Lab

Business laptops

Business laptops have it tough. Passed from desk to desk, employee to employee and unceremoniously shunted in and out of bags on a regular basis, the average business laptop has to be strong, sturdy, reliable and keenly priced if it's to succeed.

This month, we've sourced 11 laptops from nine of the biggest manufacturers to find out what you can expect for an IT budget-friendly £900 or less. But, despite several of the laptops on test using almost every penny of that £900 budget, nearly half of the line-up prove that, these days, you can expect a solid, well-specified laptop for less than £650. There's no skimping on core components at that price, either, with even the cheapest laptop providing an Intel Core 2 dual-core processor, 2GB of memory and a 160GB hard disk for just £530.

Not everyone has the same idea of what makes a perfect laptop, and our line-up covers the range of laptop form factors, from a 12.1in ultraportable, through the more commonplace 14.1in and 15.4in models, right up to a 17in desktop replacement.

Barring size, the key ingredients of any successful business laptop are superb ergonomics, fine build quality and effective security. Every laptop here has a dual-core processor and at least 1GB of memory - more than ample for any office task - but without a fine display and comfortable keyboard, no amount of processing power will be able to get that work done quicker.

And should you lose that laptop, the last thing you want is to allow anyone capable of using an On button to sift through your private documents - that's why we've rewarded laptops that provide security measures such as fingerprint and smart card readers allied with TPM 1.2 hardware encryption chips.

So read on, and over the following nine pages you'll find the best business laptop for you, your company and your budget.