Acer TravelMate 8005LMi

High-end performance and great battery life are the main drawcards of this machine. Using a Dothan Pentium M CPU (running at 1.8GHz), the 8005LMi also has 512MB of memory and an 80GB hard drive. This combination of components produced a fine score of 279 in SYSMark 2001, and its 3D performance also turned out to be stellar in our tests thanks to the 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 PRO graphics chip. Given its great all-round performance, we were pleasantly surprised when our worst-case-scenario battery test yielded a fantastic result of 130 minutes.

The multimedia connoisseur will make good use of the FireWire and USB 2.0 ports of this unit, as well as the 4X DVD burner and dedicated memory card slots. Parallel, serial and PS/2 ports are not provided, but you can purchase a port replicator if they are required.

Rounding out the system are wireless connectivity and a smart card slot. Perhaps the only shortcoming is the warranty, which is one-year return-to-base. Considering the asking price of the notebook, this is relatively brief, even though you do get a two-hour express turnaround.