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06:07
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Acer Aspire S7
From £899
Acer's Ultrabooks have been steadily getting better and its most recent, the Aspire S7, stands as an excellent choice for a business machine away from the office. The Full HD 13.3-inch touchscreen is bright with exceptional clarity and the use of a middling Intel Core i5-3317U processor and 4GB RAM allows it to stay shy of the £1,000 mark.
The Aspire S7 is extremely portable at only 1.3kg and measures only 11.9mm thick. It's one of the best looking Ultrabooks here as well, with a white Gorilla Glass 2 chassis, soft backlit keyboard and large integrated trackpad.
Ports are pretty scarce due to the size, but you're still afforded two USB 3.0 slots, a Micro HDMI port and a card reader. The only shortcoming here is the lack of an Ethernet port.
Apart from the aesthetics, the Acer Aspire S7 can also boast of a strong battery performance, offering a quoted 12 hours of life that is more likely around eight hours in real time usage.
Admittedly the price is still a little high for an Acer machine and the processing power isn't as good as some of the other machines on the list, but the Aspire S7 more than makes up for that in looks and portability.
05:51
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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch
From £1,455
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is Lenovo's flagship business laptop and now the Chinese company has improved the model by adding a touchscreen to run with Windows 8. This has the effect of bulking up the chassis slightly to 21mm thick and 151kg in weight, but it's as durable as ever and the carbon fibre casing can easily withstand a knock or two.
Power users won't be disappointed as Lenovo will let you choose either an i5 or i7 processor with up to 8GB RAM and a 180GB SSD. The 14-inch display is a ten finger multitouch screen with HD+ resolution and anti-glare coating that means you can work in brightly lit environments without irritating distractions.
Where the Carbon Touch really comes into its own is the array of business-friendly features that Lenovo has included. Along with a fingerprint scanner, there's RapidCharge technology to effectively charge the machine from dead in 45 minutes, and the battery itself will give you a good seven hours of usage from a full charge.
It's not perfect – the integrated graphics card isn't up to the task of heavy graphics processes like professional editing software. But Lenovo offers an excellent three-year warranty that might sway you towards this machine.
05:47
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Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D
From £850
Designed for portability over everything else, the Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D is a stunning piece of craftsmanship that will suit you well if you're constantly travelling for work. The chassis is only 13.2mm deep at its thickest point and at 1.13kg you can almost forget you're carrying it.
Samsung has fitted the latest Series 9 with a 13.3-inch 1,600 x 900 display that uses SuperBright technology to light the screen at 400nit. An integrated light sensor regulates the brightness of the display and the backlit keyboard depending on the ambient light. If you're regularly taking the red eye flight to New York and back, this is the laptop you'll want.
But it has its downside: the price is a little steep, there's no touchscreen and the processor is only Intel Core i5 level. The latter hasn't been updated from Intel's last generation and the integrated graphics are limiting for graphics heavy work.
Unfortunately, the thinness of the chassis comes at the expense of connectivity as you'll only find two USB ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, memory card reader and a micro HDMI port. The specifications may leave something to be desired but if you avoid bulky laptops like the plague, then this will be an attractive purchase.
05:43
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Dell Inspiron 15z
From £659
Dell's Inspiron series has served us well over the years, and the company has now updated its Inspiron 15z model with Windows 8 and a 720p touchscreen. It strikes a reasonable balance between affordability and performance and the option to customise your order gives you even more freedom when buying.
The price we've quoted gets you an Intel Core i3-3217U processor running at 1.8GHz and backed with a more than capable 6GB of RAM. There's also 500GB of storage space accompanied by a 32GB mSATA SSD that's responsible for booting Windows 8 as fast as possible.
The Inspiron 15z also features the DVD optical drive that's becoming something of a rarity for laptops these days. If you've still got programs and data on CDs then this will no doubt be an important choice for you.
The other reason we're recommending the Inspiron 15z as a business laptop is that the build quality is first class and very reliable. The silver aluminium chassis is understated and free from unwanted flexing or rattling. You'll also find the keyboard and trackpad are very comfortable to use for extended periods of time.
05:37
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HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook£250
At first glance, Chromebooks might not hold much appeal, as they essentially require an internet connection to work. However, many Google apps can now be configured to work offline, and if you're simply looking for a cheap way to get some emails done on the train or check the next day's presentation at home then this is an excellent way of doing so.
The HP Pavilion 14 uses a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Celeron 847 processor and comes with a 14-inch screen at the standard 1,366 x 768 resolution.
It weighs 1.8kg and, like other Chromebooks, is constructed from plastic to keep the costs down. However, the 2GB RAM and 16GB SSD are more than capable of running web-based Chrome and you're given three USB ports, 10/100Mbps Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi
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For general usage, you'll get around four and a half hours from the Pavilion 14's removable battery, and HP has even seen fit to include Altec Lansing speakers for playing music. If you want a budget machine to keep up with work outside the office and can be reasonably sure of a constant internet connection then this is well worth a closer look.
