Once upon a time truly portable laptops have been something of a luxury, but this scenario seems a distant memory these days. Where once people marvelled at £ 2000 and wafer thin Sony VAIO VGN-X505VP, we now have a wide range of both expensive and affordable portable notebooks to choose. On one end of the scale, you Asus Eee PC 900 and its moving average of the army impersonators, while Sony has the famous TZ series (see: Sony VAIO VGN-TZ31MN) and Lenovo ThinkPad X300 - oh, and there is the Apple MacBook Air, Even if it’s something of a dirty word around these parts!

Yet, although all these options are articulate, they are all subject to certain limitations of processing power and / or May expenditure that make them unsuitable for some. This is where the likes of the Samsung Q45 ahead, offering regularly moving parts in a perfectly portable chassis and at more affordable.

Of course, the Samsung Q45 is not a new model by any means whatsoever, and I discussed in June last year, but a number of things have changed since then. It can now be found in a new and cheaper configuration £ 570 (model number: NP-Q45A00A/SUK), whereas a lot more competition from the likes Dell XPS M1330 and the Toshiba Satellite U300 . Both are slightly larger 13.3in notebooks, but with a weight in two to 2 kg or less, they offer stiff competition.

It probably did not help, while the Q45 starts to show its age. Although Samsung has found time to update the look externally, the sub-chassis is virtually identical to the Samsung Q35 that we first saw all the way back in 2006. This is not a disaster, but his age is exposed in the way some ports do not feel quite integrated as well as on other notebooks, while you still get a PC card slot instead of most common ExpressCard. There are also two USB ports, but this is not a sin unique to the Q45.

In addition, although the Samsung R700 I watched recently was very low considering its size, the Q45 is on the chunky side for this form factor. Fortunately, it is still relatively small, weighing a highly portable 1.86 kg with its 6-cell battery and even if I have been critical of some things, it is still essentially a beautiful notebook thanks to his brilliant uncovered black and internal.

Elsewhere, everything is fine as you want. There is a 12.1in brilliant reflection and a screen with 1280 x 800 resolution and is a relatively good, with text and color production decent, but there are a few backlighting and sampling angles of vision does are not a strong point. Neither, by the way, are the speakers who are housed in the notebook, although this is less a question on a small notepad like this than it was about R700.

Director procedure is an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 clocked at 1.66 GHz, 2MB L2 cache and a 667MHz Front Side Bus. Powered by 2GB DRR2 and 667 MHz Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics was not Q45 this speed demon, but it is very frugal, managing just over four hours in the Mobile Mark 2007 and productivity test nearly five in the lower intensity Reader test. With wireless technology enabled, you can probably wait between three and four hours and if our DVD playback usual test is not done, you should be able to watch a film about two hours with a power resell.

Regarding the performance brutes, it will do all that is really short tasks as batch image editing and rendering time video decent. It is therefore perfectly suited to a student who wants to measure everything that is portable and can be used for long periods disconnected. To use a cricket analogy - hey it’s almost summer - it is more than Paul Collingwood Andrew Flintoff, never explosives but always reliable and not to turn up drunk and floundering in the water.

In this spirit of this solid reliability Q45 everything you really need, without offering anything in circulation. A 250GB 5400rpm SATA HDD is large, while Intel 802.11b / g wireless, 10/100 Ethernet and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR means you’ll never be lacking for the network or wireless access. Similarly, connectivity is limited, but lacks nothing essential, with D-Sub (VGA) for an external monitor, audio inputs and outputs, a memory card reader and FireWire. There is also a 1.3 megapixel camera; always a good integration.

Samsung keyboards are usually something of a Jekyll and Hyde case. On the positive side, most of the layout is really good and the keys are firm, sensitive and have a good degree of travel. On the other hand, Samsung still insists on putting the Fn key to the left of the key, something myself and the rest of the TR team are determined to eradicate. For the most part, however, the Q45 offers an above-average strike.

So the only question that remains is whether the Samsung Q45 is a good proposal as it did last year? The competition is fierce now, but even if the Q45 still offers the right combination of features (not the most advanced) at a superb price. If you are over budget or 13.3in preferred form factor while I was still happy to recommend to both the Dell XPS M1330 or Toshiba Satellite U300 respectively, but the hundred grams or less weight if small footprint and the Q45 still count for much.