A buyer’s guide to the top 10 laptops

published 19 November 2009

Acer's laptops will never win awards for stunning beauty or ground breaking design, but they are are always sturdy, dependable and offer great value for money.

The Aspire 4810T is a case in point. It ticks a lot of boxes with solid specs such as reasonable thinness, less than 2Kg weight, gesture trackpad, HDMI port but it's not particularly exciting.

However, it does have once special trick up its sleeve its stunning battery life, lasting for eight hours 52 minutes in our light battery life test.

If you want a laptop that offers reasonable performance, yet won't weigh you down and just keeps going when unplugged, this will sort you out.

Apple MacBook Pro Price: 1,608 ex. VAT

Apple made much of the introduction of the uni-body aluminium construction of its MacBook Pro, but some months in it does seem worthy of the fuss.

The single piece design makes for a very strong chassis and the black and silver look is pure premium.

The revised machine also introduced the new multi-touch, button free trackpad, with gesture support offering superb way to interact with the still supreme Mac OS X. The 17in model offers a glorious 1,920 x 1,200 display, and is laden with all the ports you need. For some, this is surely the ultimate laptop.

Dell Adamo XPS Price: (TBC)

The thought of Dell trying to take on Apple at high design may seem on the face of it completely absurd but once you've picked up and held the Adamo you'll change your tune pretty quickly.

However, it's not the Adamo we're recommending but the Adamo XPS its ultra-thin sibling that's available soon.

If you've ever wondered how thin a laptop can go then you'll gawp at the 9.99mm height of the Adamo XPS. Any thinner and it would probably be too sharp to pick up safely.

The keyboard opens up to support the 13.4in display and there's a full Core 2 Duo CULV processor in there too. Stunning.

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Benny Har-Even is a twenty-year stalwart of technology journalism who is passionate about all areas of the industry, but telecoms and mobile and home entertainment are among his chief interests. He has written for many of the leading tech publications in the UK, such as PC Pro and Wired, and previously held the position of technology editor at ITPro before regularly contributing as a freelancer.

Known affectionately as a ‘geek’ to his friends, his passion has seen him land opportunities to speak about technology on BBC television broadcasts, as well as a number of speaking engagements at industry events.