Labs

Back in issue 200, Toshiba' Satellite Pro A200SE-16Z epitomised the budget laptop: functional but almost entirely lacking in notable benefits. Although the A200GE-1F9 may look worryingly similar, it's significantly improved in several areas.

As you'd expect from the higher price tag, the A200GE is a much speedier beast. An Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 lies next to 2GB of fast DDR2 RAM, a combination that earned 147% in our 2D benchmark. Good, but still a little way behind similarly specified machines here. The Toshiba's multitude of pre-loaded software doesn't help the machine feel responsive, and nor does the flashy but sluggish shortcut menu that judders into view every time you try to change the screen brightness.

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But the screen itself was enough to distract us from any minor inconveniences. It's bright, vibrant, and particularly fine in almost every way. The standard resolution of 1280x800 gives you enough desktop space for a couple of documents side by side, and while other laptops squeeze in 1440x900 into the same space, that can make text and icons feel too small for some users. The high- gloss screen coating won't suit all tastes, but it gives a pleasing high-contrast quality to video.

The keyboard seems to have improved, too, although the action remains slightly too light, and some of the keys a bit sticky. The trackpad's two buttons are still on the spongey side, but we found it accurate enough as a mouse substitute.

Gaming was beyond the cheaper Satellite, but this time an ATI Radeon HD2600 graphics chipset managed a reasonable 3D score of 63%. Only battery life let the side down: a paltry two hours and 28 minutes away from the mains under light use, though the charge time of one hour and 23 minutes at least got us back on the road quickly.

Supplying Vista Business, which lacks Media Center and other consumer extras, indicates that Toshiba never meant the A200SE to be exciting. It's a good enough workhorse, but other options here are better looking and better value.