HP Pavilion zd7050ea

The touchpad is equally well designed. The pad itself is large and responsive, and its right-hand edge is taken up by a handy slider, which acts like the scroll button on a mouse.

It's these neat touches that mean the Pavilion makes an good impression. The aforementioned touchpad has a deactivation button on the top to stop unwanted jumps of the cursor. A mute button is sandwiched between the volume up and down, and there are shortcuts to Windows Media Player and My Photos. Finally, there's a shortcut activation switch for the built-in 802.11g wireless card.

If it's raw power points for your money that you're after, the Advent 7039 is the one you want, while a PowerBook will make you the envy of all your friends. Nevertheless, this Pavilion strikes a happy medium between performance, price and features.

Author: Mark Walsh