Lab

£700 laptops

After Christmas is over, it can be tempting to pick up a bargain-basement laptop on the high street during the January sales. Although you can buy an inexpensive computer this way, you may end up with a less powerful model that can't do everything you need.

Paying a little more for your laptop will get you the latest processors, ample amounts of RAM and hard disk space, long-lasting batteries and even good 3D performance.

This month, we've tested six of the latest laptops, all of which cost around £700 including VAT. Some have huge 17in displays, some are powerful enough for the most demanding Windows tasks, and one can even handle the latest 3D games.

Whatever you need, there's a laptop here for you, at a price that won't break the bank.

Even though all the laptops in this month's Labs cost around the same, they have very different specifications and strengths. The laptop you choose will depend on what you want to use it for. Our buying guide can help point you in the right direction.

Key workers

As you can't replace them, it's vital that the laptop you choose has a comfortable keyboard and pointing device. It's no use having a powerful laptop if it's a pain to use. Keyboards should have well-spaced, responsive keys that feel firm yet give just the right amount of feedback when pressed. Touch pads should be large and accurate with responsive buttons. The laptop with the best combination of input devices is Samsung's R70. Lenovo's ThinkPad and Toshiba's Tecra have touch sticks in addition to touch pads. These can be tricky to use until you get used to them.

Three laptops here are preinstalled with Windows Vista Home Premium. This comes with Media Center, which lets you browse your media library and record TV programmes using an add-on TV tuner. HP's laptop comes with Windows Vista Business. This lacks Media Center but comes with basic scanning and faxing utilities and Remote Desktop, which lets you control the laptop from another PC over a network connection. Lenovo's ThinkPad R61i comes with the older Windows XP Professional operating system, which may be preferable if you use older programs that don't yet work with Vista. Toshiba's Tecra comes with Vista Business preinstalled, but you can downgrade to Windows XP Professional Edition using the included disc.

Weight for it

If your laptop will spend most of its time inside your home, it doesn't matter how large or heavy it is. Size and weight are more important if you travel regularly. Laptops with larger screens are heavier and larger than those with smaller screens. The 17in widescreen laptops in the group weigh at least three kilograms. Most 15.4in widescreen laptops weigh just under three kilograms, although Samsung's R70 is lighter than most at 2.6kg. Lenovo's ThinkPad R61i is the only 14.1in widescreen laptop here, and is a comparatively lightweight 2.4kg.

An easy-to-carry laptop is of little use if its battery life is so poor you spend more time looking for a power socket than working. To be usable on the road a laptop should last for more than three hours, and all the laptops in the group managed this. Toshiba's Tecra lasted the longest, at four hours.

A high-quality display is also important. We've judged the colour accuracy, brightness and viewing angles of each laptop's screen. See the individual reviews for details of which are eyesores and which are a sight to behold.

The 17in widescreen displays have a high resolution of 1,440x900 pixels, which makes it easier to work on panoramic photos or expansive spreadsheets. The 14.1in and 15.4in screens have the same 1,280x800 resolution as each other. The Eclipse, MSI and Samsung laptops' displays have a glossy reflective finish, which makes colours appear richer and increases contrast, making them ideal for watching movies. This finish makes the displays more prone to reflections, though, so these laptops aren't ideal for use in bright office environments.

Seeing double

All the laptops in the group have dual-core processors. Five have Intel Core 2 Duo processors, while MSI's GX 610 uses an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 processor.

The six laptops are evenly divided between those that have 1GB of RAM and those with 2GB. Running multiple applications simultaneously, as well as certain tasks such as photo manipulation, will benefit from more memory. The fastest laptop in our application performance benchmarks was Eclipse's Titan I75, which has a fast Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM.

Most of the laptops here aren't powerful enough for playing the very latest games at high detail settings, but MSI's GX 610 did manage a respectable score in our Call of Duty 2 benchmark thanks to its DirectX 10-compatible ATI Mobility Radeon HD2600 graphics card. Even if you don't want to play games, a dedicated graphics chip has advantages. Unlike integrated graphics chips, they don't share graphics memory with the system RAM, so there's more for your applications and Windows to use.

We'd expect a £700 laptop to have at least a 120GB hard disk, preferably 160GB. Those with large collections of media files will appreciate the 200GB disk in Samsung's R70. The 80GB disk in Toshiba's Tecra is a bit stingy. It's fine for storing office documents, but is too cramped for storing more than a few videos or photo albums.

All the laptops reviewed have expansion card slots so you can add extra capabilities, such as eSATA ports or Draft-N wireless networking, in future. The laptops are evenly divided between those that have CardBus slots and those with ExpressCard/54 slots. ExpressCard/54 is the successor to CardBus, although there are still plenty of CardBus peripherals available.