some show-through on the screen, but it's firmer than some of the bigger laptops on test. A sturdy hinge keeps the two halves of the laptop in place while you're carrying it about, and while the base is perhaps a bit plasticky, it feels sturdy enough to survive a life on the road.

Keyboards are often a sticking point with tiny laptops, but the Advent's proved comfortable to type on thanks to well spaced keys with a nice positive action.

If you're waiting for the bad news now, well, cast an eye over the specification and relax. There's no sign of cut corners. In fact, the Advent offers one of the best assortments of components in the whole group. An Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 is a welcome sight in any laptop, but in a budget ultraportable its 1.8GHz of dual core power is nothing short of remarkable. And with 2GB of memory at its disposal, the 8212 raced to the second fastest score in our general 2D benchmark.

If there's one complaint to be made, it's that the Intel X3100 integrated graphics are pretty wimpy. Too wimpy to tackle our 3D gaming test, though older and simpler games may work. This isn't a surprise in a small, cheap laptop, and as long as portable gaming isn't your main concern, the Advent is an amazing deal.