Labs

Toshiba is a big name in business laptops, so it's only appropriate that 'Toshiba' comes emblazoned in big letters across the lid of the Satellite Pro. That aside, it's a stylish affair, finished in a chic matt black. Opening the lid, things are a little more mundane, with the keyboard surrounded by hard-wearing textured silver plastic. The keyboard itself has a pretty standard layout, although there's no numeric keypad - a good thing here, as it means only the cursor keys have to be reduced in size. It's also bereft of the many shortcut buttons that some laptops come cluttered with - probably a good thing too, as we rarely find ourselves using them. The keys have a firm, positive action, making them comfortable to type on for extended periods.

Toshiba's 15.4 inch widescreen display proved

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to be one of the best in the group: bright and crisp, with wide viewing angles. Its glossy TruBrite finish is designed to improve contrast when watching DVDs, producing deep, rich blacks and vivid, saturated colours, though it can be susceptible to unwanted reflections when working under lights.

So far, so good. But the Toshiba has one feature that many will regard as a disadvantage: it's the only machine here that comes with Windows XP Professional rather than the newer Windows Vista. For many business users, this may not matter, and some will see it as a benefit, especially if they need to use corporate software that hasn't been updated for Vista. But next to other current laptops it looks dated, and general users will miss Vista's Media Center and other usability features.

On the plus side, the Toshiba boasts some pretty decent core specs. It's based on an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 chip paired with 2GB of RAM. These pushed it to a very good score of 138% in our general (2D) benchmark - the third highest here. Gamers won't be impressed, though: the A200's Intel integrated graphics chipset couldn't run our Call Of Duty 2 3D test at all. And the 80GB hard disk is small, even for a budget machine.

Powerful, and with a great display at the price, the A200 is still worth a look, but Windows XP should be an option for hardcore business users, not standard issue.