The device itself is probably not the lightest laptop (3.1kg) you'd ever buy but compared to notebooks of yesteryear (our ageing Fujitsu-Siemens notebook that's still going strong and can be used as weighlifting equipment) it is a size zero model on a diet. That said you could buy a much lightweight laptop, but your wallet will similarly pounds lighter.

The review model we tested out was the Compaq Presario C700 C765EM . This boasts a Intel® Celeron® Processor 550, running at 2GHz with a Level 2 cache of 1MB. It has 1GB of memory and an 8GB SATA hard drive. It also has a super multi DVD rewriter that can just about handle any disc you chuck at it.

The screen is a 15.4" WXGA High Definition BrightView Widescreen and it powered by an integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 video adapter which uses up to 251MB of memory to power the screen at a resolution of up to 1200 by 800. The screen is able to cope with the demands put upon it by the Aero interface that comes with Windows Vista Home Basic. But to get maximum processing power on our side we decided that we could live with the classic interface, which gives the rest of the machine some needed oomph.

Review continues on next page...