HP Compaq NX6325

When I finally decided to swap my bulky, faulty PC for a sleek new laptop, I made it my mission to find a decent model that didn't cost the Earth. As all the high street entry-level laptops I looked at came with £399 price tags and generally left something to be desired, I decided to look online and came across this little beauty.

Don't necessarily let the "Business" bit in the title put you off - this is a brilliant computer for personal use as well, and is a cut above what most retailers offer in a similar price range. I have been using it for a while now for a combination of ordinary word-processing and more demanding digital image editng and I'm very happy with its performance.

Most of the front of the unit is taken up by the loudspeakers, which aren't bad considering their size. Headphones will always give better audio quality, but the inbuilt loudspeakers are perfectly acceptable. There's an audio jack on the side, as well as 3 USB ports (a couple more would have been nice, but that's still space for a wireless keyboard and mouse, plus plug-in broadband modem), 7-in-1 memory card reader, a DVD+/-RW drive, charging socket (obviously), and a couple of other sundries.

As a standard, the laptop comes with Windows XP Professional. This was one of the things that swayed me towards this model as I can't stand the Home edition. There are times where using a Limited User account makes sense, eg for browsing the internet (on a Limited User account you can't make changes to the Windows registry, so rogue software can't install itself), and the Professional edition allows you to customise which programs can be used on the Limited User accounts. This is particularly useful as a number of programs won't run properly on Limited User accounts otherwise and you then have to mess around with shared folders, switching accounts etc. AAARGH!! Rant over, the laptop is Vista ready so it should be easy, if not cheap, to upgrade.

The processor speed is a decent 1.8GHz, but booting up and shutting down can be quite time-consuming. My other half sometimes makes the mistake of closing the lid before the laptop has shut down properly, which results in it hibernating and I then have to wait for it to finish shutting down and then switch it on again before I can use it. Apart from that, performance and number-crunching is speedy. The laptop easily handles my image editing, even when I'm working with large files.

I must admit I'm slightly concerned that the laptop didn't come with any installation discs. In my experience it's a leap of faith not to have an original Windows disc as where computers are concerned I'm Sod's Law in person...as are most people I know, come to think about it. I can only pray and touch wood that I'll never need more than my back-up disc!