Acer Aspire 1802WSM

Wielding PCI Express graphics (in the form of ATI's 64MB DDR ATI Mobility Radeon X600) in combination with a 3GHz Mobile Intel Pentium 4 processor and 512MB of dual channel PC2700 DDR SDRAM pushed the Acer Aspire to impressive heights of performance during our testing. It returned high scores of 10358 in 3DMark 2001, 284 in SYSMark 2001 and 76 in PC WorldBench 5.

The 1802WSM comes with a 60GB 4200rpm hard disk plus a dual-format DVD burner. A built-in TV tuner is optional.

The Acer is capable of playing DVDs, VCDs and MP3 music without booting into Windows. Using a fast-boot Linux-based mode (controlled via front fascia buttons), it can play back discs without the need to boot the full OS. This all looks a treat on the 17" display. The Acer can be controlled with the bundled wireless remote.

We liked the underside subwoofer and that Acer used the entire length of the notebook to implement a dedicated number pad (which is great for everything from accounts to gaming).

We also liked the integrated multi-card reader, S-Video TV-out port and the amount of peripheral and network connection options. Wireless networking is optional. The Acer Aspire 1802WSM is a strong offering with a one-year warranty (and two-hour turnaround guaranteed in capital cities).