Manufacturers and suppliers of notebooks are sometimes rather too free with their use of the term 'desktop replacement'. They would have us believe that this or that portable PC will simply make a conventional desktop redundant by doing all the same tricks but out of a vastly smaller box.

This is misleading, but it doesn't necessarily mean that a notebook cannot be a perfectly satisfactory replacement for a full-sized PC. The problems only arise if you expect high-end desktop performance from your notebook and if you want to do anything even slightly challenging using 3D graphics.

If not, then a notebook will probably fit the bill very nicely, while saving space at home and in the office and making working in either location - or anywhere else for that matter - considerably less complex.

With machines like the ones reviewed here, the emphasis has been on trying to find something that will run all the normal applications and serve for e-mail and Web browsing too. Limitations in notebook audio and (usually) 3D graphics handling mean that you are not likely to find the gaming platform of your dreams in this roundup.

That aside though, the improvements in terms of the features you can now expect for somewhere around the £1,000 mark (ex-VAT) mean that many people could consider a notebook, rather than a desktop, as the appropriate choice for their next machine.

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