BenQ Australia Joybook S73G V41

A jack of all trades, the BenQ S73G has decent performance, some multimedia functionality, is light and portable and doesn't cost a bank-load. Using the remote and the QMedia software that is shipped with the notebook, it's a simple matter of navigating the menu system in order to view your movies, listen to your music or look at your photos -- similar to Windows XP MCE.

The 14.1in screen has a maximum resolution of 1280x800 and displays reasonable contrast and brightness, but loses quality quickly when viewed from higher up. The speakers are located in the bezel, immediately below the screen, which project the audio loud and clear, but don't produce a very full sound, particularly lacking in bass. However an S/PDIF output, shared with the line-out jack, gives you the option of sending your audio to a better set of speakers with digital quality.

This 2.2kg (without PSU) notebook has reasonable battery-life, but it's not exceptional. In our MobileMark 2005 reader test, it lasted an average running time of 156 minutes.

In WorldBench 5 the S73G scored 86, which is quite good for a notebook in this price bracket. This score is due in part to the Intel 1.60GHz T2050 Core Duo CPU, a budget version of the Core Duo CPU's that still has some kick.

The installed Radeon X1600 graphics card fits the needs of this notebook well. With a score of 16,423 in 3DMark 2001 SE it will render low end 3-D graphics well and play older games without a problem, while a score of 1803 in 3DMark 2006 shows it will handle some new games at the lower end of the scale, but can't be pushed too hard.