We haven’t seen many netbooks with build quality we had serious concerns about and as long as you don’t go throwing them around with wild abandon, most models should be tough enough to cope with typical mobile use. Still, this hasn’t stopped Samsung from pitching its new NB30 as a netbook that’s more durable than most, though at first glance, it’s tricky to see just what it’s toughened up.

Fresh from the box and the NB30 looks like standard netbook fare and it’s the same general size and shape as other 10.1” Samsung models we’ve seen. The matte black case is all-plastic and while it feels robust, it doesn’t seem any more so than most other netbooks.

There is one notable difference to more mainstream netbook fare, though — the NB30 doesn’t have the usual glossy lid. Instead, it has more matte black plastic, but with spiral pattern of deep grooves that resemble a gigantic fingerprint. We like it, but we’re not sure it does anything more than do away with the problem of greasy smudge marks and fine scratches.

There’s else little of note on the outside of the NB30 — it has the usual selection of netbook ports and a big battery that we’ll come onto later. The underside is finished in the same pattern as the lid and has a convenient panel for access to the single SODIMM slot, but small cooling vents make the NB30 no more suited to use in a dusty environment than any other netbook.

Lift the NB30’s lid and the matte black finish follows through on the inside, though without the spiral pattern. Other than a strip of tiny blue status LEDs sit on the bottom left of the palm rest, the inside is unadorned — again, something else we rather like after seeing a number netbooks decked out in chrome strips and big, shiny buttons.

The NB30’s low-profile keyboard is also matte black, which makes the large, white key legends very easy to make out in low light. The keys themselves are wide, flat and comfortable to use, and the keyboard is solid across its whole width. Our review model did have an odd bump under the F7/F8 key area — not enough to create a problem for typing, but not something we want to see on any keyboard, either.

A touch-sensitive screen is a factory-fitted option for the NB30, but our review unit went without. We can’t say we see much point in a touch-screen on any laptop that can’t be used in tablet mode, particularly one with a 10.1” display and we’ve read reports that it adversely affects brightness on the NB30. The matte screen is certainly bright enough without it though, and is displays a crisp image.

The ‘rugged’ features we’ve mentioned so far are really little more than marketing for the NB30, but Samsung has at least fitted one technology that really should be standard on all laptops — a shock sensor. When a sudden movement is detected, the hard drive read/write heads are rapidly ‘parked’ to prevent them from ploughing into the magnetic platters that are spinning mere nanometers below. Such sensors have been standard issue on business laptops (where keeping data safe is a very serious issue) for some time, so it’s good to see it filtering down to the low end of the market.

We mentioned the NB30’s big battery earlier and this bulges from the back of the laptop’s base in way that tips the keyboard forward a little, but doesn’t otherwise get in the way. The 5900mAh pack does add to the netbook’s weight, but we suspect that this won’t bother many people considering the long battery life it brings — 6.5 hours in BatteryEater Classic and 10.5 hours in Reader. The ‘real’ figure lies somewhere in between, of course, but that’s still enough for a full working day with Wi-Fi enabled. Impressive stuff.

The best online price for the Samsung NB30 at the time of writing is around £250 for the model with Windows XP and a 160Gb hard drive — and that’s really a pretty good deal for an Atom N450 Pinetrail netbook that lasts so long away from the mains (Windows 7 with a 250Gb hard drive costs £50 more). Samsung’s talk of toughness may be a bit misleading for a netbook that’s really only more resistant to cosmetic damage rather than actual abuse, but the NB30 nicely styled and the anti-shock hard drive is a small USP that’s certainly worth having.

Not everyone wants to invest in an all-singing, all-dancing smartphone just to get their hands on mobile messaging and social networking services, but not everyone wants to wrestle with third-rate apps on a cheap, small-screen feature-phone either.

That’s the dilemma the INQ Chat 3G sets out to resolve — it’s a low cost smartphone with a comparatively limited set of features, but it still ticks the boxes for most people who want a bit more from their mobile.

At first glance, the INQ 3G could be mistaken for a BlackBerry smartphone — it’s a similar size and shape to a Bold or Curve, with a screen at the top, a Qwerty keyboard at the bottom and a strip of buttons running along the middle. Build quality isn’t quite up to BlackBerry standards and the all-plastic case feels a little cheap, though that’s not to say the INQ 3G is flimsy — far from it. There are no creaks or rattly bits on the slim case, and the seams all fit together snugly. The device is a little plain viewed front-on, but the back cover can be swapped for one in a different colour for a dash of personalisation.

INQ has three models in its line up and as befits its ‘Chat’ name, this one has a full Qwerty keyboard. The keys are small and closely packed, but they’re made from hard plastic and each one has a tall, rounded profile. This make the keyboard very easy to use with two thumbs and it’s fair to say that its one of the best on any Qwerty handset we’ve reviewed.

The keyboard is at least backlit, which is just as well as the grey-on-black legends used for alphanumeric characters are otherwise difficult to read. Unfortunately, the backlight doesn’t illuminate the read-on-black secondary legends used for punctuation and other symbols, and these are all but impossible to read in less than ideal lighting conditions — even for someone with 20/20 vision.

Unlike most smartphones, powering up the INQ Chat 3G from cold doesn’t take long and the user interface is commendably simple. Customisable shortcuts for applications and web sites run along the bottom of the screen, each accessed with the centrally placed four-way control button.

The default selection of installed apps covers most of the bases — Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Skype, along with email and web browser applications. Additional Java-powered apps are available from GetJar.com — almost 4,000, at the time of writing — and these cover the gamut from games to utilities.

The 320 x 240 screen resolution limits the sophistication of the apps, as does their reliance on Java, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for a device like the INQ Chat 3G. Speed — or lack of it — is more of a problem though, and there is considerable lag and bouts of non-responsiveness (not to mention the odd crash) when using certain apps.

Email set-up is very simple, but lack of support for IMAP folders makes the INQ 3G Chat less useful for power users. A unified inbox makes it easy to manage messages from several accounts though, and the aggregation of email, Twitter direct messages, Facebook alerts and Messenger chats into one place is also a nice touch. We’re less excited by the basic web browser, though — it defaults to the mobile versions of web sites, where available, and is very, very slow. Fortunately, this is easily remedied with Opera Mini. (Update: INQ tells us that Opera Mini is now installed as standard on the 3G Chat.)

Although the INQ 3G is reasonably well-equipped for listening to music — it has a microSD card slot (no card is supplied) and is supported by the free DoubleTwist music manager — it doesn’t have a 3.5mm earphone socket. Instead, there’s the dreaded combined microUSB port for charging and audio, and a microUSB headset in the box. This doesn’t sound too bad, but we’d prefer the option of using earphones of our own choice.

3 offers the INQ 3G Chat on a range of tariffs — pay monthly deals start at £10 and offer a mix of unlimited text messages and free minutes, with a free phone; otherwise, the phone costs £100 on PAYG. Not a bad deal, all things considered.

Apple may have passed on the Intel Core i3 processor for its latest MacBook Pros, but the chip is still finding favour with other laptop manufacturers — like Samsung, in fact.

Its new R580 desktop replacement laptop uses a 2.13GHz Intel Core i3-330M processor and although it’s a dual-core chip (unlike the quad-core desktop Core processors), it still packs plenty of power. Not as much as the higher-end Core i5 and i7, it must be said, but enough to make the R580 a very respectable performer for anyone who’s looking for a laptop that’s large enough to stand in for a desktop PC, but still small enough to be portable.

Although considerably larger, the R580 has the same dark red and black livery as the recently reviewed N220 netbook. The larger chassis afforded by the 15.6” screen brings a few extra benefits though, not least a full-size keyboard with separate numeric keypad. It’s a low-profile design with isolated keys and is comfortable to use, although slight give under the numeric keypad spoils things a little.

The keys are mostly a good size, but we would prefer some space between the main keyboard and the numeric keypad. As it stands, there’s no visual separation and this makes it hard to quickly locate the large Return key or cursor key cluster without a long glance to remind yourself of their location. It’s probably something you’ll get used to fairly quickly, but it’s the sort of problem that’s better solved with more thoughtful design.

The large palm rest has a very agreeable pattern of minuscule dots and swirling lines in the same red/black colour scheme as the rest of the case. The trackpad forms a seamless part of this, but Samsung has applied a textured overlay to the area to reduce friction under the finger and to make the touch-sensitive area identifiable by touch alone. There’s also a tiny blue LED in each corner for an extra visual cue, though these only light up when the trackpad is in use.

A desktop replacement laptop needs a big, high-resolution screen and the Samsung R580 just about scores with its 15.6” display. We say “just about” as the 1366 x 768 resolution is a little lacking given the amount of screen space, but the comparatively low vertical resolution is only really an issue if you plan on doing DTP work or use large spreadsheets. That said, the similarly specified Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch packs a 1440 x 900 screen, which is a much better fit.

Still, the R580’s screen displays a commendably bright, vibrant image and although the glossy finish leads to the usual problems with light reflections. At 2.6kg though, this isn’t a laptop that’s likely to see much outdoor use and so legibility in bright sunlight isn’t much of an issue.

As we said as the start, the Samsung R580 uses an Intel Core i3-330M mobile processor that’s clocked at 2.13GHz and this is a dual-core chip. Intel does offer quad-core mobile processors, but their power consumption is just too great for most laptops and so they tend only to be used for high-performance gaming laptops that spend most of their life plugged into the mains — like the ASUS G60J, in fact.

That’s not to say that the dual-core Core processors are lacking in any way and the i3-330M inside the Samsung R580 is one of the fastest we’ve ever seen, with a PCMark05 score of 5823 — the ASUS G60J scored 7891.

Thankfully, the R580 has enough graphics grunt to match its processor and the NVIDIA GeForce 310M chipset turned in an equally impressive result in 3DMark06 — 4105. Samsung hasn’t opted for any kind of switchable graphics system though (presumably there’s a significant price penalty) and battery life suffers as a result.

The R580 ran for one and a quarter hours in BatteryEater Pro’s Classic test that makes heavy use of the 3D graphics chipset, though this shot up to almost four hours in the far less demanding Reader test. This probably equates to around two hours of typical use with Wi-Fi enabled, which isn’t bad for a laptop this size, but it does rule out any kind of serious mains-free use.

The lowest online price for the Samsung R580 is around £530 at the time of writing (with a marginally lower specification), which is really pretty good for a laptop like this. Its performance trounces that of other Core 2 Duo laptops that cost much more and while battery life isn’t as long as we’d like, that won’t be an issue for many.

The idea of paying £660 for an Intel Atom-powered netbook with a 10.1” screen may seem absurd, particularly when excellent models cost half as much, but that’s just how much Nokia wants for its Booklet 3G.

On the face of it, that price tag suggests that Nokia has made a fundamental miscalculation in judging what people want from a netbook, but dig a little deeper and you can see a little more justification for the Booklet 3G’s high price.

For a start, the Booklet 3G looks like no other netbook we’ve ever seen. Sure, it’s the same size and shape as other Intel Atom-powered portables, but the aluminium ‘unibody’ case makes it look more like something Apple would come up with if it wasn’t so obsessed with thinking different. The sleek silver effect is a spoiled somewhat by a shiny plastic panel that covers the lid, but at just 19.9mm thick, this is one slim and sturdy netbook.

Lift the lid and the aluminium extends to the screen edges and keyboard surround, too. The screen itself is capped with a sheet of glass and there’s a wide black bezel on all four sides, but the overall effect is rather stylish. The screen is hinged so that it can fold open to almost 180 degrees, but viewing angles aren’t really wide enough for viewing at anything other than face-on.

You’ll need to sit fairly close to the Booklet 3G to use it, too, since the screen’s unusually high 1280 x 720 resolution makes the Windows 7 Desktop rather small when crammed into a 10.1” diagonal. We’re almost tempted to say “too small”, but we found it quite refreshing to be able to use a netbook just like any other laptop and not have to worry about tall dialog boxes and wide web pages fitting on screen properly.

We’re less thrilled with the Booklet 3G’s picture quality, though. The screen is crisp, but not terribly bright and the glass overlay seems to carry a fine grain that creates a subtle optical distortion. It’s not enough to spoil the image, but it’s not something we’ve seen before on any netbook — and not something we’d expect to see on one costing this much.

Netbook manufacturers have long since figured out how to squeeze a near full-size keyboard into a 10.1” chassis, but the Booklet 3G has a layout that’s a good few millimetres smaller than we’d like. The chiclet keys are also more compact than usual too, although their wide spacing still makes them comfortable to type on. We don’t like the condensed cursor key arrangement tucked in at the bottom right of the keyboard, but that’s our only real quibble.

Although the sums don’t really add up when you look at how much 3G and GPS chipsets cost to buy in bulk, we suspect the addition of these two features are the main reasons for the Booklet 3G’s high price. The problem is that neither are really essential on a netbook — a USB 3G modem costs around £10 with a PAYG contract and GPS isn’t that much use on a device this size.

The SIM slot sits next to an SD Card slot behind a flap on the right of the netbook but while the Booklet 3G is unlocked for use with any mobile operator, we’ve yet to see subsidised models available in the UK.

Nokia hasn’t done anything fancy with the rest of the specification and the Booklet 3G uses an Intel Atom Z530 processor, 1Gb of DDR2 RAM and a 120Gb hard drive. The processor runs at 1.6GHz and turned in the lowest score of any netbook we’ve tested with PCMark05 — 1044. This doesn’t necessarily mean much, but the Booklet 3G also felt incredibly sluggish in use, with software installations taking an age and running more than a couple of applications at once practically brought Windows 7 to its knees. Again, we’ve never seen Windows 7 run on an Atom processor so poorly and again, it’s not something we’d expect at this sort of price.

Sadly, poor performance also hinders the graphics and the Intel GMA500 chipset isn’t up to running HD video. This chipset is now supported by Flash 10.1 beta, so HD YouTube playback should be possible, but this won’t affect QuickTime, where even 480p clips were jerky.

Battery life is more impressive, however, and the Booklet 3G ran for just over seven hours in BatteryEater Pro’s Classic test and 10 hours in the Reader test. The large battery fits flush to the case and the netbook only weighs 1.25kg, but as impressive as this is, it just doesn’t justify the £660 price tag.

The MSI Wind has been one of our favourite netbooks since we first saw the Wind U100 back in 2008. Two years on and MSI hasn’t messed with the formula too much for the new Wind U135 and with the lid closed, you can’t tell the two models apart. Some cosmetic changes have refreshed the Wind for 2010 though, and the specification is bang up-to-date with the latest Intel Atom platform.

It may still look like the first MSI netbook we ever reviewed, but that’s not to knock the Wind U135 — although chunky, it’s feels well made and is still reasonably stylish. The rounded case with a matter underside and glossy everything else isn’t anything we haven’t seen before from any number of manufacturers, but short of going down the ASUS route and taking the netbook up-market (with a price tag to match), there isn’t that much that can be done with a low-cost portable.

MSI has paid some attention to one of the most important aspects of a netbook, though — the keyboard. Gone is the traditional design of old and in its place is a low-profile layout with isolated keys. This still fills the whole width of the case and is just as comfortable to use as the old (and excellent) keyboard, although a few keys have shrunken as a result — most notably the Return and Shift keys.

The Wind U135’s trackpad is larger than that on the U100 — it’s the same height, but it’s now wider with a bigger button to match. There’s no multi-touch (not that there’s enough room for two-finger gestures), but the textured finish registers a fingertip accurately — and that’s what counts.

We’re not sure that the switch from a matte to a glossy screen is such a good idea. Shiny displays like the one used here certainly give a bright, vibrant image, but the inevitable problems with reflections under bright light are a problem for any kind of laptop — and more so that’s small enough to use just about anywhere. Still, it’s a personal preference and the Wind U135’s screen at least sits on hinges that fold back far enough to avoid too much glare.

Netbook specifications really haven’t changed that over the last couple of years and the Wind U135 is still powered by a 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor with 1Gb of RAM. This is one of the newer Pine Trail chips — the single-core Atom N450 — but it makes little different to overall performance. A single SODIMM slot also means that you’ll need to ditch the supplied 1Gb memory chip if you want to expand the Wind U135 to 2Gb, but Windows 7 Starter runs smoothly enough as it is.

Sadly, Pine Trail doesn’t do much to improve netbook graphics performance and the Intel GMA 3150 chipset is just as lacklustre as ever when it comes to anything overtly demanding. Since it lacks support for hardware H.264 decoding, Flash 10.1 won’t support this chipset for accelerated video playback, either.

Pine Trail is supposed to be more energy efficient, which means better battery life, but we’ve yet to see a netbook built on this platform that really blows us away. Not that the Wind U135 disappoints when used unplugged — it ran for five hours in BatteryEater Pro’s Classic test and seven hours in the Reader test on its 4400mAh battery, but this still lags behind the Samsung N140 with its older Atom N270 chip.

At around £300 online, the MSI Wind U135 is good value, but it looks a little expensive when you consider that it has essentially the same specification as the Samsung N140 (around £250), but its battery life isn’t quite as good. So, not a bad choice for a well-made, long-lasting netbook, but far from the only one these days.

HTC produced the first Android-powered smartphone to go on sale in the UK and its latest model, the Legend, bears more than a passing resemblance to the old T-Mobile G1 and more recent Hero.

The similarity comes from the angled ‘chin’ at the bottom of both smartphones, but the HTC Legend is a much slicker smartphone and it’s both slimmer and lighter than that early device.

Most of the Legend’s case is made from brushed aluminium and the smartphone feels very robust as a result, although the matte finish does make it a little slippy in dry hands. Two black rubber pieces cap either end of the back of the case — one surrounds the camera lens and speaker grilles at the top, the other acts as a cover for the battery, SIM and microSD card slots. The rubber pieces also act as a cushion when the Legend is placed onto a hard surface, though we can’t see the aluminium case showing much in the way of marks.

The main reason for the Legend’s thinness (just 11.5mm) is that there’s no physical keyboard and all input is instead made via the capacitive touchscreen. Well, that’s not strictly true — there are also four rectangular buttons below the screen for the usual Android functions (Home, Menu, Back and Search) and an optical joystick in the middle of that ‘chin’.

This latter controller replaces the trackball used on other Android smartphones (and the original T-Mobile G1) and since there are no moving parts, there’s no risk of mechanical failure. There is some loss of tactile feedback, but the tiny raised sensor still feels like a ball under the fingertip and generally works well — not that you have to use it, of course, since it doesn’t do anything that can’t be done with the touchscreen.

A long volume rocker on the left side and a thin power button on the top are the only other adornments on the Legend’s case — there’s no dedicated ringer silence switch. There is a 3.5mm headphone socket at the top and a microUSB port on the bottom though, so there are no complaints about non-standard sockets here.

Anyone who’s used to an iPhone will find the Legend’s screen rather small in comparison, even though its 3.2” diagonal is only 0.3” less. It has the same crisp 320 x 480 resolution though, and the OLED technology makes it much more vibrant. Visibility is good in daylight too, but it is a bit too bright in the dark and we had to disable the light sensor and revert to manual control to achieve a comfortable level.

The HTC Legend ships with the latest Android 2.1 operating system, but much of this is hidden away behind a bespoke user interface called HTC Sense. The stock Android UI simply isn’t in the same league as this slick skin, although that term does HTS Sense a disservice, since it does much more than change the superficial look of Android.

HTC Sense kicks off with a Home screen replacement that offers seven customisable screens. These can contain the usual shortcuts to applications and folders, but a number of widgets are also supplied that plug into email, Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds. Most only provide a limited overview of the relevant information, but a tap usually leads to the full app for when you want a more serious view on things.

HTC has also created a few bespoke apps that work seamlessly with Sense, including a social network aggregator called Friend Stream and an email app that we liked much more than the standard Gmail app that’s part of Android.

Although it was an uncomfortable reminder of HTC’s similar efforts to make Windows Mobile more user friendly, HTC Sense generally works very well, but we would prefer a snappier response in some widgets — scrolling is a bit sticky in some and animation isn’t always smooth. We presume that this is the fault of the Legend’s 600MHz processor, but we won’t know for sure until we see the upcoming HTC Desire with its 1GHz chip.

Android 2.1 still has a few rough edges that put it behind iPhone OS for ease of use and we’re still not a fan of some of its conventions. We much prefer the one hardware button approach of the iPhone, for example, compared to the four buttons plus trackball of Android, and Android generally requires more faffing to get anything done.

There’s also some infuriating inconsistency in the way Android behaves. Just because a form appears with the input cursor blinking in the first field doesn’t always mean that the on-screen keyboard pops up with it, and there are some on-screen objects that can’t be selected with the trackball — they still need a finger tap.

We’d also like such silly usability issues would have been addressed by version 2.1, but given that Google has yet to address the 256Mb storage limit for applications, perhaps the finer design points are some way down on the list of things to fix.

Mobile operators in the UK are yet to offer the HTC Legend with a contract, so you’re stuck with paying around £370 for an unlocked handset for the time being. That’s about the price you’ll pay to import a Nexus One from the US and while it’s a much more capable smartphone, it lacks the slick custom interface of the Legend.

So, the HTC Legend is certainly worth adding to your shortlist if you’re shopping for an Android smartphone, but we’d wait to see how the soon-to-be-available £440 HTC Desire shapes up before splashing out.

With the launch of its new ‘Pine Trail’ platform late last year, it became clear that Intel wasn’t interested in upping the performance of its Atom processors too much. Instead, these new chips simply offered improved power consumption at the same 1.6GHz (or thereabouts) clock speed, plus a smaller size for more compact portables — helped in part by the incorporation of the graphics controller into the processor package.

The Samsung N220 is the first netbook we’ve seen to use the Pine Trail platform — a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, in this case. New chipset aside, there isn’t anything particularly novel about its specification and we’ve seen this 10.1” screen, 1Gb RAM, 250Gb combination many times before. Samsung does make some grand claims about battery life, though — “up to 12 hours” — but we’ll come onto that a little later.

Samsung seems to be on a roll with its recent netbooks and the N220 is another nice looking model. The shape and style is broadly similar to that the N140 we reviewed towards the end of last year, but this time the glossy lid is a deep red colour that blends into black around the edges — we like it a lot.

At 1.3kg, the N220 is at the heavier end of the scale for netbook weights, but, thanks to a gently rounded profile, it doesn’t look particularly bulky. Most of the case measures 38mm thick, but the back end has a large bulge for the bug 5900mAh battery. This protrudes from the underside rather than from behind the screen though, so it simply tilts the keyboard towards you rather than get in the way when you’re putting the N220 into a bag.

There’s nothing new in the way of ports, but Samsung has dropped in a new keyboard design and the N220 has one with low-profile, isolated keys (we just can’t bring ourselves to use the term ‘chiclet’…). The keys are a touch on the small side (around 14mm²), but they’re spaced far enough apart to make typing comfortable. The right-hand Shift key has been hit by the shrink ray, as has the cursor key cluster, but the Return, Backspace and left key column of Ctrl/Shift/Caps Lock/Tab are all generously proportioned.

The multi-touch touchpad is a good size and generally works well, but it’s a flush fit with the case and the lack of any tactile perimeter makes it easy to accidentally slip into the scrolling zones around the edges. The same thing can happen when using the same narrow, flush buttons, but perhaps it’s the kind of thing that you can subconsciously compensate for after using the N220 for a week or two.

There isn’t a great deal to say about the 10.1” LED-backlit screen — it has a matte finish and displays a crisp, bright image. Vertical viewing angles are a little narrow, but the hinges let the lid be tilted back far enough to cope with most netbook usage arrangements, no matter how unergonomic.

Samsung supplies the N220 with Windows 7 Starter Edition and this normally feels quite snappy on a netbook, but it felt a little laggy here. The 2D benchmark result was slower than that of other Atom N270 and N280 netbooks, but not by much and we suspect that swapping the single 1Gb SODIMM for a 2Gb module would help speed things up a little. Sadly, the GMA 3150 graphics chipset doesn’t offer anything new — there’s no HD video acceleration, it isn’t supported by Flash 10.1 (at least at the moment) and there’s no 3D performance to speak of.

Battery life doesn’t quite live up to Samsung’s claim of “up to 12 hours”, but it’s not far off — the N220 ran for almost 10 hours in BatteryEater Pro’s Light use test. This dropped to just over six hours in the Classic test, which suggests that the N220 will last for around eight hours of typical Wi-Fi-on use away from the mains.

At around £330 from online retailers like Play.com. the Samsung N220 isn’t bad value if you’re looking for a 10.1” netbook with a long battery life. The only complication is that both the Samsung N140 and Toshiba NB200 offer similar battery lives, and yet cost considerably less. Neither of those two models offer the Intel Atom N450 processor, but since this makes no difference to overall performance, that’s no great loss.

£330

The Intel ULV-powered ultraportables we’ve seen over the last few months have been a bit of a mixed bag. Some, like the Samsung X120, have successfully exploited the thin-and-light idea to offer something new, while others, like the Advent Altro, seem to have missed the point completely.

On the face of it, the Toshiba Satellite T130 looks like a recipe for success. It pushes the limit of what could be considered an ultraportable with its 13.3” screen and correspondingly capacious chassis, but it’s still only 35mm deep at its thickest point and weighs 1.76kg.

The Toshiba Satellite T130 isn’t a bad looker, either. It’s available with lids that come in a rainbow of colours, but the standard glossy black looks chic enough, thanks to its faint grey faux carbon-fibre finish — a finish that also extends to the glossy plastic that surrounds the keyboard.

A thin silver strip runs around the outer edge of the case and gives the sleek black lines an extra lift and although its plastic for as far as the eye can see, the Satellite T130 does feel pretty robust. We will draw Toshiba’s attention to one small oversight, though.

The two parts of plastic that make up the lid don’t quite marry along its bottom edge and one side stands slightly proud. grab the laptop in one hand and the edge feels rough and unfinished, and its possible to prise the two pieces apart with a fingernail. This isn’t really a problem, but it does stand out as a manufacturing slip on a laptop that otherwise feels very well made.

“Thin and light” is the term usually applied to this new breed of Intel ULV-powered ultraportables, but the Toshiba Satellite T130 feels a little thicker and heavier than most. Fortunately, this is down to the big 61Wh battery that adds a big bulge to the back end of the chassis — the rest of the laptop is a good deal slimmer.

Anyone looking for a laptop for use on the move may not be best pleased with the Satellite T130 — the lid’s hinges are stiff, but they still allow a surprising amount of wobble when the laptop is jiggled. Still, the screen itself is up to scratch — there’s only the narrowest of bezels and the glossy finish helps give a rich, vibrant image.

The Satellite T130’s keyboard is similar to that on the Toshiba NB200 — it’s full size, but has the same wide, flat keys. It’s as good to type on too, but the pale grey key legends don’t stand out on the shiny black key-tops and it’s very difficult to make the small Fn mode labels on the top row of function keys in anything but bright light.

The wide trackpad has a rough finish that feels pleasant under a fingertip, but it didn’t work so well for us. The mouse pointer’s movement was far from smooth at times, though we couldn’t pinpoint whether this was due to software or hardware. We’re also less than keen on the silver plastic buttons — or rather, “button”. There’s just a single strip of silver plastic below the touchpad that sits on a central pivot, and the amount of pressure needed to trigger a click varies depending on where you press.

We’ve seen everything from Celeron to Core 2 Duo processors in ultra-low voltage laptops, but Pentium chips seem to be a popular option for manufacturers looking to give the most bang per buck. Based on benchmark results, dual-core processors seem to be the prerequisite for improved performance though, but the Satellite T130 we reviewed only packs a single-core Pentium SU2700. As a result, performance is only on a par with the ULV Celeron-powered ultraportables we’ve reviewed and not that much better than an Atom-powered netbook.

Unfortunately, the Toshiba T130’s 3D graphics performance is equally lacklustre — the Intel HD4500M chipset is hardly a powerhouse, but it seems stymied in this ultraportable and turned in performance at the bottom level of what we’d expect.

Battery live does pull the Satellite T130’s bootstraps up a bit, though not by much. It lasted for a middling three hours in BatteryEater Pro’s Classic test and a much more impressive 8.5 hours in its Reader test. That should equate to around six hours of typical Wi-Fi-enabled use, which isn’t pretty for a 13.3” laptop that weighs this much.

Toshiba offers the Satellite T130 is a few different specifications, including one model with a ULV Core 2 Duo processor. That T130-170 model sells for around £700 though, while the T130-11H we reviewed can be found for around £469. That kind of money will buy a faster ULV ultraportable with a screen ranging from 12” to 15”, but it won’t have the same long battery life as this.

Since netbook components are pretty much standard across all models, manufacturers don’t have much wiggle room when it comes to boosting battery life and a big bunch of cells is really the only option. That’s certainly the approach taken by Toshiba for the NB200 and its bountiful 63Wh battery pack gives bags of mains-free use.

Externally, the NB200 is also much better looking than Toshiba’s earlier netbook efforts. It has the usual glossy with matte plastic case combination, but it’s executed neatly, with clean lines and a pleasingly slim profile. The battery pokes from the back end like a bit of an afterthought, where a long cylinder of cells with the same diameter as a 1p piece runs just behind the screen. As ever, this will get in the way if your bag’s netbook carrying compartment is particularly tight, but the shortcomings are really more aesthetic than practical.

The lid’s hinges are good and stiff, without a trace of wobble, and the screen folds back far enough to make the Toshiba NB200 comfortable to use on a lap (although it doesn’t fold back flat). There’s a wide bezel around all four sides of the screen, but this fits nearly flush with the display and has a mate finish, so it really isn’t that much of a distraction.

The screen’s glossy finish inevitably won’t appeal to all, but it is exceptionally vibrant and clear — one of the best we’ve seen on any netbook, in fact. The 10.1” diagonal and 1024 x 600 resolution doesn’t offer anything different to any other netbook available, though.

Toshiba has done a cracking job with the NB200’s keyboard, however. It’s almost full-size, fills the full width of the case and has large, flat keys with broad tops. It’s solid across the entire width too, and extremely comfortable to use as a result — if you need a netbook for lots and lots of typing, this is one for your shortlist.

As big as the keyboard is, there’s still plenty of room of a wide palm-rest and Toshiba has been sensible and fitted an equally expansive touchpad. It doesn’t support multi-touch (not a big deal, if you ask us), but it is accompanied by two equally large buttons that have a strong, positive click.

If we’re being picky, our only real quibble with the interior design on the Toshiba NB200 lies with the power button. Since there’s no space above the keyboard for it, this sits in the middle of the hinge, just below the screen and when lit, its bright while light is something of a distraction when you’re working. . Hardly a deal breaker, we admit, but an annoyance nonetheless.

The core specification of the Toshiba NB200 is the same as just about every Intel Atom-powered netbook we’ve ever reviewed — Atom N280 processor 1Gb of RAM and a 160Gb hard drive. Performance is pretty much on a par with the rest of the Atom pack, too — fine for general productivity use and web browsing, but a bit too slow for anything more demanding.

Of course the ace up the Toshiba NB200’s sleeve is that big 63Wh battery and this pays off big time when it’s working away from the mains. In BatteryEater Pro’s demanding Classic test, the netbook ran for just over five hours (Wi-Fi off, screen at 60% brightness) and this almost doubled in the much less punishing Reader test.

In practical terms, this means that you can probably expect to get around seven or eight hours’ typical use with the Toshiba NB200 on battery power with Wi-Fi enabled — enough for a full working day or a trans-Atlantic flight.

Toshiba lists 16 different models on the NB200 product page, although the differences really only lie with the processor (Atom N270 or N280), battery life and colour. The cheapest model is £269, but the NB200-13L we reviewed has an SRP of £305 and is available from Amazon.co.uk for £266. This makes it the cheapest netbook we’ve so far reviewed with this kind of all-day battery life — and that makes it a great buy.

Netbooks were never intended to be much more than cheap and cheerful ultraportables for people who didn’t need — or couldn’t afford — anything more powerful, but their huge popularity has manufacturers to look at ways to widen their appeal with better specifications.

The Samsung N510 is a prime example. Although superficially just another Intel Atom-powered portable, the 11.6” screen and NVIDIA ION LE address the two main complaints levelled at other netbooks — namely cramped, low-resolution displays and poor graphics performance.

An 11.6” screen means that the Samsung N510 is obviously larger than 10.1” netbooks like the Samsung N140, but its desktop footprint is only about an inch extra in each direction. It’s 140g heavier too, but neither the increase size and weight is enough to make the N510 any less portable than any typical 10.1” netbook (which doesn’t include the likes of the Sony VAIO X Series…).

As usual, a bigger chassis means more room for the keyboard, but although the Samsung N510’s is a little larger than those on most 10.1” netbooks, it still falls just short of full size. Not that this is a complaint — the keys are large with plenty of travel, and the keyboard’s solid base makes it easy to type on.

The large Return, Shift and Backspace keys are also very welcome, but we wish Samsung had put the Windows key in the proper place — sandwiching between Alt Gr and Ctrl to the right of the spacebar is just irritating and silly.

The 1366 x 768 resolution means that the Samsung N510’s screen gives a much better view on web pages and it’s much easier to work with a couple of windows open side-by-side. The extra 1.5 inches of screen diagonal are offset by the increased resolution though, and elements of the Windows XP UI is still rather small as a result — so, the bigger screen won’t be much help for anyone who needs to squint with a 10.1”/1024 x 600 display.

A matte finish does mean that the Samsung N510’s screen is clear under most light conditions though, and it displays a bright, sharp image. The stereo speakers are surprisingly good, too — despite being tucked away beneath the palm-rest, where they face straight down.

Since it runs on a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor, the Samsung N510 feels little different to any other netbook when it comes to running productivity applications. 1Gb of RAM also means that there is some lag with more than a few applications running at once, but you’ll need to ditch the existing memory module if you want to upgrade to 2Gb, as there’s only one SODIMM slot.

Benchmarks show the Samsung N510 to be a little faster than other Intel Atom netbooks though, and the performance is closer to 1.2GHz Intel Celeron ULV laptops we’ve reviewed. But this extra oomph doesn’t come from the processor — it’s the work of the NVIDIA ION LE graphics chipset. This is intended as a more capable, but still energy efficient alternative to the usual Intel GMA950 netbook graphics chipset and is intended to address the two main netbook graphics complaints — 3D graphics and HD video playback performance.

Now we’ll ignore the issue of whether or not 3D gaming and HD video playback are really key features for a netbook — after all, manufacturers are only responding to demand. The good news is that the NVIDIA ION LE chipset does open up light 3D gaming and Torchlight ran more or less smoothly at the Samsung N510’s native resolution with visual settings set to maximum.

Unfortunately, HD video performance is less impressive. QuickTime video is jerky and suffers from tearing at resolutions higher than 480p, while YouTube 720p video is not only unwatchable, but it brings the rest of the system to its knees. The problem, however, is that neither QuickTime player nor (the current) Flash 10.0 employ graphics hardware acceleration and so the Samsung N510 is no more capable than any other Intel Atom netbook for these two applications.

Switch to Media Player Classic Home Cinema and Flash Player 10.1 beta, however, and the situation improves dramatically — at least for 720p video. 1080p playback is still less than smooth and not something we’d want to watch on an HDTV — so we can’t see the Samsung N510’s HDMI port seeing too much use.

Thankfully, battery life is something to get a bit more excited about and the Samsung N510 ran for almost 4.5 hours in Battery Eater’s Classic test and for almost three more hours in the Reader test. This equates to around five hours of typical Wi-Fi enabled use — not quite a whole working day, but enough to make the N510 one of the longer lasting Atom netbooks.

At £394 from Amazon, the Samsung N510 does command quite a price premium over 10.1” netbooks and we’re not completely sure its worth it for what the NVIDIA ION 3D graphics chipset brings. If you like the big screen of the Samsung X120 though, but don’t need as much processor power (or the higher price), then the N510 is certainly a netbook to consider and the long battery life helps sweeten the deal.

Nevertheless, the A1 Liquid is a slender and good-looking device. It’s just about the same size as an iPhone 3GS and our model was wrapped in a clean white plastic shell with black plastic top and bottom edges — red and black models are also available. There’s a bit of creak in the case if you squeeze it gently, but the whole thing feels sturdy enough.

The A1 Liquid’s front is finished with a single sheet of toughened glass that blends smoothly with the case. It’s a real fingerprint magnet (no oleophobic coating here), but it completely hides the display when it’s off to create a sheer, black face that looks rather stylish.

Unlike on other Android smartphones, there’s no trackball on the A1 Liquid; just four ‘soft’ buttons below the screen. These have no tactile identification nor tactile response, and only light up for a few seconds when pressed, not before. This makes using the A1 Liquid in the dark a tricky proposition — particularly when you have to press one of the buttons to unlock the device.

A captive plastic cap hides a Mini USB port on the A1 Liquid’s bottom and there’s a 3.5mm stereo headset socket on the top. The volume and camera shutter release buttons are well-placed on the right of the case, but the position of the power button on the left could be better — it’s quite sensitive and easy to press accidentally when using the device.

We couldn’t figure out an elegant way to remove the A1 Liquid’s battery compartment cover and so resorted to using a fingernail to prise it apart from the case until it popped free — clumsy, but at least it’s unlikely to drop off inadvertently. The 1350mAh battery blocks the microSD and SIM card slots, but this isn’t much of an issue unless you’re in the habit of swapping popping these in and out on a regular basis.

The Acer A1 Liquid runs Android 1.6 (‘Donut’) rather than the more recent Android 2.0 and so lacks some of the features found on the Motorola Milestone and Google Nexus One (a 2.0 update is rumoured, but there’s no confirmation from Acer). Unlike other Android smartphone makers, Acer hasn’t opted for any kind of fancy skin and so the A1 Liquid makes do with the relatively simple default UI with just three Home screens for app shortcuts and widgets.

Although the A1 Liquid uses the same 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor as other Android and Windows Mobile smartphones, Acer has underclocked it to 768Mhz. This is a usual tactic for prolonging battery life, but the A1 Liquid seems to suffer as a result and the UI has none of the ‘snap’ that typifies other smartphones with capacitive displays.

The problem is most noticeable in the web browser, where dragging pages around with a fingertip involves is jerky, while zooming in and out results in an animation that’s missing too many frames to look smooth. We also had a few problems with the on-screen keyboard — accurate typing required far greater fingertip precision that on the iPhone’s keyboard and multiple key presses sometime failed to register.

That the A1 Liquid isn’t more responsive is a pity as the 3.5” screen is lovely to look at. The 480 x 800 resolution means that even tiny text is crisp and easy to read — although this is just as well considering that Android 1.6’s web browser doesn’t handle text reflowing on a zoomed-in page anywhere near as well as the iPhone’s browser.

The A1 Liquid also compares badly to the iPhone when it comes to camera performance. It outclasses the iPhone 3GS’ camera by a couple of megapixels, but this doesn’t equate to a corresponding increase in quality. If anything, picture quality is actually worse, particularly in less than ideal lighting conditions — as the two pairs of snaps below clearly illustrate. Shutter lag also makes taking a quick snap and it takes around for seconds for the A1 Liquid to take a photo after you press the camera button.

Acer A1 Liquid sample photos (click to enlarge)

Apple iPhone 3GS sample photos (click to enlarge)

So, while the Acer A1 Liquid may look like a tempting Android proposition on paper, it just doesn’t hand together well and there are just too many annoyances to make it anything more than a so-so smartphone. At £345 for an unlocked model from Expansys, it isn’t that much cheaper than the more capable — and Android 2.0-powered — Motorola Milestone either.

It’s easy enough for one device to get online via 3G, but about when there are two or three? That’s the problem that gadgets like the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot are designed to solve.

In short, the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is a battery-powered 3G modem that other devices connect to via Wi-Fi — which makes it ideal for areas where there’s no nearby Wi-Fi hotspot. It’s also simpler than trying to share a 3G USB dongle plugged into one laptop and cheaper than paying for two or three mobile data deals at once if you have a few 3G gadgets. The term that’s cropped up to describe such devices is ‘Mi-Fi’ — pretty appalling, but it looks like we’re stuck with it.

The Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is about as big as two 3G USB dongles placed side by side, which means it’s still extremely portable and light enough to slip into a pocket unnoticed. Unlike similar devices from other manufacturers, there’s only one button to press to get started, but once you’ve waited a few connections for a 3G connection to be established, there’s nothing else to worry about.

Both 3G and Wi-Fi are turned on at the same time and the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot appears as just another Wi-Fi access point. The default password is printed inside the battery compartment and, with a connection established, your laptop or smartphone then thinks it’s online via Wi-Fi, but it’s actually piggy backed on the Novatel’s 3G connection.

Up to five devices can connect to the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot at once, but the bandwidth of the 3G connection is obviously shared between them. A full-strength HSPA connection provides a 7.2Mbit/s downstream and a 5.76Mbit/s upstream though, which is more than enough for web browsing and email.

The only hitch here is that the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot doesn’t provide any indication of how strong the 3G signal is — just whether there is one or not. This information comes from a single LED that lights up in five colours, with two different states for each (solid and flashing) to indicate what the device is up to.

Unless you’ve memorised the appropriate page from the manual, this can make figuring out what the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is up to a little tricky. There’s also no indication of how much charge is left in the battery, but the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot isn’t alone in either of these regards and all Mi-Fi devices could do with a simple LCD display to give a clearer idea of what’s going on.

The Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is configured by a web-based admin panel much like those on standard Wi-Fi routers. This is clearly presented and simple to use, and offers the usual array of settings — as well as icons for battery status and signal strength.

Battery life is rated as four hours of ‘active use’, though this will obviously drop with more than one active connection. The 1530mAH battery can be charged via the mains (a charger is supplied) or a USB port, but annoyingly, Wi-Fi is disabled with a USB connection — the device still works as a modem for the connected computer, but for no one else.

 Wi-Fi is still enabled on mains power, but this is where we encountered a problem. Plugging the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot into the mains caused an instant red LED — “error”, according to the manual. The device couldn’t be used at all in this state and needed a hard reset to reactivate. The same thing happened from time to time with a USB connection, with now obvious explanation for the cause.

Novatel couldn’t explain it either and could only suggest a replacement. We’ll update this review accordingly when it arrives, but in the meantime we discovered that this isn’t an isolated problem and a handful of other owners have experienced it too. Replacement units seem to be the solution and so one-off faults seem to be the cause — not really enough to count against the Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, but it its something to be aware of if you have the same problem.

Update: Novatel did send us a replacement device and this didn't suffer from the same recharging problem as the first — so we'll write this off as a random glitch that seems to have affected a handful of units.

The Novatel Wireless 2352 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is available unlocked from Expansys for £210, but Carphone Warehouse also offers various susidised deals from mobile operators — the device is free with T-Mobile for £20/month on an 18-month contract, for example.