Medion’s Erazer X6815 is a powerful and impressive all-round laptop with more than enough punch for your pound, thanks to the inclusion of Intel’s sophisticated second-generation Core i7 processor.

Gamers are the intended audience, which is obvious from the included GeForce GT 555M graphics card. Despite the powerful components, Medion has kept the price down to £699, and at this price it’s an absolute steal.

Unfortunately there are some build concessions. For a 15.6-inch laptop, the Erazer is quite the chubbster. At 2.7Kg and with a 37mm chassis, it’s heavy compared to other models of the same size, although it’s still compact enough to carry around without breaking your back in the process.

The glossy black design means it looks cool, but is a magnet for our fingerprints and dust. The glossy design stretches over the touchpad too, which sits with a slight indentation beneath the keyboard so your fingers can find it easily.

Sadly, the pad and keyboard have a cheap unreceptive clack and the individual keys are so loose in the chiclet array that we managed to get a couple caught underneath the casing. While typing is easy because the keys are isolated, we don’t hold out much hope for longevity before they break.

Excellent features

Fortunately, everything else is more than up to scratch. Four USB ports line the edges, with two at the super-fast 3.0 speed. VGA and HDMI connections fill out the right side, with nothing around the back and just a Blu-ray drive on the left. You also get a multi-format card reader, fingerprint scanner and a 1.3MP integrated web-cam.

Audio was solid thanks to the Dolby Home Theater v4 HD audio, provided by two speakers and a subwoofer for reproducing the sort of low-end rumble that underpins movie or games soundtracks. It’s not going to set the world on fire and disintegrated into a cacophony with the volume up, but was resolutely serviceable for film and music.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater ’05: 169 minutes
Cinebench: 16627
3DMark 2006: 10555

Medion did a great job by adding a Full HD 1080p screen. It was less glossy, hence less vibrant, than most and the viewing angles disappoint. However, for a single laptop user in lower lights it played back HD video well, and it’s hard to complain at this price point.

As well as Intel’s excellent CPU and Nvidia graphics, the Erazer has 4GB of memory and 500GB of storage. With a great set of specifications under the hood, we had no issues with multimedia playback or multi-tasking with several apps open.

Kudos to Medion for compiling such a great array of specs at a low price point. Hardcore gamers looking to play the latest titles on maximum detail should look elsewhere, but for gamers and power-seekers on a budget, this is a genuinely great buy.

Next-gen Intel CPUs to improve mobile performance

Coats revealed details of the successor to the current generation of Intel processors in Sandy Bridge Developer Forum in San Francisco this week. It is the second quarter of 2012, Ivy Bridge, a cube is reduced to 22 nm “tick” Sandy Bridge “toick” will be. Ivy Bridge will benefit from Intel’s Transistor Technology 3D tri-gate, which offers as well as improving energy efficiency by 37 percent of what seems seriously improved integrated graphics. After this year, 2013 22 nm architecture Haswell, the battery, the “everyday” life of the laptop with promises to “connected the expectation.” To 10 days of what Intel calls.

Sandy Bridge, which offer significant performance gains over the last generation of Intel in the same power envelope. In addition, the integrated Intel GPU delivers the same day of the CPU that combines the two with a shared L3 cache. While Intel has a rather poor reputation with its integrated graphics, had included the HD3000 IGP Intel architectural enhancements including the most mobile chips Sandy Bridge at the height of the low-end, same GPU. The performance was enough to let Apple NVIDIA GPU in a acer aspire 5100 battery and other low-end machines.

“I hope this gap, from everything I’ve seen is closing fast,” director of Intel graphics architecture Tom Piazza said an Ivy Bridge Confab Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), to see if you are asked whether it was Intel, the performance gap with its competitors in the vicinity – probably AMD.

“I do not see why not everyone in the vicinity,” he said confidently, “and maybe he will ask the other guys in a year or two.”

Improved graphics performance is not the only improvement on the current architecture of Intel in the Ivy Bridge “Sandy Bridge” chip. Another innovation, Ivy Bridge interconnect and integration engineer, George Varghese said in the same session, invite, including support for DDR3L small memory footprint, dynamic (no reboot) to take control of overclocking the core and graphics, improved energy management, improving to protect against security attacks escalating privilege, and much more.

The fujitsu t4010 battery energy savings really care about us to mobile computing, including devices such as laptops and “ultra-books”. For example, Intel Ivy Bridge is part of the quad-core Core i7 with a TDP of 35W. As of Mac, which means that Apple could a 13 “MacBook Pro, 35W processor that is used in a quad-core processors is limited. Provide configurable processors have a TDP, which means that parts can be configured, it means , noted progress means max it out in a more or less depending on the parameters of some TDP. A MacBook Air is designed for a TDP of 17W. An Ivy Bridge 13W TDP processor ULV can be limited while the battery is sitting (and thus probably on someone’s lap).

Of course, Intel is expected to Haswell fujitsu t4215 battery initiative, the thin and light laptop with a snapshot of the required capacity and the ability to run an entire day on one battery charge. In this way, Intel is Steve Jobs announced the MacBook Air was the future of being the vision of many who originally thought.

HP’s surprising partnership with hip-hop producer Dr Dre has bumped it up in the cool stakes, and brought some much-needed quality to the beleaguered world of laptop speakers. While HP’s mid-range multimedia DV7-6103ea isn’t quite as sleek as the company’s Envy range, it has pilfered the same design finesse and also comes with the superior Beats Audio experience.

Taking a leaf from the Envy range, this laptop is solidly built and looks great. The burnished gunmetal finish gives a great streaky effect, adorning the top of the lid and surrounding the chiclet keyboard. Shame it’s only plastic but, at 3kg, it feels sturdy enough.

In terms of portability, it’s never gong to be light on a 17.3-inch chassis, but at 416 x 275 x 36mm, the DV7-6103ea is svelte.

The keyboard is a mixed blessing. Typing for long periods is fine, thanks to the sturdy travel on the keys, while number-crunchers will appreciate the full numeric keypad. However, the arrow keys are crushed into a single row and are difficult to find.

We were also disappointed with the multi-touch pad, which is a little compact.

Audio goodness

Opening up the DV7-6103ea reveals the enormous sub-woofer. This sits above the board to deliver sound out and up rather than underneath, where it would be more muffled.

As we expected, the laptop produces more powerful sound than most other laptops, though it’s never going to beat the throw of external speakers. Of course, most laptop users sit near their hardware and will enjoy listening to music as they work, while movies played with a rich sonic feed.

The Blu-ray player sits on the right hand side and ports are standard fare, with two fast USB 3.0 ports, two standard USB 2.0s, a VGA out and a HDMI out so you can connect to other HD devices. There’s even a multi-card reader and internal USB remote.

While HP provides too much bloatware pre-installed on the hard drive, you do get an finger print reader for added security. The 1600 x 900-pixel LED HP BrightView display is impressively vibrant, although the gloss sheen does make it harder to view in strong natural light.

The low lighting in The Dark Knight meant we lost a lot of detail in natural light, but the stunning details with the lights off impressed – even though it’s not full HD.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater ’05: 181 minutes
Cinebench: 6480
3DMark 2006: 1533

The DV7-6103ea has AMD’s Quad-Core A6-3410MX fusion GPU and CPU, which is great mobile tech for enhancing battery life. With a generous 6GB of memory, we had no lag or stutter on video playback or when multi-tasking. The latest games will struggle, however.

There’s an enormous 1.5TB of storage for all of your applications and media.

If you’re looking for a smart new multimedia machine for movies and music, the DV7-6103ea is a great choice that won’t break the bank.

Overview

Samsung wowed us with its ultra-thin, surprisingly powerful Series 9 laptop earlier this year, but the £1,000-plus price tag lifted it beyond the grasp of most common folk.

We’ve spent a week with the latest Samsung portable, the Series 7 Chronos (or Samsung Series 7 Chronos 700Z5A-S01, to give it its full catchy monicker), which isn’t quite as portable but certainly packs in the power – as well as a hefty price tag.

Although the rather curious name conjures up images of psychotic androids hell-bent on human extermination, the Chronos is a rather tame-looking beast.

Anyone expecting a super-slender chassis like the Series 9′s will be disappointed. The Chronos is still slender, at just 25mm, but the 2.4kg weight means it’s more of a chore to lug around than ultrabooks such as the Acer Aspire S3 and the Asus Zenbook.

The sleek silver lid is solid at the edges to keep the display from bending, and even the centre is surprisingly firm. Inside, the metallic motif continues. However, the palmrests are less sturdy than the lid, flexing under light pressure. It isn’t a major concern, but a pity considering the otherwise strong build quality.

We have to admit to being a little disappointed by the overall appearance of the Samsung Chronos. Perhaps our expectations were too high, but this laptop isn’t exactly a beauty compared to some of the new ultrabooks, or even the older Series 9.

Still, we were pleased to see the isolation-style ‘chiclet’ keyboard stretching the width of the interior, giving well-sized keys and enough room for a numeric keypad. Typing is a smooth experience, although the keys don’t travel far when hit.

The arrow keys are once again crushed into a single row, but we could find them without looking, thanks to their wide design.

The keyboard is also backlit, and a built-in light sensor ensures the subtle glow only turns on when the atmospheric lighting is poor, thus saving your battery life as well as your eyes.

However, it isn’t all good news. We noticed after typing for a while that the sharp edges of the chassis were cutting into our wrists.

Not hard enough to open up a vein, thankfully, but enough to leave a red mark. It isn’t so bad if you don’t slouch in your chair, but we found ourselves sinking further down as the working day progressed, putting our tender skin at risk.

We were also less than enamored with the Samsung Chronos’ touchpad. It’s spacious enough, taking up a generous chunk of the palmrest, but opts for annoying integrated mouse buttons.

You have to push the bottom corners to simulate left and right mouse button clicks, which quickly frustrates, since the cursor jerks each time. We gave up and started tapping the surface instead, which occasionally doesn’t register but is less annoying.

Specifications and performance

The Samsung Series 7 Chronos’ 15.6-inch display stretches almost to the edge of the lid, with only a slender bezel in place. It isn’t quite as sleek as the Dell XPS 14z‘s display, with its edge-to-edge glass, but the screen does appear larger than it actually is.

A sharp 1600 x 900 WXGA++ resolution keeps images crisp and clean, whether you’re browsing through embarrassing Facebook pictures or enjoying an HD movie. There’s no glossy coating, so you can use the Samsung Series 7 Chronos outside or in brightly-lit interiors without squinting through pesky glare.

Colours are still rich, and the screen is reasonably bright. However, the narrow viewing angles are less impressive.

If you need a machine to keep you entertained on the move, the Chronos’ spacious 750GB hard drive gives you plenty of space for your games, movies and music. A slot-loading DVD drive has also been packed into the slender chassis. If you’d rather use this laptop as a home entertainment machine, an HDMI port can be used to hook up televisions or monitors, and you have three USB ports for attaching peripherals, two of which are zippy USB 3.0 connections.

Samsung has joined a host of other manufacturers in the challenge to create the fastest booting laptop. The Windows desktop pings up just 20 seconds after hitting the power button, while the Samsung Series 7 Chronos also wakes up from hibernation in just two seconds. That gives you plenty more time to browse mucky Scandinavian websites.

Of course you get the usual range of trial software that has to be uninstalled, while Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi can be used to get online.

The Samsung Series 7 Chronos may be light on features, but it doesn’t skimp in the performance department. A mighty Intel Core i7 2675QM processor running at a standard speed of 2.2GHz is in charge, backed up by a generous 8GB of memory. This blasted through our benchmark testing, hammering every task we threw its way.

You can run any software imaginable, and should be able to for some time to come. If you want future-proofing, the Chronos lays it on thick.

Gamers and hardcore editors are also catered for, thanks to the AMD Radeon HD6750M graphics card. While the likes of the Alienware M18x provides twice the graphical power, you can still run some of the latest games on modest graphical settings, and older games run without issue.

Movie fans can enjoy the latest films in HD quality, with no stuttering or other issues. Video editing suites and other multimedia applications also run smoothly.

Despite all this power, we were highly impressed by the Samsung Series 7 Chronos’ excellent battery life. We put our laptops through a tough test, playing HD video on loop with performance settings turned to max, until the battery is drained. Most laptops last a mere three hours before dying, but the Chronos powered through four hours of video before the screen faded to black.

Cinebench 10: 16828
3D Mark ’06: 10049
Battery Eater ’05: 239 mins

Verdict

The Samsung Series 7 Chronos may not be quite as thin as some of the emerging ultrabooks, or the glorious Series 9 that hit stores earlier this year, but can it stand out from the crowd with killer performance instead?

We liked

The latest Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor crushes anything you throw at it, and will do for some time to come. You also have a powerful GPU that can handle the latest games (albeit with some graphical compromises) and multimedia software.

The screen is sharp and vibrant – a great way to enjoy the latest HD movies. The lack of a glossy finish means there are no annoying reflections when working out of doors, while a 750GB hard drive gives you plenty of room for your media. You also have a slot-loading DVD drive.

We were also impressed by the solid build, while the backlit isolation-style keyboard is spacious and well constructed. And although the Samsung Series 7 Chronos isn’t the slimmest or lightest laptop around, its excellent battery life will see you through a full day of office use.

We disliked

Although we like the keyboard, there are some usability issues. The sharp edge of the palmrest cuts into your wrists at times, and the touchpad opts for annoying integrated mouse buttons, which knock the cursor out of position when pushed.

The Samsung Series 7 Chronos also lacks that certain something to get us excited. It doesn’t have the sexy, curved chassis of the Series 9, or the ridiculously slender build of some of the new ultrabooks.

Final verdict

If you need a portable machine to entertain you on the move, which won’t be out of date any time soon, the Samsung Series 7 Chronos is well worth considering. Just don’t expect great beauty.

Glance at Apple’s new Thunderbolt Display and you might mistake it for an iMac. Look a bit closer, and you might still be fooled – the display is the same as the panel used in the current 27-inchers.

Even if you were to take it apart, the sheer volume of chips, ports, fans and assorted gubbins inside it might not convince you that this is just a monitor. But it’s more than just a monitor!

Let’s start with its performance as a straight display, though. It’s entirely as we’ve come to expect from Apple: a glossy panel (no option for matte) with a high resolution and gloriously wide viewing angles. As usual, colours are good – if perhaps no more than good in the eyes of demanding creative professionals – and the general feel is rewarding.

27-inches can dominate many desks, but it’s undeniably lovely to have so much space in which to stretch out. So far, so utterly predictable for an Apple monitor: an entirely competent display.

While it can be bettered in price by Dell’s UltraSharp U2711 which uses the same panel (and is available online for as little as almost half) and bettered in image quality from high-end displays from NEC and Eizo, it’s still an object of lust for many folks who own other Apple kit.

The clue to the Thunderbolt Display’s uniqueness, however, is in its name; it connects not with VGA, DVI, HDMI or even Mini DisplayPort, but using the new Thunderbolt connector. While this means that you have to have a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac in order to use this, it brings some terrific benefits.

The reason there’s so much circuitry inside the Thunderbolt Display’s case, you see, is that it connects a whole host of functions to your Mac with just a single cable.

The display itself has a FaceTime HD camera, mic, surprisingly capable speakers, three USB ports, one FireWire 800 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port and a Thunderbolt port on the back. (The presence of FireWire and Ethernet is especially important for MacBook Air owners, whose notebooks lack these ports.)

What’s more, the Thunderbolt cable splits: one end is an up-to-85W MagSafe connector so you can charge your laptop at the same time. And the fact that there’s a Thunderbolt port on the display, coupled with its daisy chain capability, means you can add one or more Thunderbolt peripherals to the chain (though these are currently scarce). You can even daisy chain two of these Thunderbolt Displays to a single port (except on MacBook Airs) for a mindboggling number of pixels.

You can’t – in this current generation at least – connect Mini DisplayPort monitors to this Thunderbolt port, either natively or adapting, say, a DVI connector to Mini DisplayPort; that’s a little irritating.

This, then, is an oddly tricky product to sum up. The panel itself is typical Apple fare: very good if not stellar, and when judged in isolation, dizzyingly overpriced.

If you have a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac, however, especially if it’s a notebook, the sheer convenience of the display is beguiling. Plugging in a single cable to connect a wide range of high-speed and legacy peripherals is something we could definitely get used to.

Overview

We first checked out Dell’s XPS 14z at IFA, a slightly dinkier version of its excellent XPS 15z laptop. The XPS 14z hits stores today and we’ve already spent a few days snuggling up and getting to know it.

While a 14-inch version of a 15-inch laptop might seem a little pointless, we were impressed by how slim and light the XPS 14z turned out. With its 23mm build and 2kg weight, it more closely resembles a 13-inch portable. The XPS 15z wasn’t exactly a chubster, but commuters will want to consider this laptop first.

The slender body may seem less impressive compared to the upcoming slew of ultrabooks, including the ridiculously skinny Asus Zenbook which is just 9mm thick. However, we had no problem slipping the XPS 14z into our backpack and carrying it around all weekend.

In terms of design, almost nothing except the size has been changed from the XPS 15z. You get the same beautiful brushed metal finish, which feels as solid as it looks – we pushed and prodded every inch and found no worrying weak spots. Even the paper-thin aluminium lid is firm enough to take a pounding, so you won’t need to pad your bag with bubblewrap.

An isolation-style keyboard fills the centre of the XPS 14z’s chassis, bordered at both sides by the built-in speakers. We love the curved design of the keys, which gives them a futuristic appearance. They’re firmly set and comfortable to type on, while typos are a rarity thanks to the gaps between each key.

The board is surprisingly well-sized too, despite not stretching the width of the laptop. The tiny arrow keys are the only casualty. As with the XPS 15z, the board is backlit for late-night sessions, and Dell also touts it as ‘spill-resistant’. However, we didn’t have the guts to assault it with a bottle of Evian.

We also liked the spacious touchpad, which thankfully avoids the irritating integrated mouse buttons you find on many compact laptops. Instead, the XPS 14z has two dedicated buttons underneath. The pad also supports multi-touch gesturing, as is the norm.

Our only issues with the design are the stiff lid hinges, which to be fair at least keeps the screen still when you’re on rocky public transport. The screen only tilts 45 degrees back from vertical, so finding a comfortable viewing angle can be tricky when the XPS 14z is resting on your lap.

Specifications

The Dell XPS 15z was a perfect way to enjoy HD movies on the go, thanks to its 1080p screen. The dinkier XPS 14z display isn’t quite as sharp, featuring a standard 1366 x 768-pixel resolution, but video still looks pleasingly crisp.

Images are also colourfully reproduced, but we were disappointed by the brightness levels – even with the settings turned to maximum, the XPS 14z’s screen isn’t as bright as the 15z’s. Viewing angles are also merely acceptable. However, the edge-to-edge glass gives the display a classy appearance which complements the slick design.

The built-in speakers are once again powerful enough to fill a small room. Sound is a little tinny on top volume, so audiophiles will want to hook up an external pair, but if all you need is a little background music you won’t be disappointed.

Regular travelers will want a sizeable hard drive for carrying their entire media collection around, and the XPS 14z doesn’t disappoint, packing in 500GB of storage. The drive spins at 7200rpm, faster than the standard 5400rpm, so software loads quickly and movies stream perfectly.

A 7-in-1 memory card slot can be used to boost storage space further, or access your holiday snaps on the move. The slender body also houses a slot-loading optical drive, so you can watch DVDs and install games from disc. Quite a few compact laptops skip on the DVD drive, so it’s good to see Dell cram one into the XPS 14z.

Other features are limited to a 1.3MP webcam for chatting with friends and family. We were surprised by the lack of ports, with only two USB connections available (one of them USB 3.0). Thankfully you get HDMI and Mini DisplayPort connections for hooking up a television, monitor or projector, but that’s your lot.

Networking is standard, with 802.11n and Gigabit Ethernet available for getting online. You also have Bluetooth 3.0 support for transferring files with mobile phones and hooking up headsets.

Performance

The Dell XPS 14z comes in two Intel Sandy Bridge flavours: Core i5 and Core i7. We tested the Core i5 2430M version which performed typically well in our benchmarking tests. This powerful CPU is backed up by 6GB of memory, and even with bucketloads of programs running at once, we saw no slowdown.

Our model also packed an Nvidia GeForce GT 525M graphics card for gaming and running multimedia applications. This card is getting on a bit and we were disappointed by the stilted performance during testing. Recent games will stutter, unless you turn detail levels down to low or medium – you’re better off sticking with older titles.

If you want to play the latest games, we’d recommend boosting your budget and looking at a gaming machine such as the MSI GT680 or Alienware M11x instead. The Alienware M11x is a similar weight although a lot chunkier, but more than makes up for it with fantastic all-round performance.

Although you can’t smash up terrorists in high detail, you can easily run video-editing software and other multimedia applications. HD movies play perfectly too. And despite featuring some powerful components stuffed into a slender chassis, the XPS 14z remains cool and quiet at almost all times. Only when we inserted a DVD did it make any real noise.

We were also impressed by the excellent battery life, something the XPS 14z has in common with its elder brother. Usually Sandy Bridge laptops are defeated by the ruthless Battery Eater test in under three hours, but this portable played HD video on a loop for 200 minutes before finally submitting. This is almost as good as the XPS 15z’s four hour longevity, and beats most other multimedia laptops we’ve seen lately.

TechRadar Labs

Cinebench 10: 9769
3D Mark ’06: 5345
Battery Eater ’05: 200 mins

Verdict

When we first heard that a 14-inch version of the XPS 15z was in the workings, we were intrigued and excited, but also curious at how much difference an inch would make.

We Liked

As it turned out, that inch makes a considerable difference. The XPS 14z is surprisingly slender compared to its elder sibling, and a good chunk lighter too at just 2kg. The same slick brushed metal design is in place, and is just as drool-worthy, while the edge-to-edge glass of the display is a classy touch.

Build quality is also just as strong. There’s nary a weak spot, from the solid chassis to the ridiculously thin aluminium lid, while the isolation-style keyboard is a pleasure to type on.

Movie and music fans also have plenty to enjoy. The XPS 14z’s 500GB hard drive gives you plenty of space for a large media collection, and spins fast to keep things streaming smoothly. The 14-inch screen is colourful and crisp, while the speakers are better than most we hear.

Performance is good enough to run the latest multimedia software, and the Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge processor won’t be out of date any time soon. Yet despite these powerful components, we still managed well over three hours of intensive use before the battery died.

We Disliked

Unfortunately, some sacrifices have been made in slimming down the mighty XPS 15z. The screen only tilts back 45 degrees on its stiff hinges, and the Full HD 1080p resolution has been lost. We were also disappointed by how dim it was, even on the highest settings.

There’s obviously less space for ports, especially as Dell has crammed in a slot-loading optical drive, but the two USB ports seem a little stingy. Peripherals fans will want to invest in a USB hub.

The XPS 14z is also less graphically capable than its bigger brother, and we found the latest games were stuttery affairs unless we turned detail settings right down. Gamers should look elsewhere for their fix.

Verdict

The XPS 14z is a more compact ultraportable version of one of the best laptops of 2011. While it isn’t quite as technically impressive, it’s still an excellent machine that can keep you entertained and productive on the move.

Zotac has been the recent master of the small-form factor motherboard. We’ve seen H67 boards rocking the mini-ITX style, with the top-end Intel Z68 and AMD A75 chipsets getting the same sort of treatment. These boards all had something in common (aside from the scale); a surprising amount of serious functionality in a frankly silly size.

Now Zotac has turned its shrink ray on full devices and has created a PC with what has to be one of the smallest footprints ever. The Zbox Nano AD10 Plus is absolutely tiny. It’s shorter than a Rubik’s cube and smaller than a CD case. Ickle.

But in there you’ve got a full PC. Well, so long as your idea of a ‘full PC’ means something sans optical drive and you have no interest in doing anything beyond multimedia playback and some light web browsing.

The Zbox AD10 is a very basic machine, essentially with all the internal organs of a netbook, but without a screen. The archetypal ‘nettop’ then. But the nettop is largely becoming anachronistic in today’s connected world. With more advanced media streamers hitting the market, capable of letting you browse the web and play online content, and TVs evolving with this functionality too, the low-powered mini PC doesn’t really have a lot of tricks up its sleeve any more.

Granted this AMD Fusion-powered version is more capable than its Intel Atom-based brethren, but still the gulf in performance between the low-end chips and the proper desktop options is huge. And that gap doesn’t shrink much with Fusion in the equation.

But if you’re just talking about a small homework machine then the Zbox isn’t a bad choice. That said a little netbook is going to give you more flexibility than something that has to be anchored to a desk and monitor full time.

Not a tiny price tag

There’s also the fact that the £255 price tag is more like £325 when you factor in a functional OS. A Microsoft Windows installation is really your only option here – we tried getting Ubuntu to play nice but it would take many long, tiring, frustrating hours and a lot of command line tapping to get anywhere near a responsive machine.

When you’re topping £300 you’re straying into proper Windows 7 laptop prices. And if you’re really interested in plugging it into your HDTV you’ll be able to find one with a HDMI port I’m sure.

In short there’s depressingly little to recommend the Zbox AD10 beyond the fact that it is a very, very small PC. It’s not even particularly easy to set up either as the lack of optical drive makes installing Windows a little problematic. Especially seeing as you can’t have anything plugged into the two USB 3.0 ports of the four ports that are available until there are Windows drivers installed.

And as we’ve mentioned, Ubuntu despite coming happily on a USB stick, doesn’t particularly like the hardware inside. So as small as the Zbox undoubtedly is, functionally it’s a little too late to the party.

Your humble media streamer, and soon your TV, is going to be doing everything you’d realistically want this box to do. And will probably do it in a more intuitive way as well.

See something familiar? That’s right, the Rock Xtreme 685 is yet another re-badged Clevo whitebook. On the downside, that means the styling is about as exciting as a Conservative Party Conference speech delivered by the Under-secretary of Dullness.

For a 15.6-inch notebook, the Xtreme 685 is a big old thing, too, with a hefty power supply. Put the two together and you have a dreary looking lump that’s also a pretty unpleasant package in terms of portability.

Appearances, however, are deceptive. This thing shifts. Partly, that’s because it’s got one of the most powerful processors currently available for a laptop. The Intel Core i7 2820QM is not only clocked a little higher than the quad-core competition with a 2.3GHz nominal clockspeed and 3.4GHz Turbo.

It also packs 8MB of cache memory where the Core i7 2630QM makes do with 6MB. All in, it makes the 2820QM about 15 per cent faster than the 2630QM.

In store Rock has also made an effort regards storage performance in the form of a pair of conventional magnetic 500GB hard drives in RAID 0. We’d rather have a smallish SSD and a large conventional drive, frankly. But as spinning magnetic platters in laptops go, Rock’s RAID’ed effort is about as good as it gets.

However, the real weapon in the Xtreme 685′s armoury is the AMD Radeon HD 6990M. It’s the fastest mobile GPU on the planet.

Just get a load of these stats: 1,120 shaders, 56 texture units, 32 ROPs and a 256-bit memory bus. No wonder the rendering and gaming performance is epic. The HD 6990M tears Dirt 3 a new one, even running in full HD.

But more impressive are the results in World of Conflict. It’s a great title for getting an idea of overall gaming performance thanks to heavily loading both the CPU and GPU. Get the balance of components in a laptop wrong and the result can be a system that spits out decent average frame rates in the WiC benchmark but scrapes the barrel in terms of the minimum frame rate.

But not the Xtreme 685. Running at 1,920 x 1,080 and with 4x anti-aliasing enabled, it cranks out an average 51fps and a minimum of 32fps. The latter, critically, is above 30 and that means smooth gaming at all times.

TechRadar Labs

Rendering performance
Cinebench R10: Seconds: Quicker is better
MSI GT780 DX: 51s
Rock Xtreme 685: 46s

Battery life performance
Battery Life: Minutes: Higher is better
MSI GT780 DX: 141
Rock Xtreme 685: 108

DX11 gaming performance (1,280×720, 4x AA)
Dirt 3: Frames per second: Higher is better
MSI GT780 DX: 102
Rock Xtreme 685: 108

Industry standard 3D performance
3DMark 06: Index score: Higher is better
MSI GT780 DX: 16,634
Rock Xtreme 685: 20,497

DX10 gaming performance (1,280×720, 4x AA)
WiC: Frames per second: Higher is better
MSI GT780 DX: 57
Rock Xtreme 685: 74

Tessellation gaming performance (1,280 x 720, 4x AA)
Heaven: Frames per second: Higher is better
MSI GT780 DX: 28
Rock Xtreme 685: 40

Of course, all of the above applies to current titles. Scope out the frame rates in the Heaven benchmark and it’s clear any future games heavy in tessellation effects aren’t exactly going to fly. And like nearly every laptop, upgrading the graphics card is a non-starter.

Finally, a word on the LCD panel. Thanks to the 15.6-inch diagonal and full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution, the image quality is super sharp. However, the panel is of the TN variety and it’s never going to match a VA or IPS for colours, viewing angles or contrast.

Asus has built a great reputation over the years, offering laptops that pack style and power at competitive prices. Few multimedia machines can match the value offered by the N73SV but its flawed usability unfortunately lets the side down early on.

Finished with a brushed aluminium lid and contrasting gunmetal and black interior, the chassis feels suitably well put together and looks every bit the high-end media centre, despite its surprisingly low price.

Sadly, this quality does not extend to the keyboard. While the large keys are responsive and easy to type on, the board is poorly mounted and bounces a great deal during use. The touchpad fares little better, proving sluggish and slow to respond.

A vertical panel of multimedia keys sits to the left of the keyboard, providing a fast way to control your music and movies. The six backlit buttons can be easily seen in the dark, but we found no easy way to disable the backlighting, so they can prove a little distracting at times.

At 3.5kg this is not a laptop for frequent travellers and its bulky dimensions make it far better suited to life at home on your desk. This is reflected in the limited 193-minute battery life, although this still managed to beat the sub-standard results of the other machines.

The most obvious strength of this laptop is its stunning 17.3-inch screen. The exceptionally bright and colourful panel shows images and videos to glorious effect, while the Full HD resolution makes the most of the built-in Blu-ray drive. Even the glossy coating is not overly reflective.

Powerful sound

Sound quality also impresses. Using technology co-developed with audio specialist, Bang & Olufsen ICEpower, the audio from the speakers is loud, clear and detailed. We noticed some slight treble distortion at higher volumes, but bass and mid frequencies were always clear.

Despite using the same dedicated Nvidia graphics card as the, the Asus almost doubles its power. Bettered by only the Acer Aspire 8951G and Toshiba Qosmio X770-107, there is plenty of power for light gaming and running high-definition video – a great result at this low price.

Office performance is no slouch either, despite falling some behind the powerful Intel Core i7 laptops. The Core i5 processor is backed by a healthy 6GB of memory and software opens and runs swiftly, with plenty of power for multi-tasking.

You also get a healthy amount of storage, thanks to the Asus’ 640GB hard drive. While it falls far behind the vast disks of the more expensive Acer and Toshiba, there is still ample room for storing large multimedia collections.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater ’05: 193 minutes
Cinebench: 9798
3DMark 2006: 7905

A final unique feature of this laptop is its ExpressGate Cloud operating system. Installed along with Windows 7 it enables you to boot into a basic, panel-based OS in nine seconds, to access your photos, music, a calendar and a web browser faster than you can with Windows. We found the software needless, however, and find it unlikely anyone would use it on a regular basis.

If you can overlook the flawed user interface, the N73SV has a lot to offer at this price. Offering power, Blu-ray compatibility, an excellent screen and surprisingly strong audio, it makes a very good entry-level media centre. If you tend to work more than you play, though, the bouncy keyboard could be a deal breaker.

From the lime-green rubberised lid to the integrated Harmon/Kardon speakers, the Toshiba NB520-10U is a netbook that demands attention.

Not content to be a standard black business appliance, the Toshiba NB520-10U wants to be the life and soul of the party. It’s cooler and louder than the Asus Eee PC and one of the best netbooks worth owning.

The Toshiba comes in a choice of colours; green, blue or brown. Your chosen hue extends to the lid, mouse buttons and speaker edging while the rest of the chassis is solid black. The textured rubber of the lid is pleasant to touch and won’t get covered in grubby fingerprints.

There’s no flex to be found around the chassis and the netbook is easily light enough to carry around without a problem. There’s also a little extra bulk given to the battery compartment so, when open, the netbook is slightly raised at the back giving you a nice typing angle to work with.

The only minor gripes we had with the design was a particularly thick bezel and an awkwardly placed power button that’s nestled in the hinge below the centre of the screen. These are some tiny niggles but overall the design of the Toshiba is catching and stylish with a Converse-cool kind of appeal.

Of course, most noticeable are the twin speakers built into the palm rest. They’ve been developed with Harman/Kardon technology and will reach a genuinely impressive volume for a netbook. We were also impressed with the bass we could get out of it.

The 120GB disk space will likely preclude you from loading your entire music collection onto the hard drive, but if you subscribe to a streaming service like Spotify, the Toshiba would be a great addition to any house party.

If you want to work with this netbook then using the keyboard isn’t immediately intuitive as it’s packed pretty tightly into the chassis. Frankly, we preferred typing on the Acer Aspire One or Asus Eee PC, but anyone using this netbook regularly will adapt to the feeling of the keys quickly.

The touchpad is neither too responsive nor sluggish and is positioned well – you can use your thumb without your fingers leaving the keyboard. Although, being a netbook, it’s a little on the small side.

The standard Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM and Windows 7 Starter OS means this won’t rival a laptop for performance. But if you want to browse the web and type out an email while streaming some music, you won’t have any problems here.

TechRadar Labs

Battery Eater ’05: 220 minutes
Cinebench: 521
3DMark 2006: 151

On top of that, the battery life is exemplary. By far and away the most important feature for a netbook, Toshiba has ensured you won’t need to regularly charge and the NB520 lasted for 220 minutes under our barrage of tests.

Advanced features

Toshiba has thrown some nice features into the NB520 to make it an even better choice for a netbook purchase. Plug an MP3 player into the USB port and you can use the Toshiba’s speakers to play your music, even when the machine is in standby or switched off.

It also has built in sleep-and-charge facility, so you can charge up a USB device while the laptop is powered down and idle.

This is a netbook a little different from others available and Toshiba has put together a great product – highly recommended for anyone who wants to enjoy their collection of music when they are on the move.