Acer TravelMate 6292-302G16MN

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, 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.

Author: David Bayon