Samsung R410

There's no draft-n included, for instance, or sexy, slot-loading DVD-writer - the model here is a bog-standard tray-loader. The ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 graphics chip won't have you playing any recent games either - the R410 limped to a score of 15fps in our low Crysis benchmark - but should be fine for older, less demanding titles.

While the build quality and specification may be ample, however, battery life is disappointing. In our sedate light use test the Samsung petered out after two hours and twenty minutes - a figure which pales in comparison to the five-hour life of the Vostro 1310 and the Inspiron 1525, which lasted for almost four and a half hours.

Our heavy use test yielded similarly disappointing results. Where the Vostro lasted almost two hours, the R410 struggled to get much further than an hour. It's worth bearing in mind that the standard six-cell battery, which we used for these benchmarks, can be replaced by a nine-cell version - although this will set you back a further £129.

So while it's true that the core specification of the R410 is one of the more powerful available for this sort of cash and the build quality respectable, there are too many restrictions elsewhere to make this a worthwhile buy.

The poor battery life hampers the Samsung's portable potential, and the lack of luxury extras makes this less versatile than its rivals - we'd rather trade in a little bit of that power for a more capable all-rounder.

Author: Mike Jennings