This 13.3-inch entertainment laptop is perfect for staving off boredom on the move. The Satellite L730-10G lacks graphical punch, but the compact display is a highlight, while the lightweight body and decent battery life ensure you’ll be entertained wherever you roam.

Despite its smaller screen, the Satellite L730-10G still features a 1366 x 768-pixel resolution. The result is a much sharper picture, so images look crisp and clean. It’s also a bright and vibrant panel, making this one of the best displays for movie watching.

We enjoyed simply browsing our photo collection and watching films, although the integrated speakers are lacking in power. We recommend you invest in some decent headphones.

Most recent laptops use Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge processing technology, but this portable is powered by one of Intel’s older Core i3 processors. However, the difference in our benchmarking tests was minimal. If you love to multitask, browsing the web at the same time as you watch a film and chat with friends using messenger applications, then the Samsung can handle it.

Even with a paltry 2GB of memory on board, we witnessed little slowdown while running several tasks at once.

Weak graphics

However, the integrated graphics are quite weak. This means that you can only run the most basic multimedia tasks such as viewing and editing photos, and watching high-definition (HD) films. If you want to mess around with your home movies or play games, you should look at the Acer Aspire 5750G and Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E520.

Battery Eater ’05: 173 minutes
Cinebench: 7632
3DMark 2006: 1502

The 320GB hard drive provides a standard amount of storage space to carry around your files and media collection. It can hold hundreds of standard-definition films or thousands of albums and photos.

However, some other laptops offer double the space for a similar amount of you hard earned cash. If you need a laptop for the whole family, a larger hard drive is recommended. However, if you need a mobile machine for carrying around all day, the Satellite is a great solution.

With a weight of just 1.9kg, it is technically classed as an ultraportable laptop. Not only is it an extremely light machine, the battery life is also commendable. We watched movies for almost three hours before the laptop shut itself down, and limiting yourself to more basic entertainment such as browsing the web gives you many hours of life.You certainly won’t need to lug the charger around on the daily commute.

The more compact body means that features are a little stingy compared to some of the other laptops here. If you want to hook up a television, you’ll have to make do with a VGA connection, as there’s no HDMI port.

There’s also no memory card reader. However, one of the three USB ports supports sleep-and-charge technology, which means you can charge your mobile devices such as MP3 players even when the laptop is in hibernation.

You also get built-in hard drive protection, which pauses the drive if vibrations are detected. This reduces the risk of hard drive failure, which could result in lost files.

While the Toshiba may lack graphical power and lots of storage, it’s still a good entertainment machine for regular travellers. The sharp and colourful screen is a good way of enjoying movies, while the reduced weight and decent battery life make it an excellent travel companion.

Toshiba’s Satellite range is aimed at consumers and covers everything from entry-level laptops to multimedia machines. The Satellite L630-13M sits in the middle, with decent performance and a great range of features packed into a sleek and portable chassis.

An attractive and subtle pattern graces the black lid and interior, although the glossy surface does attract dust and smudges. The chassis is as compact as the Samsung Q330, and just a little bigger than the Dell Inspiron M101z, and can easily slip into a bag.

The 2.1kg weight makes this one of the lightest laptops. Its 240-minute battery life is average for this price and enough to last you on lengthy commutes.

Good usability

The touchpad is a decent size, despite the laptop’s reduced frame, and is complemented by two firm mouse buttons. Another button disables the touchpad when needed, although we never accidentally brushed the pad as we did with the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13″ and HP Pavilion dv6-3040sa.

Multi-touch gesturing is supported and running your finger up and down the right edge lets you easily scroll through documents. The full-sized keyboard is similar to the Fujitsu’s, with flat keys that are firmly set and quiet when pressed, although the travel distance is shallow. There’s no room for a dedicated numeric keypad.

Power is provided by an Intel Pentium P6000 processor and we were impressed by the performance on offer. You can run several applications at once without conflict, even fairly memory-intensive software, although the Intel Core i3 powered laptops proved more powerful.

Graphics are integrated, as with most of the laptops here, and fi ne for basic multimedia tasks. The 13.3-inch screen is very crisp, thanks to the 1366×768-pixel resolution, with sharp contrast levels provided. It’s a suitably bright and vibrant screen too.

Toshiba has included some excellent features for such a small laptop. At 500GB, there’s ample storage for your files and media, and there is also built-in vibration detection to protect the hard drive from damage should the laptop take a tumble.

Three USB ports are included, one of which doubles as an eSATA port, while HDMI and VGA ports can be used to hook up to monitors or projectors. Wired and wireless networking matches all the other laptops in this group test, while Bluetooth is also on hand for wirelessly connecting to compatible devices.

Overall, the Toshiba Satellite L630-13M is a great all-round machine. The solid chassis looks good and is easy to transport, while the Pentium processor offers decent performance. Plenty of features add to the overall package, with almost no flaws in evidence.