When it came down to deciding which of these notebooks made the grade, and which did not, the process of elimination was actually refreshingly straightforward.

First of all, there was the odd one out, the Hewlett Packard Omnibook 900, distinguished from the rest by its small size and low weight. These are certainly advantages to some buyers, and HP has managed to make the Omnibook quite a comfortable machine to use, but there were question marks over build quality, its battery life wasn't great, and it was really rather expensive for what it was.

The cheapest of the rest was the Rock Sigma, which would have been all right as the budget choice but for poor battery life, so instead we'd say either keep waiting a while or spend £300 more and go for the Dell Inspiron, which is a very good value system indeed.

The Gateway Solo has better battery life and that 1280 x 1024 resolution screen, which could swing it for some people, but it does cost more - £2,199 + VAT as opposed to the Dell at £1,899. The Sony Vaio, meanwhile, had some nice design features but the build wasn't very robust, and it's enormously expensive considering what you get.

Looked at like this, the choice for most of us really lies between the Dell and the Gateway, with your personal choice determined by how much you are willing to pay for extra resolution and longer battery life.