Good-looking little number a mid-grade performer

I'd been shopping around for a new laptop for months, entertaining the idea of shelling out a small fortune on a Sony Vaio, Toshiba Portege or even Apple's new Intel-powered Mac Book Pro.

After all, the sales people reminded me, I use my laptop every day, it's the tool of my trade and a significant investment is justified.

Dangerously close to slapping down $4000-plus on a swanky machine, I finally settled on the new generation of my old laptop - Hewlett-Packard's Compaq Presario V3000.

It's light enough to take on my travels, gives reasonable performance for the price and the new design makes it one of the more aesthetically pleasing laptops in its price range.

Its performance is very much mid-grade, but then I'm not looking to edit the next Peter Jackson movie on it. Eighty per cent of my computing time is spent hunched over Microsoft Word or the Firefox web browser.

The V3000 is billed as being "Vista-capable", meaning it will run the new Windows operating system, which will be released next year.

Anyone buying a laptop at the moment should ask whether it will run Vista in its true 64-bit glory. As a rule, you should also be looking to buy the most powerful computer you can afford to see you right in the Vista computing environment.

Vista will be more draining on memory and processor resources than the current Windows XP operating system, but the real power-hungry application in Vista will be the Aero 3D interface, which offers a new way of organising your desktop and window panes for easier navigating.

It was economics that led me to the V3000 and, although its base specifications are adequate, you'll really want to upgrade from the 512MB of memory provided to 1GB or 2GB to comfortably handle all the memory- intensive applications that will be available in the next six months.

The 60GB hard drive is a bare minimum, given the explosion in digital media such as video clips, high-resolution photos and digital music collections, but is standard for a 2.4kg notebook that's designed to travel.

The Presario which I have is powered by AMD's new 1.6GHz Turion 64 X2 mobile processor. There doesn't appear to be any disadvantage in going with the Turion processor over Intel's Core Duo equivalent, but there are no apparent advantages either.

An Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 graphics card is included, which is the entry-level card recommended for use with Vista's 3D functions. It will handle general graphics needs, though gamers will want more power.

The V3000's 14.1 inch widescreen display is great for watching DVDs which are played on the embedded DVD drive that's capable of burning CDs and DVDs as well.

What really sold me on the V3000 was its appealing design. Hewlett-Packard has really improved its game when it comes to styling. The keyboard has been modified and gives way to a long panel of Altec Lansing speakers which deliver good sound when the laptop is open.

There are also microphones built into the lid so you can make Skype calls without using a headset.

Close the V3000 and it looks good - a sleek, grey shell with rounded edges.

In terms of connections, the V3000 is versatile with three USB ports, S-Video, 5 in 1 card reader, PCI Express card slot, Firewire, VGA, Ethernet, modem and 802.11g wireless networking included.

Buying a new laptop made me realise how bored I am with Windows XP. I've been running a test version of Vista on my desktop and I like what I see.

Compaq Presario V3000
Pros: Lightweight, good speakers and screen.
Cons: Skimpy on memory and hard drive space.
Price: $1737.
Herald Rating: 7/10.
Acquire