Asus A7S

Compared to the sleek lines of the Dell and Sony, Asus' A7S seems a little dated. But look past aesthetics and the A7S gives its rivals a lot to worry about. Just glance through the specifications, and you'll see it's a real bargain.

It may cost £847 when Toshiba's P200 is only £511, but the A7S offers a far superior combination of power and features, which makes it an excellent desktop replacement.

The 17in TFT doesn't have an HD resolution like the Dell, but its 1,440 x 900 pixels are more sensible on a panel of this size and it's just as bright as the Dell's. Plus, Asus thoughtfully provides an HDMI output so you can connect the A7S to a larger HD screen, and there's an optical S/PDIF output for surround sound.

The entertainment theme continues with an integrated Freeview tuner, plus buttons on the front edge of the A7S for launching Media Center and controlling playback. It's a shame there's no remote control, but you do get a breakout cable that has S-Video and composite inputs for capturing video from analogue sources.

Power-wise, the Core 2 Duo T7500 matches the pricier Dell, as does the 2GB of DDR2 memory. With a 200GB hard disk running at 4,200rpm, overall 2D application performance was a little slower at 0.98, but the A7S still feels responsive. Likewise, the GeForce 8400M G graphics card with 128MB of RAM isn't a storming performer, but does offer some gaming potential - we recorded 19fps in Call of Duty 2 at 1,024 x 768.

Many will appreciate the five USB ports, one of which cleverly doubles as an eSATA port, so you can easily connect the latest external hard disks. There's also a media card reader, an ExpressCard/54 slot, mini-FireWire and Gigabit Ethernet. Battery life is a slight weakness; under light use it lasted 2hrs 18mins, but only 1hr 4mins with heavy use.

Asus finishes the package with a 1.3-megapixel webcam, a two-year collect-and-return warranty, a carry case and an optical mouse. If you can live with the looks and don't need spectacular battery life, the A7S is great value.

Author: Jim Martin