The Zoostorm 4-6623 is a sleek-looking notebook which is neither too chunky nor too heavy.

It would be easy to put it in a backpack or bag and carry it around all day without feeling as though you are carrying a bag of bricks.

It comes with Intel's new Santa Rosa technology: what that means is that – in theory – it should offer better performance and longer battery life as well as being able to easily connect to even the newest (802.11n) wireless networks as well as older networks.

Notebooks that carry the Santa Rosa badge are also supposed to be able to cope easily with the demands of the new Aero graphical desktop that comes with Vista.

At first glance, then, it seems this notebook lives up to its billing. It comes with a 15.4in screen, which is extremely clear. It makes viewing photos a pleasing experience; colours stand out well and images appear sharp.

Watching a DVD, using the Windows Media Center software that comes with Vista, was also a joy – while it may not be up to the standards of a cinema performance, it's certainly up to TV-quality. Sound quality was also very good, with clear dialogue and music from both DVDs and CDs.

The Zoostorm 4-6623's performance was impressive – it clocked good scores in our lab testing, with the Intel Core2 Duo T7500 processor (running at 2.2GHz), the 2GB of memory and the Nvidia Geforce 8600 GS graphics card all contributing to make it suitable for casual gamers, office workers and internet users alike.

A decent battery life of around two hours and 15 minutes meant we were able to watch a whole film without having to be near a mains socket. We were, however, disappointed to find that the screen's lack of an anti-glare coating meant it reflected lots of light, making it hard to see much in bright conditions. It does make for better contrast than some notebook screens, but we found that while watching a movie we had to re-angle it several times to see the screen properly.

Like many notebooks, the 4-6623 gets fairly hot underneath after an hour or so's use - while this may be good for those without central heating, it can get a little uncomfortable when it is on your lap.

The keyboard is big enough to type on comfortably, although it should be noted that the keys travel quite far when pressed – this is good for heavy-handed typists, but it meant that at one point we got the nails of our fingers stuck underneath the top row of keys while typing on the next row down. The mouse trackpad is faultless, however - not only is it bigger than average but it is also extremely sensitive, making navigation easy.

Vista compatible: Yes