Labs

It's impressive how much notebook you can get for your cash these days. Last month's recommended budget laptop was a basic but portable 12.1in model and, this month, Acer's TravelMate 6292 continues the trend.

It's compact at 306 x 227 x 34.5mm and weighs just 2kg - about the same size and weight as the Samsung Q45 and the Toshiba Satellite U300. It also sports a 12.1in 1,280 x 800 screen, but it manages to squeeze in much more.

Under the hood resides a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 plus 2GB of RAM, which is more than enough to run Vista. The machine's 160GB drive can't quite compare to the Fujitsu's 320GB,

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but 160GB is capacious enough.

The specification took the 6292 to a respectable score of 1.00 in our 2D benchmarks - quicker than both the Q45 and U300. And, surprisingly, all that extra power doesn't affect battery life adversely: under light-use conditions, the 6292 managed an impressive 4hrs 46mins, and just over an hour in intensive use. This can't quite match the Q45's 5hrs 15mins, but strikes a good balance between power and portability.

At a price of just £623 you might expect something else to give, but the Acer continues to impress with a well-put-together chassis. The magnesium-alloy case means there's hardly any flex in the lid or case; its dark matte-grey finish won't be to everyone's taste, but it's smart, nonetheless.

Other nice touches include useful icons to indicate where the USB ports are, a fingerprint reader, gigabit Ethernet and Acer's handy Empowering Technology suite of tweaks and utilities.

In fact, the Acer's only weakness is its keyboard layout, with a thin Enter key and fiddly cursor key cluster, although the rest of the keyboard is easy to type on. With all of this quality at such an attractive price, it's a worthy award winner this month.